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BBC News
2 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Survivors share experiences of Jesus Army cult for BBC series
A small Christian commune that aspired to create heaven on Earth grew to become a cult in which sexual and physical abuse was perpetuated in plain Jesus Army church recruited thousands of people to live in close-knit, puritanical communities in Northamptonshire, London and the of the UK's most abusive cults, it is now the subject of a new BBC documentary and trace the story from its hippy origins as the Jesus Fellowship, through the high-profile launch of the Jesus Army in the late 1980s, to its shocking collapse in the 2000s when the truth about life inside the church started to survivors have been sharing their experiences. 'It was just horrible' For John Everett, it started as a dream of community life."I always had these yearnings for a lifestyle that was different to the materialistic lifestyle," he explains."This feeling that striving for wealth didn't equate to happiness, and I didn't feel attached to material property in the way that a lot of my friends seemed to be."In 1976, aged 18, John was told that in the village of Bugbrooke, near Northampton, a Christian preacher called Noel Stanton had created a "communal lifestyle" that had attracted hundreds of young saving some money, John travelled from his home in Kent to experience it for himself and soon saw the attraction."I remember a guy called Andy out in the garden. He was doing some weeding and I remember him singing away to himself while he was doing it. "And so that was the first thing that really struck me, just how happy everybody looked. I could feel myself melting."For that life, though, sacrifices needed to be made because "any kind of entertainment was wrong," John says."So no more cinema, no more television. And from now on, I would have to stop listening to any music." Details of help and support with child sexual abuse and sexual abuse or violence are available in the UK at BBC Action Line But after some time he began to have doubts, including how children were says children were disciplined with birch sticks, which "was meant to be a loving form of correction".John says: "A young child was taken away from the dining room table to be disciplined, and we could all hear."His screams as he was hit, and on that occasion, he was hit at least six times and it was just horrible. It was... humiliating for the child. It was humiliating for everybody. Horrible."John began documenting what he had seen and heard during his time in the Jesus eventually left but was branded a "traitor" and no-one from the group was allowed to contact him. 'You're told you are sinful as a woman' The Jesus Army's headquarters was at New Creation Hall, the Grade II-listed farmhouse in Bugbrooke where Noel Stanton began visiting it with her family as a child before they moved to the village permanently in 1986, "a couple of doors down" from Stanton."You could feel his influence, actually," she says. "He didn't need to be there."Many teenagers, including her older brother, were separated from their families and housed was all part of Stanton's belief that the family of God was more important than one's biological family. Philippa says when she was 12 and 13, she became aware that a friend of about the same age was being sexually says: "You're constantly being told that you are sinful as a woman. That you're distracting men from God."You're called a Jezebel. You're belittled at every opportunity by Noel. So who's gonna believe that, you know, a man, an elder, has done those things to somebody?"But eventually, while still a teenager, she testified in court against an elder who became the first member of the group to be convicted of sexually assaulting a young said she was shunned by the leadership and fled the group before eventually founding the Jesus Fellowship Survivors the Jesus Army disbanded following Stanton's death in 2009, allegations against him of numerous sexual assaults on boys Jesus Fellowship Church ultimately disbanded in 2019 following a series of historical cases of sexual abuse. A report by the Jesus Fellowship Community Trust (JFCT), a group tasked with winding up the church's affairs, found one in six children involved with it was estimated to have been sexually abused by the is still thought that some of those accused, including 162 former leaders, may have taken up roles in different churches and Northamptonshire Police is liaising with relevant local authorities to see if any safeguarding action is required. the JFCT said it was sorry for 'the severely detrimental impact' on people's lives, and hoped the conclusion of the redress scheme would 'provide an opportunity to look to the future' for all those affected during a 50-year date, about 12 former members of the Jesus Fellowship Church have been convicted for indecent assaults and other offences. Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army is available on BBC one and two of the podcast, In Detail: The Jesus Army Cult are on BBC Sounds. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army review – the eye-opening tale of a national shame
