CultNEWS101 Articles: 8/14/2025

Mr Brain, Lycra Nuns, Abuse of Women, Trafficking, Australia, Book, Jonestown, Australia, The Saints

Telegraph: 'Abuse cult' priest received sexual massages 'to relieve tension headaches

"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."

Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown Paperback by Annie Dawid

"Imagine a community full of rainbow families where everyone comes together in the spirit of equality and fraternal love.

Shy pastor's daughter Marceline and her new husband Jim Jones found Peoples Temple in the face of rampant hostility and aggression in 1950s segregated AmeriKKKa.

They give hope to the poor, the miserable, the alienated and disenfranchised of all colors, and build a commune in the jungle of British Guyana.

But this Eden too has its serpent. One who is also jealous of God, and where he goes, everyone must follow, even to the grave."

Sydney Morning Herald: 'They're so fired up': The flagship ABC show taking on a deadly cult

"Six-time Walkley award-winning ABC journalist Suzanne Smith – author of The Altar Boys, about child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Newcastle – is no stranger to crimes against children.

Her investigations helped instigate the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Yet, she approached with trepidation a brief from Compass to follow up on the Toowoomba sect known as the Saints, of which 14 members were sentenced in February for the 2022 death of eight-year-old diabetic Elizabeth Struhs, whose insulin was substituted for prayer. This time, Smith wanted to achieve the seemingly impossible: offer a glimmer of hope amid the inconceivable cruelty.

"If I was just doing another, 'Isn't this shocking?' story, I think it might have broken me," Smith says. "But because there's such a groundswell of action going on [within the wider church community in the south-east Queensland city], and they're determined to expose coercive control in all their churches, it gave me a bit of hope … I think having that positive angle is really important."

Interviewed about this push for change in the Compass report are three local pastors of varying denominations: Wesleyan counsellor Cecilia Anderson, psychologist and survivor of the US Children of God cult Maria Esguerra, and Paul Reid, a former friend of the Saints' leader, Brendan Stevens. None of the jailed cult members agreed to speak.

Most confronting are the responses of Cameron Schoenfisch, whose son Lachlan is serving time in jail for manslaughter.

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