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Teacher Sacked Over Prayer Offer For Pupil
Olive Jones was dismissed from her job as a home-visit teacher after she spoke about her faith with a girl's mother.
The maths teacher gives lessons to children who are too ill to attend school.
When the girl did not feel up to the November 25 visit, Mrs Jones spoke to her mother over a cup of tea and asked whether she could say a prayer.
The teacher - a mother of two herself - said when the woman told her the family were not believers, she did not go ahead.
But Mrs Jones was later let go after the mother complained the teacher's comments had distressed her and her child.
The Oak Hill Short Stay School and Tuition Service in Nailsea, North Somerset told the teacher that sharing her faith with a child could be deemed to be bullying.
It is like a black mark against my name and character when it comes to getting a reference for another job, just because I shared my testimony - as if I committed a criminal act.
Mrs Jones, who's youngest son has served in Afghanistan, said she simply wanted to encourage prayer - not force it down the family's throat.
"If I had done something criminal, I believe the reaction would have been the same," said the 54-year-old from Weston-super-Mare.
"It is like a black mark against my name and character when it comes to getting a reference for another job, just because I shared my testimony - as if I committed a criminal act.
"It was only when I mentioned prayer that the mother said I do not want prayer, we do not believe, so I did not go ahead."
Mrs Jones, who has been teaching for more than 20 years, said after the shock of her dismissal wore off, she was hurt by the response.
"I'm not out to get anyone, I am angry at their interpretation of freedom of speech," she said.
"I am amazed that a country with such a strong Christian tradition has become a country where it is hard to speak about your faith.
Jason Hoyte, 37, from Bromley, abused girls as young as four he groomed through churches in Upper Norwood, West Norwood and Brixton
A RESPECTED member of South London’s Pentecostal church community is behind bars after being convicted of molesting six underage girls.
Jason Hoyte, 37, who claims to have performed with Take That and Boyzone, sexually abused children as young as four.
The paedophile, a director of an events company and a former Lambeth council youth worker, began targeting victims in the 1980s.
But the churchgoer’s crimes were not exposed until last year – when a 15-year-old claimed he had taken her virginity and several other victims came forward amid the publicity.
The married father branded the claims “ludicrous” and insisted “fornication” was outlawed by the Pentecostal denomination.
But a jury found him guilty of 16 separate sex charges following a month-long trial at Inner London Crown Court.
He was cleared of interfering with a further three girls.
The public gallery burst into spontaneous applause as the unanimous guilty verdict was returned by the jury.
Hoyte, who had showed no reaction at the previous verdicts, shook and muttered to himself.
The abuse relates to his time as a member of the Ruach Church and Rhema Ministries in Brixton, Worldwide Mission Fellowship in Norwood, and as a youth worker at Nettlefold Hall, also Norwood.
Hoyte claimed his singing career had taken him on world tours.
He said: “I have sung with James Brown, Mariah Carey, Boyzone, Leona Lewis, Take That.”
Adjourning sentencing to December 11, Judge Nicholas Philpot remanded Hoyte in custody for reports.
He said the report would be required to consider whether Hoyte, who ran holiday programmes for youngsters, is a danger to children.
Describing the catalogue of abuse between 1987 and 2006, Nicholas Atkinson QC, prosecuting, said the “inappropriate behaviour” included fondling and intimate sexual acts.
Hoyte was eventually banned from church as a precaution, but he simply moved on and “continued to get away with it”, even having full sex with some girls.
Hoyte, of Court Farm Road, Mottingham, and a director of Accapella Records, West Norwood, denied 17 counts of indecent assault and six of sexual activity with a child.
He was found guilty of 14 counts of indecent assault and two of sexual activity with a child.
He was cleared of three counts of indecent assault and four of sexual activity.
South London Press
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