Pastor under sex pressure

By Mark Cummings
Jamaica Observer
May 7, 2017

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Pastor-under-sex-pressure-trelawny-churchman-arrested-charged-with-buggery-of-a-minor_98080?profile=1373

Pastor Presley Smith delivering one of his Sunday sermons at the Bunker's Hill New Testament Church of God in Trelawny.

BUNKER'S Hill, Trelawny — The Church in Jamaica has been thrown into further disarray, with news that another man of the cloth has been arrested and charged by the police with a sexual offence against a minor.Host pastor of the Bunker's Hill New Testament Church of God in Trelawny, Presley Smith will face the Falmouth Parish Court later this week, after he was arrested and charged on Friday with acts of sexual offences.

Allegations are that between January 2016 and January of this year, Smith, 27, a native of Kingston but who currently lives in this rural Trelawny community, committed a number of sexual offences against a 15-year-old male student who hails from the district and is now residing in Montego Bay, St James.

Investigators have said that Smith turned himself in at the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) in Kingston on May 3 and was later transferred to Falmouth, where he was subsequently slapped with charges of buggery, gross indecency, and grievous sexual assault.

A senior police officer who is close to the investigations told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that the alleged acts were committed at the pastor's rented house in the Bunker's Hill community.

He added that the matter was reported to the offices of CISOCA in Montego Bay after the boy's parents saw “certain materials” on his laptop computer in April of this year.

“In April, the boy's parents saw certain material on his laptop and reported it to CISOCA in Montego Bay, and the pastor was later interviewed there,” said the investigator.

Meanwhile, as news of the pastor's arrest circulated in Bunker's Hill yesterday, residents expressed shock at the allegations.

“It's kind of hard to believe. Pastor Smith is a disciplinarian and a no-nonsense person,” said an area resident, noting that Smith has been pastor of the church for more than two years.

She added that pastor was “extremely involved” in church activities, very jovial, and was always neatly dressed.

“I really don't know how his name would be calling up in that sort of thing. He was a good actor, he writes very well, and always trying to motivate people,” said the resident.

According to her, the pastor earlier this year proposed to a woman and was planning to get married in August.

The Church has been thrown against the wall of shame in recent months, following the arrest of some high- and low-profile officials on sex-related charges across Jamaica.

Moravian Pastor Rupert Clarke, 64, is facing charges of rape and carnal abuse after police said that they found him in a “compromising position” with a girl, aged 15, in his motor car near the sleepy town of Nain in south-east St Elizabeth on December 28.

Clarke had been pastor of the Nazareth Moravian Church in Manchester.

Three weeks after Clarke was arrested, police also slapped carnal abuse and indecent assault charges on President of the Moravian Church in Jamaica, Dr Paul Gardner, and his deputy Jermaine Gibson. Both later resigned their positions in the Church. Like Clarke, both Gardner and Gibson have maintained their innocence and their lawyers have sounded notes of confidence that they will be cleared of the charges when their matters come up for trial in court.

In mid-March, Pentecostal Pastor R V Paul Hanniford was found guilty of having sexual intercourse with a minor and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

A jury of seven returned a unanimous guilty verdict after spending just an hour and 20 minutes to go over the evidence in the case.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP)said at the trial that the sexual offence had been committed on the girl when she was 13 years old. She, like Hanniford, was a member of the Pentecostal City Mission Church and was baptised by him, the court was told.

Evidence was presented that Hanniford drove the complainant and her brother, aged five at the time, to his house at the end of choir practice, where the act was committed.

It is uncertain how the Church community will view the latest allegations against one of its members at a time when more fingers are being pointed at clergymen for irregular conduct.