Wife defends Jehovah's Witness elder Mark Sewell accused of sexual assaults

By Suzanne Evans
Wales Online
June 24, 2014

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/wife-mary-elizabeth-sewell-defends-7314007

Mary Sewell told Merthyr Crown Court that she didn't believe her husband Mark Sewell was guilty

The wife of a former Jehovah’s Witness elder accused of sex assaults told a jury that she was unconcerned at seeing a semi-naked teen lying on their bed.

Mary Elizabeth Sewell, speaking at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court yesterday, said the girl was lying face down, clothed from her bottom down but with her top half covered with a towel, for her husband Mark Sewell to massage her.

“It did not cause me any concern,” Mrs Sewell, a beautician, told the jury.

“I am quite aware that it happened. She was often massaged. She had shoulder and top of the neck problems and she used to ask him if he would massage her.”

She denied seeing her husband straddling the girl and said that her husband had an interest in massage and that her and her husband had performed massages on each other.

Between 1987 and 1995, her 53-year-old husband is alleged to have abused two young girls and raped a woman, all of whom were fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses. Sewell, of Porthkerry Road, Barry, denies nine counts of indecent assault and a single count of rape.

Judge Richard Twomlow earlier directed the jury to find him not guilty of two other counts of indecent assault, which he denied.

Mrs Sewell recounted to the jury the difficult periods of their 32-year marriage that had seen both cheat.

At times, when his depression kicked in and his drinking increased, she said: “It was very difficult to reason with him. He became emotional and angry and directed his frustration towards me.

“I could not really do right for doing wrong. It was like walking on eggshells. I learnt to leave him alone.”

She told the court that Sewell would often threaten to leave her but despite the difficulties they had stayed together.

The court heard that the couple had approached church elders about relationship difficulties.

There had also been disciplinary steps taken when allegations of sex abuse were made and in 1994 Sewell was “disfellowshipped”.

She described her husband as tactile, gregarious, outgoing and willing to help, and when asked by Sarah Waters, prosecuting: “You were desperate stay with him,” she replied: “I certainly was.”

Mr Waters added: “You can’t accept that your husband is capable of doing these things. You have come here to help him. He has controlled you throughout your marriage and his is doing it now.”

Mrs Sewell answered: “I don’t feel I am controlled and I don’t feel he is controlling. I don’t think he is guilty.”

The court had earlier heard claims that Sewell was a sexual predator who abused women and children for a decade, even making one woman pregnant, although she later lost the baby.

The trial was told that he would use his high position in the Jehovah’s Witness congregation to act in a sexually inappropriate manner with women, being touchy-feely and insisting that he kiss them on the lips.

The father-of-three admitted inviting women to sit on his lap or give him a kiss, but always in a “jocular” way.

The prosecution has claimed Sewell used his elder status to manipulate, intimidate and bully his victims.

The former Butlins holiday camp driver rejected suggestions his seniority meant allegations of child abuse would be “swept under the carpet”.

He also claimed that any massages that he did give was in the full knowledge of the girl’s parents and denied getting a sexual thrill from carrying them out.