Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Jehovah's Witnesses Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom (tried at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court) · 2014

United Kingdom: Jehovah's Witness elder jailed 14 years for raping and indecently assaulting women in his congregation

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

elder, Jehovah's Witness congregation, Barry

Organization

Jehovah's Witness congregation, Barry, South Wales

Spiritual nexus

Sewell was an elder in his Jehovah's Witness congregation in Barry, using that position of religious authority to rape and indecently assault four female members of the church between 1987 and 1995.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2014-06-30 · conviction and sentence

    Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court, Wales. Convicted at trial of eight historic sex offences, including rape, against four female congregants committed 1987-1995; sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment. The judge said he showed 'not a thread of remorse.'

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • eldership standing within a tightly bound congregation used to access and silence women members

Primary record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting criminal disposition and nexus IBTimes UK, 'Jehovah's Witness Elder Mark Sewell Jailed for 14 years for Sex Crimes' (Jun. 2014).

Court report confirming the Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court conviction, sentence, eldership role, and four congregant victims.

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