Gabriella Swerling
Religious Affairs Editor
Telegraph
August 4, 2025
A former priest accused of running an abusive cult received sexual massages to relieve “terrible tension headaches”, a court has heard.
Chris Brain, 68, led a group in the 1980s and 1990s in Sheffield called the Nine O’Clock Service (NOS), and was viewed by his alleged victims as a God-like “prophet” whom they “worshipped”.
The evangelical church movement drew crowds of hundreds of young people enticed by its “visually stunning” multimedia services featuring acid house rave music every Sunday at 9pm.
Mr Brain, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, is standing trial accused of committing sexual offences against 13 women. He denies one count of rape and 36 counts of indecent assault between 1981 and 1995.
At the opening of the trial in July, Tim Clark KC, prosecuting, told the court that Mr Brain ran “a cult”, surrounded by beautiful, lingerie-wearing women known as the “Lycra Nuns”, or “Lycra Lovelies”.
He said that Mr Brain used his position to abuse a “staggering number of women”.
Many of his victims were part of a “homebase team” tasked with cooking and cleaning for Mr Brain, as well as “putting him to bed” and giving him massages, which the court heard would often end in unsolicited groping.
Giving evidence at Inner London Crown Court on Monday, Mr Brain said he received back massages from a number of women in NOS.
Asked by defence counsel Iain Simkin KC how the massages began, he told the court that “it started off because I had terrible tension headaches”.
He referenced one member of the “homebase team” who gave him massages once or twice a week “and she could tell by touching me what the problem was”.
Mr Brain gestured to the court, lifting his arms above his head to show where he was in discomfort and why he required massaging.
“It was quite severe, I remember coming home and having to lie on the bed with my face on the pillow because the pain was so bad,” he said.
Asked whether there were occasions when the massages would develop into some form of sexual touching, Mr Brain replied: “With very close friends, it may edge towards that, but both parties knew it shouldn’t go there so one of us would pull back again and cool down.
“And we are talking about relationships over years and years… It worked having closeness with friends without having to involve close sexual contact, and of course, I was married.
He added: “With some of my closest friends it would be kissing sometimes, occasionally massaging, stroking. Anything more than that we would back off.”
‘Natural ecstasy’
Mr Brain told the court that NOS was “an evolving experiment” around at the “peak of the rave boom” and embraced “club culture” by creating “a natural ecstasy”.
As part of the “new New Age”, he added that there was a very laissez faire environment regarding “positive sexuality” as well as encouragement of “tantric celibacy”.
“It was normal to be physical,” he told the court. “This was the mid-80s early ’90s,” he said, adding that leggings and tight clothes were “the fashion”.
Regarding the clothes worn by female NOS members at the time, and asked if he prescribed the dress code for the “Lycra Lovelies”, Mr Brain responded: “All these people are completely clued-up and want to wear fashion.
“This is the mid-80s, everybody was obsessed with fashion and what they wore, it was a constant topic of conversation, but that does not mean I was obsessed with what people wore.”
Mr Simkin asked: “Looking back, do you accept you were some form of inspirational character?”
“That’s my thing, enthusiasm and ideas,” Mr Brain replied.
Jurors have previously heard how Mr Brain had his ordination licence “fast-tracked” in 1991 because Church of England officials viewed his organisation as “a success story”.
NOS evolved from holding services at St Thomas’s Church in the Crookes area of the city, before expanding as it grew increasingly popular to a larger premises at Ponds Forge in the city centre. It collapsed in 1995 amid accusations of a sex scandal.
Over the past five weeks, his alleged victims have given evidence describing NOS as full of “brainwashing”, “grooming”, “mind games” and abuse.
They claimed he told them that they “can’t be spiritual without being sexual”. The trial continues.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/04/abuse-cult-priest-sexual-massages-relieve-headaches-trial/
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