THE prosecution opened its case against Chris Brain on Tuesday, when the Inner London Crown Court heard that he had abused “a staggering number” of girls while exercising his ministry within the “cult” atmosphere of the Nine O’Clock Service (NOS) in Sheffield.
Mr Brain, 68, now of Park Road, Wilmslow, in Cheshire, is being tried on 36 charges of indecent assault and one among rape. The trial is predicted to last as long as two months.
The NOS was an Evangelical initiative that Mr Brain founded. It attracted scores of young worshippers through the Eighties and ’90s with it’s “rave” services, but collapsed within the ’90s amid claims of sexual and mental abuse.
Tim Clark KC, counsel for the prosecution, said that the NOS presented itself as a “progressive force for good”, but “became a closed and controlled group which the defendant dominated and abused his position, first as a frontrunner after which as an ordained priest, to sexually assault a staggering number of girls from his congregation”.
Mr Clark presented the NOS as a “cult” wherein Mr Brain had financial and emotional “control” over members’ lives, based on reports within the Telegraph. Those who were “insufficiently faithful and co-operative” were ostracised, Mr Clark said, and Mr Brain used this environment to abuse women.
Founded at St Thomas’s, Crookes, in Sheffield, the NOS subsequently moved to a venue within the centre of town, with the endorsement of the Bishop of Sheffield at the moment. The Church of England “initially viewed NOS as successful story”, Mr Clark told the court on Tuesday.
The court will hear evidence from the previous Archdeacon of Sheffield, and later Bishop of Hulme, the Rt Revd Stephen Lowe, that he had at first viewed the NOS as “groundbreaking”, but got here to have concerns about oversight and, after whistle-blowers got here forward, confronted Mr Brain with allegations of abuse, Mr Clark said on Tuesday.
Mr Clark also said that Mr Brain’s ordination in 1991 “appears to have been fast-tracked despite the concerns of his personal tutor”.
The trial continues.
