An evangelical pastor accused of sexually assaulting his female parishioners whispered "I can turn you on" to one woman while giving her a neck massage, a court heard.

Howard Curtis, 73, former senior minister at Coulsdon Christian Fellowship (CCF), would regularly use physical force during private "counselling sessions" intended to deliver his worshippers from "evil spirits", the woman told the Croydon Crown Court jury.

The witness also described how Mr Curtis spanked the bottom of a three-year old boy on one occasion after shouting the child was a "defiant spirit looking at him".

Mr Curtis, now of Bloxworth Close, Wallington, was senior minister at the CCF from the early 1980s until July 2013.

He denies six counts assaulting a child, two counts of indecent assault on a girl under 16, one count of assault of female over 13 by penetration, and five counts of sexually assaulting a female.

LAST WEEK: Minister accused of spanking parishioners 'led church as a cult'

Giving evidence from behind a screen today, the former CCF parishioner was asked by prosecutor Toby Fitzgerald whether Mr Curtis had ever been "physical" with her.

She said: "He massaged my shoulders once, and when he was doing it he turned round and said, 'I could turn you on'. And I got up and said, ‘I don't think so,’ and walked away,"

She said the tone of Mr Curtis's voice had been "low and intimate".

The woman, who joined CCF in the 1980s, accepted that she had had a "good working relationship" with Mr Curtis, although one not without its "ups and downs".

But she described frequent disagreements with the minister about "counselling" methods he used with parishioners - particularly with one vulnerable member of the church.

The witness said: "Sometimes [she] would thrash about and he would hold her down very forcefully. I didn't agree with this and I often said so.

"One particular time we were downstairs and she was on the chair and he was laying with her arm right across her. She was in a very bad way.

"I did several times say to Howard that isn't how that should happen, and when I did I wasn't asked to counsel her next time."

The sessions were supposed to deliver parishioners from "evil spirits" in their bodies, the witness said, a method inspired by a Canadian movement called Toronto Blessing.

After one counselling session, the witness said she received a phone call from the vulnerable parishioner, who was walking alone along Brighton Road, threatening to commit suicide.

She said: "She was absolutely distraught; all of her clothes were dishevelled."

Julia Flanagan, defending, questioned the witness on her reasons for joining CCF: "You wanted a livelier, more charismatic church?

The witness agreed this was the case.

Ms Flanagan also pointed to a number of cards the witness had written to Mr Curtis as evidence of her good relationship with him..

One read: "Thank you for always being there and showing me what a real father is like."

But the witness said: "He helped you but in that help you were controlled to stay, because you were dependant on him."

She recounted an occasion when she walked into the main church hall with a fellow parishioner to find Mr Curtis alone with a three-year-old boy, the son of another member of the congregation.

She said: "I came in through the door at the back and Howard was sitting on the edge of the platform shouting at [the boy].

"He had his voice really raised, it was intimidating, really looking down on him.

"It was about defiance. I can't remember the exact words, but he kept saying he wasn't going to have a defiant spirit looking at him.

"[Howard] had in his hand a handkerchief, and he had it stretched out, he was going to put towards him. I looked at him and I said, what are you doing? [The boy] was crying, really crying."

The woman said that as she began leading the boy out of the hall, Mr Curtis "smacked his bottom, and he started crying some more".

"He just kept saying he was an authority, he had been given authority by the boy's mother, that [the boy] was defiant, I'm not having a defiant spirit look at me."

The next day the witness had gone round to see the boy's mother, she told the jury, and had been shown the boy's bottom.

She said: "He was so bruised, really really badly bruised.

When asked whether the single smack she had seen could have caused the bruising, she said: "Absolutely not, no way."

Ms Flanagan suggested her memory was "not 100 per cent" about the spanking.

But the witness said: "I know what I saw and I have relived that for many years. And I said to Howard if he ever touched one of my children, he would be in trouble."

The trial continues.

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