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Girl raped by her father called 'silly girl venting spleen for no reason' by evangelical pastor
By Geraldine Mckelvie
The Sunday People told last week how teenager Becky Herbert was driven to the brink of suicide after being raped by her paedophile father David Manning. Devastated Becky, now 20, said her devout Christian mother Mandy, 47, was brainwashed by her church into taking Manning back after his release from jail. Now pastor David Hodge, 76, of the Bethany Evangelical Church in Plymouth, Devon, also wants sales assistant Becky to forgive Manning, 47, for putting her through years of sex abuse hell. We asked Mr Hodge to explain – and this is what he had to say: PASTOR: “The Bible does teach forgiveness. As far as Rebekah (Becky) is concerned, we’ve kept in contact. I’ve seen her on a number of occasions and I think she is a silly girl. She’s venting her spleen for no apparent reason. “I think it’s very sad the way she’s going. She’s causing more problems for herself. As far as the church is concerned, we’ve forgiven David. But David’s not gone back home. He’s in digs somewhere.” REPORTER: “She has got a letter from the probation service which says her dad has been allowed to move back into the family home with immediate effect.” PASTOR: “I believe he’s allowed to move back in but he hasn’t. We go round there every Thursday as a support. It’s four and a half years we’ve been doing that. He’s definitely not in the home.” REPORTER: “One thing she said is that you had suggested to her she made the sexual abuse allegations up because her dad was too strict. What do you have to say about that?” PASTOR: “I didn’t say anything like that. I’ve kept off the subject all the time, hoping there will be a time when Rebekah and David would come together. I’ve never, ever said that to Rebekah. I wouldn’t say that because I don’t know the family well enough for that.” REPORTER: “OK. Obviously you do accept that he has sexually abused her? He’s been convicted.” PASTOR: “I don’t know. I think Rebekah has gone over the top. When she was a little girl she always wanted to be the centre of attraction. She always took a story and made it into an essay and there was nothing in it. “In fact, if you look at some accusations she has made to other people, like the Salvation Army, and the police were called in, you can see that she tends to sensationalise things. But that’s Rebekah, a lovely girl, although we don’t in any way condone what she did. As far as David is concerned, the court dealt with that.” REPORTER: “You think Becky should forgive her dad, basically?” PASTOR: “Yeah, that’s what the Bible teaches, forgiveness.” REPORTER: “You have said to Mandy, her mum, that you think both Mandy and Becky should forgive her dad?” PASTOR: “I’ve not said that to Mandy. I’ve not spoken to Mandy about that. All I’ve said is to Rebekah that my prayer is she will be able to call her dad Dad, whereas at the moment she calls him David Manning. “I pray there will be unity within the family. But Rebekah is putting a lever between the whole of the family. She’s a silly girl.” REPORTER: “She’s a rape victim and she’s been through a lot. To call her a silly girl, she’s maybe just trying to process the trauma she’s been through?” PASTOR: “She has been through a trauma but she’s creating even more trauma for herself. As far as the family is concerned, they’ve had enough trauma anyhow with their dad going inside – into prison.” REPORTER: “But she’s the victim there. She’s the one who was abused.” PASTOR: “I know that but she’s now causing trauma instead of letting the whole thing die down and for her to deal with the issue. What she’s doing is stoking the fire. It’s not doing any good. It’s just bringing things to the surface. “In many ways she’s a silly girl. She’s a sensationalist and always has been. Loves acting. She blows things up to 20 times what they really are. She’s always done that and I love her for it.” REPORTER: “She’s suggested that her mum Mandy has been brainwashed into forgiving her dad by the Bethany Evangelical Church.” PASTOR: “No way. You would never brainwash Mandy. Mandy is single-minded, a very switched-on cookie. “She has not been brainwashed. The police came along to the church and said we’d been brainwashed. I said, ‘It’s you police who have been brainwashed. You’ve taken on what you’ve been taught in lessons etc as being the right thing’.” REPORTER: “The police said you’d been brainwashed?” PASTOR: “They came to visit us in the church to see what youth activities we had. He said, ‘You’ve been brainwashed’. I said, ‘No, you’ve been brainwashed’. “Anyway, it was nice speaking to you but I must end now.”
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