Constance Marten wanted to expose ‘cult that broke her'
Marten, 38, who on Monday was convicted of killing her baby, joined the Christian preacher TB Joshua's Synagogue Church of All Nations in Nigeria (Scoan) as a 19-year-old in 2006.
Angie, a fellow disciple who shared a dormitory with her, told the BBC that the church was 'a place of torture, psychological abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, and sexual abuse' under Joshua's leadership.
Marten was thrown out of Scoan after four months, with Joshua telling others that she was a 'CIA spy'.
On Monday Marten was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter following the death of her baby Victoria. The baby died while Marten and her partner Mark Gordon spent weeks on the run in fear that the authorities would take the child away after social services took her previous four children into care.
After leaving the church and graduating from university, Marten worked as a researcher at the Al Jazeera news channel, where she tried to make a documentary about Scoan — a project she mentioned in messages sent to Angie in early 2013.
'I really want this film to give an understanding to viewers of how cults work, and the very subtle manipulation that happens, so subtle that you can't even notice it,' Marten wrote. She said Joshua's 'hoodwinking of innocent people' must 'come into the light'.
• Who is the real Constance Marten? A life that led to tragedy
Bisola Hephzibah Johnson, another former disciple, told the BBC that she persuaded Marten not to return to Scoan in 2013 to carry out secret filming for her documentary because it would be too dangerous.
In further messages to Angie, she wrote: 'I haven't spoken to anyone about what happened at the synagogue. All my university friends are secular, and if I told them about what I'd seen in Lagos, they'd think I was lying or mad!'
Marten said she had tried to deal with what she experienced 'silently and with a lot of confusion'. 'It's taken me years to get back to normal,' she wrote. She said it would be a great help 'both emotionally and spiritually' to talk to Angie, who replied and later met Marten twice.
Angie said: 'It's no wonder she just ended up distrusting normal institutions, because clearly something broke within her at some point.'
Marten, and Gordon, 51, went on the run with their daughter Victoria in early 2023 after their four other children were taken into care. Police had launched a nationwide hunt after their car burst into flames on the motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester.
• Constance Marten's partner says couple are victims of racism
The couple travelled across England and went off grid, sleeping in a tent on the South Downs where baby Victoria died. After seven weeks on the run, the defendants were arrested in Brighton, East Sussex. Following a desperate search, police found their baby dead amid rubbish inside a Lidl bag in a disused shed nearby.
They will be sentenced at a later date.
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The Guardian
6 minutes ago
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‘The matter is in his hands alone': president of Sierra Leone urged to ban FGM as court rules it tantamount to torture
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Nine years later, Allieu's experience has led to a ruling against Sierra Leone by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) court of justice, which described FGM as 'one of the worst forms of violence against women' which 'meets the threshold for torture'. The case, filed by Forum Against Harmful Practices (FAHP), We Are Purposeful, and Allieu, held the government liable for human rights violations due to its failure to criminalise FGM. The court ordered Sierra Leone 'to enact and implement legislation criminalising female genital mutilation and to take appropriate measures toprohibit its occurrence and protect victims'. Though the UN passed a resolution to ban FGM in 2012, it is still practised in about 30 countries. In Sierra Leone, a national survey in 2019 found that 83% of women had undergone FGM, with 71% of them subjected to the practice before the age of 15. There is no law explicitly criminalising the procedure, part of a traditional initiation ritual that marks a girl's entry into womanhood, carried out by senior members of Bondo societies. Every year, women and children are left with health complications, and some die, as a result of such rituals. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the removal of part or all of the external genitalia for nonmedical reasons, as defined by the World Health Organization. There are different types of cutting: removal of the clitoris and/or its hood; removing the clitoris and the inner fold of the vulva (labia minora); and the narrowing of the vaginal opening by cutting and repositioning the labia minora through stitching. Also known as infibulation, this has the worst health consequences. The fourth type of cutting includes other forms of injury to the genitalia such as incising, scraping or cauterising. 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'Politically and internationally, the situation just does not look good,' says Jusu-sheriff. 'Since the president is chairman of Ecowas, and in light of the Ecowas decision, let him send the act back to parliament and let them rethink it.' She adds: 'The matter is in his hands, and his hands alone. He holds the sword of Damocles over himself. This is the thing that will determine whether he will go down as the greatest, most human rights-loving president of all time, or not.' Allieu, who is bringing a separate case in Sierra Leone against the woman who mutilated her, is due to be awarded $30,000 (£22,000) in compensation as part of the Ecowas ruling. She says she can't find work because of the public stigma surrounding her case, but wants to use the money to further her education and become an activist. 'I really want the government to look into this, especially the sitting president with his power as head of state,' she says. 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The Guardian
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Daughter of woman murdered by man who US deported speaks out: ‘He was denied due process'
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In an interview with the Guardian, Pfleger said: 'It's been 31 years living with the irreparable pain and permanent grief, so, on the one hand, I wanted him gone. On the other hand, I'm a historian and I have taught constitutional history. He was denied due process and that's a constitutional problem.' The government of South Sudan has not disclosed the men's exact whereabouts since arriving in the country earlier this month, after legal problems had caused them to be stuck in nearby Djibouti after legal wrangling, or provided any details about their future. A lawyer representing the men said 'their situation is fragile,' noting their relatives have not heard from the deportees since a US military plane flew them to Juba, South Sudan's capital, before midnight on 4 July. A police spokesperson in South Sudan, Maj Gen James Monday Enoka, indicated that the men may ultimately be moved on. 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The German government recently warned, via the foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, posting on social media that: 'After years of fragile peace, South Sudan is again on the brink of civil war.' The UN commission on human rights in South Sudan warned 'We are witnessing an alarming regression that could erase years of hard-won public progress.' The UN added that a humanitarian crisis was looming with half the country already suffering food insecurity and two million internally displaced, with a further two million having fled the violence to seek sanctuary in neighboring countries.
