Monday, July 22, 2013

Tobago SDA Pastor Resigns Amid Sexual Scandal

The police are investigating a young popular Pastor, who is said to be married and is also an ordained minister. Church sources allege that the minister had been dogged with several reports of having illicit sexual relationships with young female church members over the years. Reports indicate that the police are seeking the minister for questioning since the female member involved is said to be a 14-year-old school girl. Tobago News was told by a well-placed church source that when the mother of the girl discovered the illicit relationship between her daughter and the pastor, she reported the matter to high ranking officials of the church. “He was due to be transferred from one church district to another,” revealed the source. The irate mother then used the social media of Facebook, to expose the issue and this created quite a stir among the membership of the church,” declared the source. “Following pleas from church officials, the mother relented and deleted the Facebook posting. Contacted about the explosive issue, Secretary/Treasurer of the Tobago SDA Mission Pastor Clyde Lewis pointed out that the church had already taken action to deal with the matter. “The pastor in question has resigned from the ministry effective June 30, 2013 and the matter is now in the hands of the police,” confirmed Pastor Lewis. Questioned, why the church took so long to deal with this pastor, who clearly had a problem, Pastor Lewis pointed out that the hierarchy of the church did everything to support the deviant minister. “We arranged several counselling sessions with him hoping that he would mend his ways,” said Pastor Lewis with a tinge of sadness in his voice. Tobago has been grappling with the issue of sex abuse of minors by adults, who are authority figures. Social workers have been reporting several cases of pre-teen and early teen pregnancy within recent times. Some have been calling for swifter action in dealing with the perpetrators of these sex crimes. Sex with a minor, under the age of 16 years is considered as statutory rape and it is time that we organize a more robust system where sex offenders are named, shamed and jailed,” declared one concerned social worker. Secretary of Health and Social Services Claudia Groome-Duke, when contacted about the seeming rise in pregnancies among under-aged girls indicated that she did not have such data at this point in time. “I will review the trend analysis and get back to you with a comment as soon as possible,” she promised.

Source:tobagonews

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