Spanking Pastor Gets Six Years For Exercising 'God's Will' With "Christian Domestic Discipline"

An evangelical pastor, who claimed to exercise God's will when spanking naked devoted female members of his congregation in the name of "Christian domestic discipline," has been jailed for six years.

The spankings, which were also dished-out to children, were to satisfy 73 year-old self-styled Reverend Howard Curtis's "desire for power and sexual satisfaction," Croydon Crown Court heard.

The father-of-three, of Bloxworth Close, Wallington ran the Coulsdon Christian Fellowship (CCF) as a cult, prosecutor Mr. Toby Fitzgerald told the jury.

He was convicted of five counts of sexual assault between January 2009 and July 2013 against one female worshipper; one count of sexual assault against another between 2007 and 2009 and two counts of child cruelty against two youngsters. 

The five counts regarded one woman, a nurse aged 28, he ordered to strip naked before putting her over his knee to slap, continuing the beating when she collapsed to the floor - with one of the dozen or so sessions in front of her husband.

"You put forward different reasons for doing what you did, which included the untidiness of her flat, her own untidiness and her lack of femininity," Judge Peter Gower QC told him.

"On the first occasion you beat her backside repeatedly with the palm of your hand as she lay across your lap with her trousers and underwear pulled down, before she ended up on the floor in what she described as a 'trance like' state.

"On the second occasion the exercise was repeated. On this occasion you also smacked her on the outside of her vagina as she lay on the floor.

"In that occasion and all subsequent occasions she was completely naked.

"You told the jury you did so because God had told you that it would release a frigid spirit from her.

"She was desperate to make her marriage work, improve the sexual side of it and be able to start a family.

"You had persuaded her to believe that what she was agreeing to was some form of spiritual act designed to help her.

"In reality, as with the other woman, this was sexual abuse for your own sexual gratification. it involved a gross breach of trust by a man whose station within the church put him in a position of very considerable power."

The second woman, a single-mum and clothes designer in her late forties, was desperate to remain part of the church "inner circle."

"She regarded you and loved you as a father," Judge Gower said. "Someone who had taken her in and helped her.

"It was against that background that you exploited her vulnerability and prevailed upon her to submit to being smacked by you on her bare backside.

"She was persuaded by you and others this was a means of getting out of her, with God's assistance, what were described as bad or undisciplined spirits.

"At first she refused, but you persisted, and eventually she agreed to submit to this 'discipline', having been conditioned by you to think that she needed to be disciplined for some past disobedience such as not attending church and that it was something of which God approved.

"With the benefit of hindsight she described your interpretation of the bible as 'bizarre' and 'weird'……..You deceived her into thinking that what you were doing was in her best interests, that it had a spiritual basis and a biblical justification, when in reality it was a sexually abusive act performed for your own sexual gratification."

Curtis took her to the home of another female follower and in that woman's presence ordered the victim to pull down her trousers and underwear and lean over a bannister.

"You beat her repeatedly with the palm of your hand, she said you did it twenty or thirty times with full force, causing her to become extremely upset and bruising her badly."

He was also convicted of one count of child cruelty between March 1, 2007 and February 28, 2008 in relation to the woman's nine year-old daughter.

"You took her upstairs, she said she was dragged, and smacked in a manner that she described as very hard and rough, at least four times, with the palm of your hand, leaving red marks, but no bruising," said the judge.

The second child cruelty conviction relates to a worshipper's baby, whose bottom he pinched, leaving the toddler "black and blue" some time between January 1, 1986 and January 3, 1989.

Curtis's lawyer Miss Julia Flanagan said: "He is a genuinely spiritual and in many ways a good man trying to do good in his community for forty years.

"He is sorry that his actions have caused any harm or upset to anybody and has lived an agonising three years for this trial to take place."

His wife Marilyn, who has supported him throughout, is now suffering with anxiety and the couple have had to downsize to a small flat and survive on Curtis's state pension.

She mouthed: "I love you," towards Curtis and the couple blew kisses at each other as he was led to the cells.  

"They have a great sense of shame and humiliation and Mr. curtis has the ignominy  of being a sex offender."  

During his evidence to the jury Howard said: "I believe a smack at the right time and place can be beneficial."

Curtis was ordained in 1988 under the umbrella of the Elim Pentecostal church.

"He presented himself as an inspirational man of God," said Mr. Fitzgerald. "The Crown say the church was run for this defendant and he cloaked himself in the trappings of a religious leader.

"In reality he was nothing of the sort. He deceived his congregation, including children.

"He said he was going to cast out evil spirits from people and that discipline had to be administered by striking bare flesh with the bare hand."

He was found not guilty of two counts of indecent assault in relation to a third female worshipper; digital penetration; two child cruelty counts regarding a boy and causing actual bodily harm to a young girl.

Curtis must also sign the sex offenders register for life and has been placed on the barring list, prohibiting him working with children and vulnerable adults.