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 women while exercising his ministry in 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 of rape. He denies all the charges. The trial is expected to last up to two months.
The NOS was an Evangelical initiative that Mr Brain founded. It attracted scores of young worshippers during the 1980s and ’90s with it’s “rave” services, but collapsed in 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 leader and then as an ordained priest, to sexually assault a staggering number of women from his congregation”.
Mr Clark presented the NOS as a “cult” in which Mr Brain had financial and emotional “control” over members’ lives, according to reports in 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 in the centre of the city, with the endorsement of the Bishop of Sheffield at that time. The Church of England “initially viewed NOS as a success story”, Mr Clark told the court on Tuesday.
The court will hear evidence from the former Archdeacon of Sheffield, and later Bishop of Hulme, the Rt Revd Stephen Lowe, that he had at first viewed the NOS as “groundbreaking”, but came to have concerns about oversight and, after whistle-blowers came 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.