A woman who raised concerns about the alleged “tactile behaviour” of the former head of the Methodist Church in Cornwall was told it would undermine the Church’s “war effort” against Satan, a jury has heard.
Rev Steven Wild, 72, from St Ives, is on trial at Truro Crown Court. He denies 10 counts of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against a number of women.
The alleged offences span 2004 to 2019 and are said to have taken place in the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon, Southport, Bristol and Derbyshire. The prosecution says all the complainants were adult female members of the Methodist Church at the time.
Opening the prosecution case, Brian Fitzherbert told jurors that a safeguarding audit of the Church in Cornwall in 2018 led five women to come forward or be identified as complainants.
According to BBC News, Mr Fitzherbert said Wild, then chair of the Methodist Church’s Cornwall district, had overall responsibility for safeguarding and was well regarded nationally and internationally, almost to the point of having “celebrity status” within the Church.
He told the court it was this position that allowed Wild to be “tactile” with women, some of whom he barely knew, for so long. When the behaviour was reported, he said, it was often dismissed with the words “it’s just Steve being Steve”.
He told jurors that the complainants described being touched in a sexual way by a man “who was able to do so because of his position within the Church”, and that his reputation for being tactile meant such touching was “easy to disguise”. He said the case does not involve penetrative sexual assault, and that the alleged incidents often happened in public but left the women feeling uneasy.
The first alleged incident, in 2004, involved a woman who met Wild at her mid-Cornwall congregation. Mr Fitzherbert said she described being held and hugged for far too long and kissed on the cheek about 20 times while Wild groaned and told her she was special. She likened it to “something a boyfriend would do, not a senior minister”, he said.
When she raised concerns with another minister, Mr Fitzherbert said, she was left feeling “fobbed off” and was told Wild was “such a wonderful man”. “She was told that the Church is at war with Satan and to cause a fuss about what happened would undermine that war effort,” he told the court.
The prosecution alleges Wild repeated the behaviour on a congregation trip to the Isles of Scilly, leaving the woman crying and shaking. Another woman is alleged to have been groped on the bottom at a Methodist conference.
The trial, expected to last three weeks, continues.
The Methodist Church has told Premier Christian News it won’t be releasing a statement on the situation.