You’re lying, QC tells ‘victim’ in pastor sex trial
A WOMAN who accused a married Pentecostal pastor of sexually assaulting her was branded a liar in court yesterday.
Jurors heard how the 47-yearold mother of three had never told police or prosecutors about an alleged attack in which churchman Walter Masocha had kissed her deeply, opened her blouse and sexually assaulted her before she made the claims in court.
The divorced Zimbabwean, who cannot be identified, told the court the alleged assault had happened during a counselling session at the Agape For All Nations church in Stirling. She said Masocha, 51, known as the ‘Archbishop’, had touched her inappropriately on three occasions in the one-toone counselling sessions.
Yesterday she changed her evidence and told Stirling Sheriff Court two of the assaults actually happened at the same time. Masocha’s lawyer, John Scullion, QC, accused her of telling ‘a pack of lies’. He said: ‘You said yesterday there were two separate episodes – now you’re drawing them together into one episode.
‘Do you think everybody in this court is stupid? You told everybody in this courtroom yesterday these episodes were separated by months.
‘You have been making it up and you’ve been caught making it up.’
Mr Scullion said she had made no mention of the blouse allegation in an initial statement she gave police in January 2015 or to officials from the procurator fiscal’s office who interviewed her earlier this year .
He said the first time she had ever mentioned it had been in court.
Mr Scullion added: ‘You are making things up during your evidence, you’ve been caught lying and you’ve no answer for that.’
The woman replied: ‘I’m not making things up – I may be leaving things out.’ She added: ‘The [police] statement helped me to open up but I didn’t open up everything.’
She said she had told another pastor in the church what had happened.
In earlier evidence, the woman said members of the church had believed Masocha’s house in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, was ‘anointed’ and ‘just being there would help you’.
Masocha had lived in the house since 2007, where he would hold gatherings of up to 100 people.
She said Masocha would give his used shirts, socks and flannels to members of the congregation after wiping his sweat on them. They believed the unlaundered goods would protect them from ‘spirits that were bothering us’.
Masocha, of Sauchieburn, near Stirling, denies sexually assaulting the divorcee and another woman at various locations, including the church, his former home in Bridge of Allan, and at Edinburgh Airport between January 2007 and May 2011.
The trial, before Sheriff Wyllie Robertson, continues.
‘Making up evidence’