Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Northampton, Northamptonshire, England, United Kingdom · 2018

United Kingdom: Jesus Army member convicted of indecent assault and buggery of a boy in the community during the 1990s

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Jesus Army community member sharing communal housing and doctrinal fellowship authority over a fellow member's child

Organization

Jesus Army / Jesus Fellowship Church

Spiritual nexus

The offending occurred inside the Jesus Army's communal households, where doctrine and shared fellowship placed children under the informal authority of adult members without their parents' direct oversight — the same communal structure the Redress Scheme's final report later identified as the systemic mechanism enabling abuse across the community.

  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2018-04-18 · conviction and sentencing

    Northampton Crown Court, England. Alan Carter, then 57 and living in Swansea, was convicted at Northampton Crown Court, having faced seven charges of indecent assault against a male and a further charge of buggery, for offences against a boy committed in the early 1990s while both were members of the Jesus Army. He was sentenced to three years in prison as part of the Operation Lifeboat investigation into abuse within the sect.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • communal-living structure placing children in shared households with adult members outside their parents' direct oversight
  • sect doctrine discouraging disclosure and outside reporting during the offending period

Primary record

Sources

local newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report Northampton Chronicle and Echo: 'Former member of Northamptonshire's Jesus Army member jailed for historic sex offences'.

Local court report naming Carter, the charges and the three-year sentence.

Related record

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