Nobody wants to be in a cult. That includes the people who are in cults – which is why they tend to claim they're nothing of the sort. Founded in 1970s Northamptonshire by lay pastor and self-anointed prophet Noel Stanton, the Jesus Fellowship – or the Jesus Army, as it came to be known in the late 1980s – was a case in point. And, for the 3,500 members it had accrued by the late 2000s, there was clearly something deeply appealing about the organisation unrelated to its ability to brainwash and control its followers (contraband included crisps and books). It served the needs of a certain kind of Christian: to have an accessible, welcoming church, to live communally with people who shared their values, to be given direction by a charismatic leader, to belong. To outsiders, however, it always seemed inordinately sinister. Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army is crammed with half a century's worth of British media to prove it: from tabloid articles ('Cult Crazy' ran one headline, which drew parallels with the recent Jonestown massacre) to news items (a 1970s report about the strange deaths of two members) to programmes such as 1998 talk show For The Love Of… in which Jon Ronson goggles as members explain their 'virtue names' (one man is 'watchman'; a young woman called Sarah is 'submissive'). As late as 2014, we see Grayson Perry singing along wryly with their hymns in his Channel 4 series Who Are You? The details that troubled the public imagination were myriad: for some it was the ecstatic singing and speaking in tongues; for the 1970s newsreader it was only natural to be suspicious of such a 'highly committed' and 'insular' group. Then there was Stanton, pantomime baddie-like with mad eyes, wispy grey hair and an extremely creepy smile. In footage spanning many decades, we see him preaching in an eerie whisper and spouting grotesque soundbites such as 'now we give our genitals to Jesus'. Embedded in this grim fascination was the hunch that something was seriously awry. It was. While the Jesus Army claimed to be a haven for Christians, it was actually a haven for paedophiles – including, allegedly, Stanton himself – giving them ample opportunity and permission to abuse children while making barely any effort to hide their actions. This two-part documentary gives us some sense of why the Jesus Army attracted – and perhaps even created – abusers: it was a microcosm of a fastidiously patriarchal society, it attracted those already vulnerable (Sarah joined after losing both her parents), it deliberately courted teens, it weaponised the concept of sin, it demanded unquestioning loyalty and devotion. Yet the focus here is on the victims; the programme meshes a chronology of the movement with a group therapy session involving four adult survivors. Initially, these ex-members (the Jesus Army closed down in 2019) are encouraged to process the idea that they spent their formative years in a cult. It's not until the middle of the second hour-long instalment that they discuss the abuse they suffered. As a genre, true crime can spread awareness, bust taboos and breed empathy, especially when survivors are able to articulate the impact the misdeeds had on their own lives. But this is always tempered by a certain exploitation, recasting vulnerable people's trauma as entertainment. As the camera lingers on these tearful men and women – after teasing their revelations over almost 80 minutes of nauseating tension – it feels as if the programme has failed to pull off that particular balancing act. And yet, anybody hoping to draw attention to the way sexual assault is dealt with in this country needs some kind of sensational hook; countless accounts of abuse, sickening as they are, clearly aren't enough. Alongside the shocking statistics presented – 539 members accused of abuse, approximately one in six children sexually abused, only 11 people convicted – we get an understanding of the patchwork response to these crimes. There was a relatively brief investigation by police in the mid-2010s, which began by chance and ended in frustration when the elders closed ranks; a Facebook group was set up by Philippa – who felt ostracised after reporting an abuser to the police when she was 12 – to gather testimony; and now this documentary, for all its uncomfortable use of distraught victims, which brings the scandal to a wider audience. It feels like plugging holes in a sieve. Despite all the superficial weirdness on display – watch as picturesque farmhouses are converted into nuclear family-crushing communes, as people in polyester jumpers writhe and groan on the floor, as sparsely attended raves get a Christ-based spin – the lasting message of this documentary is depressingly familiar. As a society, we do not have an effective way of bringing the perpetrators of sexual assault to justice. The Jesus Army may be a thing of the past, but this remains a national shame. Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army aired on BBC Two and is available on iPlayer.
