November 2018
Jehovah’s Witness elder jailed for child sexual abuse
Brian Jenkins – Brecon
08 Thursday Nov 2018
Posted in Dyfed - Powys, Jehovah's Witnesses
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Category Archives: Jehovah’s Witnesses
Roy Collins – Swansea
16 Tuesday Oct 2018
Posted in Glamorgan, Jehovah's Witnesses
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October 2018
‘Devious, righteous’ Christian raped two girls under 13
An “arrogant” Jehovah’s Witness subjected two girls under the age of 13 to years of systematic assaults and rapes.
Roy Collins, 80, was branded as “devious, righteous and arrogant” by a judge at Swansea Crown Court.
He had spent a decade systematically grooming, abusing and raping the two girls.
At one point during his campaign of abuse, one of their mothers burst into the Jehovah’s Witness church in Swansea and publicly accused him of being a paedophile only to receive a letter from his solicitors warning her not to harass him.
Carline Rees QC, for the prosecution, read out impact statements from the two victims.
One said she had lived with the abuse for years before telling her family.
When she did so, the news had a “devastating effect” on her mother.
She said the abuse had an “significant impact” on her life, adding: “Every day I am happy if I can just make it through”.
In her statement, the second victim said the abuse had led to her have trouble at school and to start taking drugs to try to “block out” what was happening. She said her suffering and pain continues to this day.
The court heard that one of the victims made a complaint about Collins in the 1990s, but he was not prosecuted.
The allegations were reported to the police again in 2013 – but it took five years for the matter to come to court.
Judge Geraint Walters told the defendant that his actions during the 1980s and 90s had been “truly wicked”.
He described Collins as a “devious, arrogant and self-righteous man” who had lived behind veil of respectability partly through his contact with the Jehovah’s Witness church.
The judge said that an example of his deviousness was the fact that when the allegations against him started to be investigated, he went to his GP claiming that he had suffered erectile dysfunction for the last 30 years.
Judge Walters said: “You are, in my judgement, a devious man, a self-righteous and arrogant man. You have shown no remorse what-so-ever towards your victims or anybody else.
“You have lived the better part of you life, you have been able to do that – your victims have not.
“There is no sentence I can pass that will restore the lives of the victims to what they might have been but for your behaviour.”
He added that the case showed that when allegations of sexual abuse were made they should be tested and investigated not disbelieved.
He called the the five year delay in the case eventually coming to court “unforgivable”.
But he praised the officer who eventually took-over the case and saw it through to conviction, saying that for the first time the victims had been treated with the dignity they deserved.
Referring the mum of one of the victims accusing Collins in church, he said that one would like to think that institutions would treat such allegations differently today.
David Leathley, for Collins, said his client had become a born-again Christian in the late 1990s, talks at length about a loving God, and “genuinely sees himself as an instrument of the creator”.
He said that for all the wickedness his client had been convicted of, he had turned his life around and spent the last 25-years doing good works in the community.
The barrister added that given Collins’ age, and the length of the prison sentence he would inevitably receive, “it is likely he is going to end his life in prison”.
Collins, of Longford Crescent, St Thomas, Swansea, had previously been found guilty of 26 counts of indecent assault, indecency, and rape at trial when he appeared in the dock at Swansea Crown Court for sentencing.
Collins was given an extended sentence of 23 years, comprising 22 years in custody and a one year extended licence period as an “offender of particular concern”. He will be on the sex offenders register for life.
Robert Lee – Bradford/Coleford
04 Monday Jun 2018
Posted in Gloucestershire, Jehovah's Witnesses, West yorkshire
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June 2018
Jehovah’s Witness elders told abused girl’s parents not to report sex offender
A Bradford man’s sex offence against a little girl was kept quiet for 23 years because elders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses church persuaded her parents not to report him, a court was told.
Robert Lee’s crime in the Forest of Dean was not revealed until the victim had grown up and went to the police, Gloucester Crown Court heard on Friday.
Both the victim’s family and Lee were Jehovah’s Witnesses at that time, said prosecutor Kerry Barker.
