Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Keighley, West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom · 2017

United Kingdom: Pentecostal pastor jailed 21 years for assaults on six women during one-to-one 'deliverance sessions' he said God had commanded

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

pastor of the Liberty Pentecostal Church, Keighley, his wife, convicted of aiding and abetting, his church assistant, convicted of aiding and abetting and of conspiracy

Organization

Liberty Pentecostal Church, Keighley, Assemblies of God (the denomination with which the church was associated)

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The women were members of the church he pastored, and the assaults took place in one-to-one 'deliverance sessions' — a recognised Pentecostal ministry — which he told them God had commanded him to perform to rid them of evil spirits.

Exorcism or deliverance
Pastoral or clerical authority
Prophecy or divine command

Scope decision

Wilson was ACQUITTED on the rape counts and that acquittal is stated here rather than omitted: the judge concluded, after legal submissions, that he could not be properly or safely convicted on the relevant evidence. The prosecution's opening put 31 counts across seven complainants; the convictions concern six women, and this record follows the convicted counts rather than the charges as opened. Victims are not named in the reporting and are not named here. Mary Wilson and Laurence Peterson are living convicted persons and their convictions are stated exactly as reported; Peterson's sentence could not be located and is deliberately left unstated. They are recorded here as accessories to Wilson's pastoral authority rather than as separate authority-abuse records. IICSA's report names the church as 'Keighley Pentecostal Church'; contemporaneous court reporting names it Liberty Pentecostal Church, which is used here, with the inquiry's variant noted so that anyone matching on the inquiry text finds this record. The Assemblies of God connection is as IICSA states it — the denomination with which the church was 'associated' — and implies no denominational responsibility beyond that. Appellate search: no Court of Appeal outcome was located in July 2026. Sourcing is contemporaneous press court reporting corroborated by a statutory inquiry; no CPS or judiciary release was located.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2017-08-31 · jury verdicts after a month-long trial; acquittal on the rape counts

Bradford Crown Court, West Yorkshire, England (HHJ Hatton). After a trial lasting more than a month and about fifteen hours of jury deliberation, John Wilson, 70, of Shann Avenue, Keighley, pastor of the Liberty Pentecostal Church, was convicted of more than a dozen charges of indecent assault together with sexual assault and conspiracy to commit indecent assault, against six women, over offending running from the mid-1980s to 2010. The prosecution case was that he committed the assaults under the pretext of being commanded by God to rid the complainants of evil spirits, with the women assaulted during one-to-one 'deliverance sessions'. He was ACQUITTED on the rape counts: after hearing legal submissions the judge concluded he could not be properly or safely convicted on the relevant evidence. His wife Mary Wilson, 79, was convicted of aiding and abetting indecent assault, the court having heard that she held down one of the victims while he assaulted her. His assistant Laurence Peterson, 59, was convicted of aiding and abetting and of conspiring with Wilson to commit indecent assault.
2017-09-28 · sentence

Bradford Crown Court, West Yorkshire, England. John Wilson was sentenced to 21 years' imprisonment. Mary Wilson received a 22-month suspended sentence. Both were made subject to sex-offender registration. The sentence imposed on Laurence Peterson is not stated in the reporting located and is not asserted here.

Documented coercion mechanisms

the claim of being commanded by God to rid the women of evil spirits
one-to-one 'deliverance sessions', a recognised Pentecostal ministry, used as the setting and the pretext
the assertion that he had to reach the demon internally in order to release it
his standing as pastor of the church the women belonged to

Cited record

Sources

statutory inquiry inquiry investigation report Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, 'Child protection in religious organisations and settings: Investigation Report', September 2021, paragraph 18.: The statutory inquiry's corroboration of both the conviction and the mechanism: 'John Wilson, a pastor at Keighley Pentecostal Church who was convicted of child sexual offences in 2017, also claimed to be carrying out "deliverances" or internal ministries. While this is a recognised ministry in the Assemblies of God (the Pentecostal denomination with which the Keighley Pentecostal Church was associated), it should not involve the removal of clothing or any intimate touching of body parts, with or without consent.' This establishes that the rite invoked was a real one being instrumented, rather than an invention.
regional press court reporting verdict and sentencing report 'Keighley church minister faces long prison sentence for sexually abusing women over two decades', The Yorkshire Post, 2017.: Regional newspaper of record's report of the verdicts: Wilson convicted after a month-long trial and about fifteen hours' deliberation on more than a dozen charges of indecent assault plus sexual assault and conspiracy; the judge's conclusion that he could not be properly or safely convicted on the rape counts; the convictions of Mary Wilson and Laurence Peterson; and the September sentencing.
national press court reporting trial opening report 'Church minister sexually assaulted women to "rid them of evil spirits"', The London Economic, July 2017.: Report of the prosecution's opening at Bradford Crown Court, carrying the religious framing put to the jury: that Wilson told a complainant 'God has made me a king so I am allowed to do this', and that he had to 'go into the womb to release' demons and would 'have to go deeper and inwardly to where the demon was'. Cited for the mechanism as opened by the Crown; the counts it lists are charges, not convictions.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

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Source and tier basis: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62287e478fa8f526d1fa917b/E02672222_CPiROS_Investigation_E-Laying_Corr.pdf Corpus classification: statutory-inquiry; evidentiary role: inquiry-investigation-report.
Retrieval: 2026-07-28 · Preserved; Bound by Fear research cycle 2026-07-28 (inquiry paragraphs read verbatim from the gov.uk PDF; press reporting corroborated across independent outlets)
Source and tier basis: https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/keighley-church-minister-faces-long-prison-sentence-for-sexually-abusing-women-over-two-decades-1770297 Corpus classification: regional-press-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-and-sentencing-report.
Retrieval: 2026-07-28 · Preserved; Bound by Fear research cycle 2026-07-28 (inquiry paragraphs read verbatim from the gov.uk PDF; press reporting corroborated across independent outlets)
Source and tier basis: https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/church-minister-sexually-assaulted-women-rid-evil-spirits-53048/ Corpus classification: national-press-court-reporting; evidentiary role: trial-opening-report.
Retrieval: 2026-07-28 · Preserved; Bound by Fear research cycle 2026-07-28 (inquiry paragraphs read verbatim from the gov.uk PDF; press reporting corroborated across independent outlets)

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