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Telegraph
‘We give our genitals to Jesus': The cult that promoted celibacy while covering up its own abuse
Sarah left the Jesus Army 21 years ago. She has been in therapy, on and off, ever since, trying to reclaim her personality and dispense with a decade of indoctrination that saw her given the 'virtue name' Sarah Submissive and taught to suppress her 'Jezebel spirit'. But it was only while preparing to appear in a new BBC documentary about the church that she finally concluded it was a cult. In BBC Two's Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army, Sarah, now 53, is filmed in a group therapy session in Derbyshire trying to unpack her former life. She and other ex-members are seen studying a formal checklist, including points such as 'Dangerous leaders make important decisions about converts' lives'. It is a session on 'trauma theory', however, that most affects Sarah. She breaks down when the participants discuss 'appeasing, that is pleasing others to reduce harm'. She is so distressed that she gasps for breath, says she feels she is going to be sick and flees the room. It brought back memories of the excuses she made for the 'Elder' who psychologically and sexually abused her for four years from the age of 21. 'I think I just realised how I'd blamed myself really for somebody else's behaviour,' she tells the Telegraph on a video call. 'I'd told myself I'd been asking for it. It was just that realisation: they literally crushed my personality, particularly that person.' Her tormentor – whose abuse extended to 'having total control over your decision-making' – would molest her under the table while 'his wife would be sitting opposite'. The man, who was never prosecuted, was supposed to be 'my Shepherd, so looking out for me and not actually violating me'. The Jesus Fellowship was established in 1969 by the firebrand Baptist preacher Noel Stanton in Northamptonshire after he was 'visited by God and received the Holy Spirit'. This led him to favour a brand of Neo-Pentecostal Christianity that involved euphoric worship, having decided he was a prophet speaking God's will and determined to 'make the Earth tremble'. By the 1980s, it had been rebranded as the Jesus Army, and was drawing in vast numbers of young people through its camouflage jacket-clad street recruiters and warehouse a fresh-faced version of the Salvation Army, it targeted 'street kids, addicts, the poor, the homeless'. By 2001, the Army had almost 100 communal homes across the country, from London to Leicester. As late as 2014, months before the police launched an investigation, they appeared in a Grayson Perry documentary and in one of his ceramics, in the style of a medieval enamelled chest containing a holy relic. Sarah had lost both her mother and father by the age of 15 and was seeking not only a surrogate family but a faith in an afterlife, 'because I wanted my parents to be somewhere'. She was just one of thousands of converts amassed by the Army over 40 years, attracted to a dream of harmonious communal living and moral purity. Many signed the 'Celibates' Covenant' or, as Stanton put it in one of his impassioned sermons: 'Surrender the middle part of you… now we give our genitals to Jesus.' The reality was far less sacred. Children as young as two were given 'roddings' by assorted adults with birch canes secreted around the Fellowship's houses. Many teenagers were placed in households separate from their families and taught to place their trust in the all-male Elders, who laid down increasingly arbitrary rules. Everything from reading to crisps was outlawed as 'worldly'. Young children were told they were possessed with 'demonic spirits' and sent for exorcisms. Adherents, speaking in tongues, could be found convulsing on the floor. In the 1970s, one member died on a railway track and another was found naked in the garden in December, dead from exposure. And sexual abuse was rife. Across two one-hour films, survivors give harrowing testimony. Abigail was 14 when she was sexually assaulted and told 'if he didn't ejaculate, it's not rape'. Nathan was abused over eight years from the age of 10 (by a man who received an 18-month suspended sentence). Philippa was 12 when she saw her 13-year-old friend being indecently assaulted by an Elder. After the victim attempted suicide, Philippa was branded 'a traitor' by Stanton and the perpetrator was sentenced to three months in prison before 'he was welcomed back into the community, into a leadership position'. Thirty-three allegations have been made against Stanton himself, including the sexual assault of children. Yet the most shocking fact is saved until a title card at the very end: 'It is estimated that one in six children in the Jesus Army were sexually abused.' Stanton's grip on the organisation ended only with his death in 2009, aged 82, when he was replaced by the 'Apostolic Five'. In the wake of Jimmy Savile and other scandals, the Army's insurance company asked about any historic cases of abuse before agreeing to renew the policy. This prompted a wave of disclosures, which were compiled in a 'massive file