Girl ‘groped by preacher to clear out her demons’

A PREACHER known as ‘ the Prophet’ – and called ‘Dad’ by some children in his congregation – touched a schoolgirl inappropriately, a court heard yesterday.

The girl, who cannot be named, told a jury Walter Masocha put his hand down her trousers and, when challenged, told her he had seen ‘demons’ and was trying to clear them out.

Now aged 16, she said the incident occurred in a games room at the luxury home of Masocha, founder and archbishop of the Stirling-based Agape for All Nations Church.

The girl said she regarded the 51-year- old as her ‘ spiritual father’ and called him ‘Dad’.

She told the court that in late 2013 she was with four girls in the upstairs games room at Cosyneuk House in Sauchieburn, near Stirling, when Masocha came in.

Giving evidence by video link at Falkirk Sheriff Court, she said she had been wearing ‘stretchy trousers’.

‘Walter Masocha called me over – he didn’t verbally say it, he just waved me over,’ she said. ‘I went to stand next to him.

‘He placed his hand round my lower back, and moved his hand down until he got to my underwear, and he sort of pinged my underwear.

‘He repeatedly pinged my underwear, ran his hand down my bottom, and grabbed and pinched my bottom.’

Asked how the incident made her feel, the girl said: ‘I felt quite violated.’

She said none of the other girls in the room knew what was happening: ‘They thought he was just standing next to me with his arm around me. He was just smiling.’

She said she later texted Masocha and asked him why he had done it – and he texted back that he would tell her in person. As a result, the girl said, she saw him at Cosyneuk a few days later.

She told the court: ‘ He said he did it because he saw some demons and t hings t hat shouldn’t be there and he was clearing them away.

‘I just broke into tears because I thought I had been doing things wrong without realising them. I felt like I had been bad.’

In another incident, when she was ‘13 going on 14’ she said Masocha had been sitting down at his home, very close to her, advising her about school. She said: ‘ He said, “You’ll always be mine”, and kissed me on the lips.’

At the time she said she had been happy because members of the church had been taught that anything they received from Masocha was a blessing from God.

Prosecutor Alison Montgomery asked: ‘How do you feel about it now?’

The girl replied: ‘ Disgusted, because I now know, at that age, growing up, my own father wouldn’t kiss me on the lips.’

She said Masocha later told her to delete text messages he had sent her saying her mother ‘would get suspicious’.

She left the church and went to the police after talking to her mother and reading an online blog written by another of Masocha’s alleged victims, a 32- year- old mother of four who gave evidence earlier in the case.

The girl said that until she left t he church, she had ‘ no concerns’ about Masocha’s behaviour towards her, but her attitude changed.

She said: ‘Now I feel sick just thinking about it.’

Masocha, of Sauchieburn, denies engaging i n sexual activity with the girl and inducing a 12-year- old girl to massage his body with oils.

He also denies sexually assaulting the woman.

The incidents are said to have occurred between January 2012 and January 2014.

The trial, before Sheriff Kenneth McGowan, continues.

‘I felt quite violated’