The executive director of the UK-based Barnabas Fund, Patrick Sookhdeo, has been found guilty of sexual assault. Sookhdeo had been cleared by an internal investigation. The Barnabas Fund trustees include an ACNA bishop, Julian Dobbs, who previously served as executive director of the fund.
As reported by the BBC,
The head of a Wiltshire-based Christian charity has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a female member of staff. Patrick Sookhdeo, from the Pewsey-based Barnabas Fund, was also found to have intimidated two employees who were due to give evidence against him.
The jury at Swindon Crown Court found the 67-year-old guilty on all counts. He was ordered to serve a three-month community order for all three charges, to run concurrently.
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The court heard that an internal investigation conducted by the charity in June cleared Sookhdeo of any wrongdoing.
The head of one of Britain’s biggest Christian charities has been charged with sexual assault on a woman.…
The Christian charity he runs – whose patron, the Marquess of Reading, is a close friend of the Prince of Wales’s – now faces scrutiny by the Charity Commission. A spokesman for the regulator told The Independent: “We have contacted the charity to determine what it is doing from a governance point of view in managing this serious situation as we may give advice as appropriate.”
They added that suspending Mr Sookhdeo would be “a decision for the trustees themselves to make”.
The Western Daily News reports on the testimony heard by the jury.
Other trustees include the creationist Ian McNaughton, chairman of the board, a member of Gafcon the Rev. Dr. Vinay Samuel, director, Miss Caroline Kerslake, director, and Mrs. Rosemary Anne Sookhdeo, director and wife of Sookhdeo. Mrs. Sookhdeo has bladder cancer.
Posted by John B. Chilton