A FORMER Morecambe Pentecostal minister will spend the next nine months in prison after being found guilty of indecent assault. Raymond Lloyd, of Fulwood Drive in Bare, admitted indecently assaulting three girls when he appeared at Warwick Crown Court last week. The offences were committed by Lloyd, now 75, back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Even the girls, sisters who are now middle-aged with children of their own, had no idea that each of them was not his only victim until they began talking about their early life following the death of their mother recently.

Allan Mainds, prosecuting, told the court that when Lloyd was arrested at the start of this year he admitted what he had done and said: "It is against the scriptures, it is a sin."

Mr Mainds said: "If ever there was a case which proved the long-lasting effect of abuse on young children, this is it.

"The emotional effect has been with them over the succeeding years, nagging like an ulcer at the peace of their adult lives and their relationships with their husbands."

In the mid 1950s, the girls and their mother had attended the Pentecostal church in Nuneaton, where Lloyd was a minister, and followed him when he broke away and began to hold services in his own home.

The court heard that, over the eight years between 1957 and 1965, Lloyd regularly put his hands up the girls' skirts and touched them intimately, committing the offences in various locations including a garden shed.

In a statement, echoed by her sisters, one of the women said: "He caused me great pain and discomfort. His hands seemed to be everywhere and I felt quite overpowered.

"I remember his smile which seemed to say, 'I know you don't like this but I am going to do it anyway'."

John Lasker, defending, said: "He apologises and is remorseful for his actions all those years ago. It truly is a case where his actions have come back to haunt him years later."

He added that there was no mitigation for the offences but said Lloyd, who took up ministering in Morecambe after leaving Nuneaton, had led a blameless and upright life both before and since committing them.

Jailing Lloyd, Judge John Wilson told him: "The offences were committed against young defenceless girls and have had an ongoing adverse effect on those girls, now women, over a substantial period of their lives."

He is longer involved in the church.

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