Pastor Ran Bottom-spanking Cult by Brainwashing Women to Think He Was Exorcising Demons, Court Told

Croydon Advertiser
September 18, 2015

http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/Pastor-8216-sexually-abused-women-brainwashing/story-27824554-detail/story.html

Howard Curtis, 72, was said to have run a "cult"

A PASTOR sexually abused women by brainwashing them in spanking sessions that he said would exorcise their demons, a court has heard.

Howard Curtis, 72, is accused of running a "cult" when he was pastor and leader of the "religion-based-organisation" Coulsdon Christian Fellowship, in Chipstead Valley Road, where he would allegedly spank women and children "to bring them closer to God".

Curtis, now of Bloxworth Close, Wallington, denies a total of 12 charges, including four counts of sexual assault, two of indecent assault, five of child cruelty and one of assault by penetration, against seven different victims.

His trial started at Croydon Crown Court today.

Jane Osborne, prosecuting, said Curtis had "disciplined" the women, sometimes at his office in the church or their own homes, by spanking them, for his own pleasure.

"Women who had previously suffered from domestic and sexual abuse, depression and financial difficulties, came to the church and turned to the defendant for help," she said.

"They believed that he was a seasoned and experienced counsellor. When, in fact, the counselling took place he would abuse the trust they had placed in them by physically abusing them, spanking them over their bare bottoms, getting them to strip naked and touching them intimately, under the guise of exorcising their demons."

The level of his abuse grew, she said, as he "realised these were women who were unlikely to complain about what he did".

She said Curtis had also disciplined young children, sometimes the children of women he had assaulted, though that abuse had not been sexual in nature.

"[They were smacked] not in the way that you might smack a child mildly to warn them, but placing the children over his knee and with their bare bottoms hard until they cried, and they were on some occasions marked, occasions that can, the crown say, be described as cruelty."

According to Ms Osborne, Curtis' teachings, under the guise of a mantra called 'Christian Domestic Discipline' were "unorthodox" and the church under his leadership was "much more like a cult".

She said Curtis had taken over the running of the church by the mid-1980s. It had briefly been connected with the Elim christian movement, but at the time of Curtis' leadership was not connected to any mainstream religion.