South London Press
November 16, 2009
http://www.southlondon-today.co.uk/tn/news.cfm?id=45039&headline=South%20London%2
0churchman%20molested%20six%20girls
A RESPECTED member of South London's Pentecostal church community is behind bars after being convicted of molesting six underage girls.
Jason Hoyte, 37, who claims to have performed with Take That and Boyzone, sexually abused children as young as four.
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| Jason Hoyte will be sentenced next month |
The paedophile, a director of an events company and a former Lambeth council youth worker, began targeting victims in the 1980s.
But the churchgoer's crimes were not exposed until last year – when a 15-year-old claimed he had taken her virginity and several other victims came forward amid the publicity.
The married father branded the claims "ludicrous" and insisted "fornication" was outlawed by the Pentecostal denomination.
But a jury found him guilty of 16 separate sex charges following a month-long trial at Inner London Crown Court.
He was cleared of interfering with a further three girls.
The public gallery burst into spontaneous applause as the unanimous guilty verdict was returned by the jury.
Hoyte, who had showed no reaction at the previous verdicts, shook and muttered to himself.
The abuse relates to his time as a member of the Ruach Church and Rhema Ministries in Brixton, Worldwide Mission Fellowship in Norwood, and as a youth worker at Nettlefold Hall, also Norwood.
Hoyte claimed his singing career had taken him on world tours.
He said: "I have sung with James Brown, Mariah Carey, Boyzone, Leona Lewis, Take That."
Adjourning sentencing to December 11, Judge Nicholas Philpot remanded Hoyte in custody for reports.
He said the report would be required to consider whether Hoyte, who ran holiday programmes for youngsters, is a danger to children.
Describing the catalogue of abuse between 1987 and 2006, Nicholas Atkinson QC, prosecuting, said the "inappropriate behaviour" included fondling and intimate sexual acts.
Hoyte was eventually banned from church as a precaution, but he simply moved on and "continued to get away with it", even having full sex with some girls.
Hoyte, of Court Farm Road, Mottingham, and a director of Accapella Records, West Norwood, denied 17 counts of indecent assault and six of sexual activity with a child.
He was found guilty of 14 counts of indecent assault and two of sexual activity with a child.
He was cleared of three counts of indecent assault and four of sexual activity.
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