The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army review – the eye-opening tale of a national shame
Nobody wants to be in a cult. That includes the people who are in cults – which is why they tend to claim they're nothing of the sort. Founded in 1970s Northamptonshire by lay pastor and self-anointed prophet Noel Stanton, the Jesus Fellowship – or the Jesus Army, as it came to be known in the late 1980s – was a case in point. And, for the 3,500 members it had accrued by the late 2000s, there was clearly something deeply appealing about the organisation unrelated to its ability to brainwash and control its followers (contraband included crisps and books). It served the needs of a certain kind of Christian: to have an accessible, welcoming church, to live communally with people who shared their values, to be given direction by a charismatic leader, to belong. To outsiders, however, it always seemed inordinately sinister. Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army is crammed with half a century's worth of British media to prove it: from tabloid articles ('Cult Crazy' ran one headline, which drew parallels with the recent Jonestown massacre) to news items (a 1970s report about the strange deaths of two members) to programmes such as 1998 talk show For The Love Of… in which Jon Ronson goggles as members explain their 'virtue names' (one man is 'watchman'; a young woman called Sarah is 'submissive'). As late as 2014, we see Grayson Perry singing along wryly with their hymns in his Channel 4 series Who Are You? The details that troubled the public imagination were myriad: for some it was the ecstatic singing and speaking in tongues; for the 1970s newsreader it was only natural to be suspicious of such a 'highly committed' and 'insular' group. Then there was Stanton, pantomime baddie-like with mad eyes, wispy grey hair and an extremely creepy smile. In footage spanning many decades, we see him preaching in an eerie whisper and spouting grotesque soundbites such as 'now we give our genitals to Jesus'. Embedded in this grim fascination was the hunch that something was seriously awry. It was. While the Jesus Army claimed to be a haven for Christians, it was actually a haven for paedophiles – including, allegedly, Stanton himself – giving them ample opportunity and permission to abuse children while making barely any effort to hide their actions. This two-part documentary gives us some sense of why the Jesus Army attracted – and perhaps even created – abusers: it was a microcosm of a fastidiously patriarchal society, it attracted those already vulnerable (Sarah joined after losing both her parents), it deliberately courted teens, it weaponised the concept of sin, it demanded unquestioning loyalty and devotion. Yet the focus here is on the victims; the programme meshes a chronology of the movement with a group therapy session involving four adult survivors. Initially, these ex-members (the Jesus Army closed down in 2019) are encouraged to process the idea that they spent their formative years in a cult. It's not until the middle of the second hour-long instalment that they discuss the abuse they suffered. As a genre, true crime can spread awareness, bust taboos and breed empathy, especially when survivors are able to articulate the impact the misdeeds had on their own lives. But this is always tempered by a certain exploitation, recasting vulnerable people's trauma as entertainment. As the camera lingers on these tearful men and women – after teasing their revelations over almost 80 minutes of nauseating tension – it feels as if the programme has failed to pull off that particular balancing act. And yet, anybody hoping to draw attention to the way sexual assault is dealt with in this country needs some kind of sensational hook; countless accounts of abuse, sickening as they are, clearly aren't enough. Alongside the shocking statistics presented – 539 members accused of abuse, approximately one in six children sexually abused, only 11 people convicted – we get an understanding of the patchwork response to these crimes. There was a relatively brief investigation by police in the mid-2010s, which began by chance and ended in frustration when the elders closed ranks; a Facebook group was set up by Philippa – who felt ostracised after reporting an abuser to the police when she was 12 – to gather testimony; and now this documentary, for all its uncomfortable use of distraught victims, which brings the scandal to a wider audience. It feels like plugging holes in a sieve. Despite all the superficial weirdness on display – watch as picturesque farmhouses are converted into nuclear family-crushing communes, as people in polyester jumpers writhe and groan on the floor, as sparsely attended raves get a Christ-based spin – the lasting message of this documentary is depressingly familiar. As a society, we do not have an effective way of bringing the perpetrators of sexual assault to justice. The Jesus Army may be a thing of the past, but this remains a national shame. Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army aired on BBC Two and is available on iPlayer.