of papers' that, when requested, was handed over to police. Operation Lifeboat was launched in 2014 and over two years gathered 214 allegations of physical and sexual abuse, mostly against children. Only five members were convicted. Two were jailed – the longest for three years, for anal rape. DC Mark Allbright, of Northamptonshire Police, blames a 'closing of ranks' among the Army's leadership for the dearth of prosecutions, with some worried about the effect on the church, and others 'personally implicated as well'. The Apostolic Five told the programme makers: 'In 2013, we as the senior leadership initiated a wide-ranging process that invited disclosures of any kind of abuse, both historic and recent, and referred all such reports to the authorities.' The crimes are not just documented by victims. Jez, appointed a Shepherd in Leicester, admits he was informed of 'rapes' and 'sexual activity with minors' in confession. When he raised it within the organisation, he was told 'the power of that sin was under the blood of Jesus and therefore cancelled out'. Director Ellena Wood, who spent three years on the films, challenges him with 'the difficult question'. She posits: 'There will be some people who will sit at home and say, 'What on earth were you doing not reporting it to the police?'' 'It's a responsibility of giving a contributor the opportunity to explain why they didn't do something,' she tells me now. 'What Jez explains in that moment is this grip that this organisation has over you, where essentially if you do something they tell you not to do, you're going to hell or you're going to get kicked out and your entire life is going to fall apart.' An Elder, David, is reduced to tears as he faces up to the harm caused by the church he still loves, while clinging to the idea that just five convictions 'said that it wasn't institutionalised'. 'The thing with David,' says Wood, 'is that he was really processing [it all] in that interview. I thought David was very courageous in the way that he actually goes to that space and acknowledges what happened.' A psychologist was on hand before, during and after filming and the production team has offered advice on making social media profiles private to limit the contributors' exposure to any social media backlash. In 2019, the Fellowship announced it was closing and liquidating assets, including a property portfolio worth an estimated £50 million (built up from members' own house sales and a thriving business empire including a health food shop and a building supply company). Solicitor Kathleen Hallisey represents more than 100 of the survivors, all of whom have received their compensation payments as part of the redress scheme launched in 2022. 'The biggest takeaway for me is that any government body should not be complacent in thinking that this was a strange anomaly that happened in Northampton many years ago,' she tells me. 'We have high-control groups operating throughout the country and there's been a proliferation since Covid [one expert has estimated there are 2,000]. So, this is absolutely a scenario that could happen again. None of these leaders have been criminalised because our coercive control laws only apply to domestic and intimate partner relationships.' Sarah left after tiring of a life focused more on 'gaining souls than making friends'. Her husband wanted to remain, so her marriage broke down at the same time. She is now working as a child and adolescent mental health nurse, and picking up the pieces of her life. Although she understands the need for recompense for others, she has not pursued a claim herself. 'I don't think money, for me, would make that much difference because you've still got to deal with whatever you've got to deal with, haven't you?' Instead, she hopes the documentary may offer her a form of closure as she still 'takes time to adjust and be part of life again'. Even after more than two decades, the old Sarah is still re-emerging. 'I've regained a lot of my confidence,' she says. 'I've learned that it's OK to dress in certain ways and not think I'm going to be causing some man to stumble and lead them to hell.' Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army is on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer from July 27. Podcast, In Detail: The Jesus Army Cult, is available weekly from Monday July 28 on BBC Sounds
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Inside The Cult Of The Jesus Army: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
A shocking story of abuse in a cult in a leafy village in England 2025
BBC News
3 days ago
- BBC News
Jesus Army: Investigating one of the UK's most abusive cults
