A FORMER university lecturer who founded his own church and called himself "The Prophet"and 'Archbishop' has been found guilty of sexually molesting members of his own flock.
Walter Masocha, 51, who led the Stirling-based Agape for All Nations Church, groped a young deaconess while he was supposed to be praying for her stomach complaint, and put his hand down the trousers of a schoolgirl saying he was trying to remove demons.
The deaconess, a 32-year-old mother-of-four, was also told that The Prophet had been "trying to remove 'something' from her genitals".
The schoolgirl, 15, was left in tears after Masocha "pinged" her knicker-elastic and pinched her bottom claiming she had ants or demons in her pants.
Both were targeted between April 2012 and January 2014 at Masocha's £500,000 seven-bedroom mansion, Coseyneuk House, near Stirling, where the Zimbabwe-born churchman received a steady stream of followers.
After a six day trial, a jury of seven men and seven women [correct] at Falkirk Sheriff Court yesterday (Mon) took less than 30 minutes to found Masocha guilty of sexually assaulting the deaconess and sexually touching the underage girl on a majority verdict.
Masocha, who formerly worked at Stirling Univeristy in a hand made suit with velvet collar, stood completely expressionless in the dock as the verdicts were announced.
On the public benches his wife Judith, styled The Prophetess within the church, dabbed her nose with a tissue.
Sheriff Kenneth McGowan ordered that Masocha's name should be entered on the sex offenders' register and deferred sentence, continuing bail, until May 19 for reports, to include a risk assessment.
During the trial, the schoolgirl, now 16, said she regarded Masocha as her "spiritual father", and like many people in the church called him "Dad".
She said in late 2013 she was with four other girls in an upstairs games room when Masocha came in.
Giving evidence by video link she said she had been wearing stretchy trousers.
She said: "He waved me over. He placed his hand round my lower back, and moved his hand down until he got to my underwear, and he sort of pinged my underwear.
"He repeatedly pinged my underwear, ran his hand down my bottom, and grabbed and pinched my bottom.
The Stirlingshire secondary school pupil said she felt violated and later asked Masocha why he had done it. He replied that he had seen "demons and things that shouldn't be there" in her pants and he was clearing them away.
She said: "I just broke into tears because I thought I had been doing things wrong without realising. I felt like I had been bad."
Mascocha said he would pray to remove the "demons" and left the room.
In another incident, when she was 13 or 14 , she said Masocha had been sitting down at his home, very close to her, advising her about school when he suddenly said, "You'll always be mine", and kissed her on the lips.
She said at the time she was happy, because members of the church had been taught that anything they received from Masocha was a blessing from God, but now she felt disgusted.
The deaconess said Masocha had hugged her "very intimately", caressing her back and kissing her round the neck, and saying "receive my love". She said she could feel his manhood against her.
On another occasion said she had once gone to his office for prayer with a stomach complaint.
She said: "He said he was going to pray it away. He touched my tummy, then his hand went down my body, onto my private parts."
Weeping, she said: "It was like he was feeling me. I was so shocked. At that time I saw him as somebody who could never do any wrong, because that was what he used to teach us.
"He used to teach us his hugs were anointed."
She began an online blog to expose the activities of the church, which she called "a cult".
Mascoha had denied the allegations. At his home, two people told The Herald that they had no comment to make.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article