Priest 'brainwashed and raped' woman, court told

A woman has told a court she was "brainwashed" and raped by a priest who led a "cult" within the Church of England.

The witness said Chris Brain "groomed" her before attacking her in his family home in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, two years before he began the Nine O'Clock Service (NOS), a jury heard.

Mr Brain is on trial at Inner London Crown Court accused of 37 sexual offences against 13 women who were involved in influential evangelical movement.

The 68-year-old, of Park Road in Wilmslow, Cheshire, who led NOS from 1986 to 1995 before it collapsed, denies the charges.

On Friday, a recorded video interview was played to the court of a woman who has alleged Mr Brain raped and indecently assaulted her.

She said she got to know Mr Brain and other NOS leaders after meeting his wife in the early 1980s when she was a student.

"My first impression of him actually was he was evil, but he was surrounded by all these good people," she said.

"It was even then a cult, with him at the centre of it."

The woman said Mr Brain began a "relentless pursuit of me, filling my head with rubbish, saying about the mission".

He would kiss and "grope" her and tell her she was his "special friend," the court heard.

The woman, who cannot be named, said Mr Brain raped her in 1983 or 1984 after inviting her to his house "out of the blue" while his wife was away.

Mr Brain "persuaded" the woman to drink a glass of whisky before asking her to go upstairs to look at a futon, the court heard.

The woman said: "He sat down beside me and after a short while he pushed me down on the bed, so he was on top of me.

"He started raping me. I was putting my head side to side and groaning, going 'no.' I couldn't get him off me.

"I couldn't move. I couldn't get him off me.

"It was like a freeze response."

After the rape, which the woman said lasted about a minute, Mr Brain told her to have a bath and was "really nervous and edgy," the court heard.

"He hustled me out of the house quite soon after that," the woman added.

"He told me he'd used a condom but it had split. I think he was petrified of evidence or that I'd get pregnant."

The woman said she was "traumatised" and "repulsed" by the rape but did not want to tell family and friends about what had happened so did not report it to the police.

"I thought the only way I can deal with this is to supress the feelings, to sort of park it deeply, and to forgive him," she added.

The woman went on to be involved in NOS after Mr Brain and others set up the congregation at St Thomas Crookes church.

She said: "All the way through NOS I was frightened. I was frightened right until the time it blew up. I was frightened of Chris Brain."

Defence lawyer Iain Simkin KC told the court Mr Brain said he and the woman had consensual sex.

"His account is that you and he had a short fling that culminated in one penetrative sexual act which you consented to," the barrister told the woman.

"That's not the truth," she replied.

Asked by Mr Simkin why she had remained involved in NOS if Mr Brain had raped her, the woman said she had "no way out that I could think of" and she believed her involvement to be "a call from God".

The woman said members of NOS experienced "classic cult-like" grooming which cut them off from friends, disrupted their sleep patterns and changed their looks.

She said the Church of England had "abandoned these people" by seeking to distance itself from NOS in a "damage limitation exercise" when allegations about Mr Brain became public in 1995.

Mr Brain is charged with raping the woman and indecently assaulting her on another occasion in 1984, when he is alleged to have groped her breasts.

He is also accused of 35 other indecent assaults against 12 other women between 1981 and 1995. He denies all the charges.

NOS was initially celebrated by Church of England leaders for its nightclub-style services which incorporated live music and multimedia and attracted hundreds of young people to its congregation.

But prosecutors have told the jury NOS "became a cult" in which Mr Brain abused his position to sexually assault "a staggering number" of women from his congregation.

The trial continues.

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