Hundreds of people are still traumatised as a result of abuse they suffered at the hands of a now-disgraced evangelical movement. Jon Ironmonger, who investigated the Jesus Army group prior to its closure five years ago, has been to meet the director of a new BBC documentary series telling its story. At first glance, the Jesus Army seemed a "happy-clappy" church set in the Northamptonshire countryside, with two- or three thousand members, a gaudy military-style uniform, and a fleet of rainbow-coloured battle buses. The reality was very different. In 2016 I found myself embarking on a years-long journey to expose one of the UK's most abusive cults. There had been reports already about dubious practices and unexplained deaths, including that of a young man whose body was found on a railway track. But months later, over tea at St Pancras Station, a woman who had fled the group as a teenager and wanted to remain anonymous, revealed the true scale of the damage it had caused. "How many victims have contacted you?" I asked, expecting an answer perhaps in double figures."In the region of six- or seven hundred," she replied mind was blown. Two years of interviews and investigations followed before the BBC published our findings detailing the widespread abuse of children, and evidence of a cover-up by the senior church, known formally as the Jesus Fellowship, closed a year later. Intrigued by media reports of the unfolding scandal, in 2022 documentary director Ellena Wood began her own investigation into the Jesus Army. She spoke to more than 80 survivors, as well as relatives and family members. The result is a gripping, sometimes harrowing, two-part film. "I was often the first person they had shared their experiences with and nearly everyone was still traumatised. It was very much a live process for them," she says."One of the things that struck me was they would describe what we know as sexual abuse, but wouldn't understand it as that, or would blame themselves for it."And, as a filmmaker, I wanted to convey to an audience that you don't just leave a cult and move on with your life, it can inform everything about you; your decisions; your way of thinking; your guilt; your relationships".Ellena says she set out to challenge assumptions about the reasons people stay in compares it to the thought of leaving a domestic relationship, with the additional anguish of abandoning one's family, friends, money, job, and support system, along with the inherent threat of going to hell. For instance, she says one contributor, Nathan, "despite struggling to come to terms with the fact he was groomed and sexually assaulted, admitted he would likely return to the Jesus Army if it reopened". Details of help and support with child sexual abuse and sexual abuse or violence are available in the UK at BBC Action Line For children in particular, life in the cult's many communal houses throughout central England was intense and fraught with one in six was sexually abused, according to a review of the damages claims of some 600 were separated from their parents and often slept in dorms with drifters and drug were subjected to daily beatings and endured long worship sessions with exorcisms and the recanting of to the survivors' accounts took an emotional toll on Ellena."I had just become a mother and was having two- or three-hour detailed conversations about abuse, sometimes involving incest, and then my son would come in from nursery, and all these mental images would be in my head," she says."You're forming these relationships that involve a lot of contact, a lot of reassurance, and you're trying to do the right thing by everyone, so it's a lot to carry sometimes."After the Jesus Army disbanded, the BBC revealed its founder, Noel Stanton, along with his five so-called apostles, had covered up the abuse of women and children through their handling of complaints. One former elder described the leader of the church as a "predatory paedophile" and handed me a file of disclosures, accusing him of rape and sexual Stanton died in 2009, before he could answer any of the Stanton, Ellena says "people were terrified of him and in awe of him in equal measure. Children, in particular, were utterly terrified." But was Stanton's cult always evil, or did it start as something good and morph into something evil?"If I had to guess, I'd say the latter," says Ellena."I think the more power Noel had over everyone, the more control he felt he had to have."But I think the biggest problem was not reporting abuse; victims were forgiven and often gaslighted. There's no excuse for it."Ellena is clear many people who were in the Jesus Army had positive experiences: "It wasn't awful for everyone all of the time, and we have to recognise things aren't black and white in the world".In a poignant scene in the documentary, David, a former elder who is largely supportive of the group, breaks down in tears under Ellena's careful questioning."He acknowledges he has to start from a place of believing what people went through is real, and it's the first time any leader has ever said that from the church, so it was a huge moment," she says. The Jesus Fellowship Trust, which is winding up the affairs of the Jesus Army, said it was appalled by the abuse that occurred, and offered an unreserved apology to all those year a redress scheme, funded in part through insurance, paid individual damages averaging about £12,000 to hundreds of the Cult of the Jesus Army is on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer at 21:00 BST on Sunday 27 accompanying podcast, In Detail: The Jesus Army Cult will launch on BBC Sounds on Monday 28 July.