He told the court that having avoided justice, Lee, formerly of Coleford, but now of Alexandra Road, Bradford, went on to commit further child sex offences in 2008 and 2016.
Lee, who used the surname Howarth at that time, admitted indecent assault of the girl in March 1995 in Coleford when he was aged just 17.
Sentencing Lee to two years jail suspended for two years and ordering him to sign the sex offender register for 10 years Judge Ian Lawrie QC said he was ‘concerned’ at the Church’s advice to the mother not to report him.
He also placed Lee under a 10 year sexual harm prevention order.
“I’ve raised concerns about how this came to the attention of your church authorities and was not reported. I hope that has now changed,” said Judge Lawrie.
“That meant it did not come to light for some time.”
The prosecutor had told the judge: “When the matter was referred to the Elders in 1995, her mother was invited not to report it to the police and she remained silent.”
Mr Barker said the girl told her mother about the incident, who spoke with the church elders, and following that conversation decided to do nothing more.
He said the Howarth family left the area but the victim heard in adulthood that they were returning and that ’caused her fear and panic’ which led to her reporting his offence to the police.
“She was not to know that in Essex in 2008 he had been cautioned for possessing indecent images, and then in 2016 he was convicted of making and possessing indecent images of children,” said Mr Barker.
“It demonstrates a long standing and continued interest in sex with children,” he said.
He read from the victim’s statement in which she said she was ‘angry with her mother for being a Jehovah’s Witness and not reporting it to the police’.
She said: “Twenty years later I am still trying to come to terms with it.
“I often feel dirty and tainted. I was rebellious as a teenager and dropped out of school.
“I feel robbed of my education. I felt I was to blame, and I self harmed to cope.
“I find it hard to trust members of the opposite sex. It has made my relationship with my husband very difficult and my pregnancy was difficult.
“He took my childhood away from me.”
Judge Lawrie told Lee it was clear from this and subsequent offences that he had ‘a fixation or interest in children’.
“There are some very dark shadows in your soul. Looking at your history, I think you pose a risk,” said Judge Lawrie.
“I will impose a sexual harm prevention order.
“There must be a balance between punishment, and the prospect of you not committing these sort of offences ever again.
“It is not in the interest of any potential further victims to interrupt the progress you are making on the current order.”
Referring to Lee’s ‘late guilty plea’ the judge said to him: “You are a coward. You subjected the victim to the concern she might have to attend court.
“I am taking a slight gamble with you. You have got a lot of work to do. If you fail to comply, I can consider imposing custody.”
Dennis Atwell – Burnham-on-Sea
08 Sunday Apr 2018
Posted in Avon and Somerset & Bristol, Jehovah's Witnesses
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Update: Atwell served just 4 years – Now living near Bristol. Still an active Jehovah Witness
March 1997
Jehovah Witness guilty of abusing his own children
Jehovah Witness and ministerial servant Dennis Atwell (58) was convicted of child abuse at Bristol Crown Court on 21st March 1997 and has now been jailed for 8 years.
Father of six, Atwell, married for 37 years, was a respected member of the congregation of JW in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset.
Atwell admitted 12 of indecent assault, indecency with a child, buggery and incest towards his own children. The repeated abuse took place between 1966 and 1982.
Four of Atwells six children were abused.
Atwell threatened the children with violence to keep their silence. Because of that, none of the children involved knew of the others abuse.
Awaiting trial, Atwell was relocated by the JW watchtower to the nearby seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare where he attended meetings at Kingdom Hall and mingled freely with other members and their children.
Atwell continued to be active within the JW and was assigned various ‘locations’ where he could carry out his ‘full time ministry’ which involved knocking on the doors of houses of the public and selling literature from religious pamphlets.
The victims who found the courage to speak out against their father – Dennis Atwell – feel that they have been emotionally abused by the JW Watchtower because they were not believed.
Michael Hewitt – Fremington
13 Tuesday Mar 2018
Posted in Devon, Jehovah's Witnesses, Surrey
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March 2018
Paedophile Jehovah’s Witness jailed for 15 years
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