Constance Marten spent months at ‘torture’ church, friend tells BBC

Constance Marten was a student of the famous Christian preacher TB Joshua, who was accused of rape and violence in the BBC news investigation.

Marten spent four months at the Synagogue Church of Joshua’s Nations in Nigeria.

A student who knew Marten in the church told BBC that there was a “place of torture” and sexual assault. There is no reason to believe that the BBC was exposed to any abuse there.

38 -year -old Marten was found guilty of the killing of a heavy negligence man after the death of Victoria’s death.

WARNING: This story includes statements of physical and sexual abuse

Now the trial BBC News, Marten from an aristocratic family with royal connections, was a student in the synagogue church of all nations since September 2006 at the age of 19.

He lived in a compound in Scoan, one of the world’s largest Christian evangelical churches.

. BBC Eye ResearchIt was released last year, found evidence of widespread abuse and torture by Joshua. Joshua, a television player with an enormous global follower, died in 2021.

As part of the investigation, dozens of former member Joshua was claimed to be allegedly for 20 years of persecution, including rape and forced abortions.

Marten was taken to Scoan by his mother Virginie de Selliers after leaving school. When his mother returned to England, he stayed in Lagos of Nigeria to become a student.

Speaking with BBC, Angie said that he shared a dormitory with Marten while the couple was in the church.

“It’s not surprising that he feels insecure to normal institutions – because at some point something was broken in it,” he said.

Joshua has followed a worldwide among some Protestant Christians thanks to the videos of the “miracles of” miracles “published by the church. After meeting him, people in the wheelchair were seen to walk again, and people with HIV and AIDS showed certificates stating that they were “healed”.

But, BBC Eye Investigation revealed that these videos were fake And they found how the students had the courage to communicate with their families, that they were deprived of sleep, that they were forced to condemn each other, and sometimes physically attacked by Joshua, which they called “Baba”.

A woman said the investigation was the role of taking young women visitors as live students, because Joshua liked to hunt them, especially virgins. Other interviewers, electrical cables and horse trucks were robbed and beaten, he said.

Scoan did not respond to the allegations in the BBC investigation, but the previous claims were unfounded, he said.

“It is not a new event to make unfounded claims against the prophet TB Joshua … None of the allegations were confirmed.”

Angie, who has been a scoan student for 10 years, remembers Marten as “bright, humorous, compassionate, funny, gentle and very independent”.

He told BBC what kind of torture, psychological abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse and sexual abuse under the leadership of Joshua’s leadership of Joshua. “

Angie said: “I wouldn’t ask anyone about this experience and I feel very sorry [Marten] He was taken there in the first place. “

Unlike some Scoan students who have been under Joshua’s control for years, Marten was thrown a few months later and returned to England, where he went to Leeds University to study a degree in Arab and Middle East.

However, messages seen by BBC News show that he is still impressed by his experiences in Nigeria years later. In October 2012, he contacted Angie via Facebook Messenger.

“I didn’t talk to anyone about what happened in the synagogue.” “All my university friends were secular and they would have thought of what I saw in Lagos, they would think I was lying or crazy!”

Marten wrote how TB Joshua suddenly threw her out of the church and announced for years that it was a mistake. He said he didn’t want to admit that Joshua himself and others were effectively conducting what he thought was a cult at that time.

Marten said he was trying to deal with what he lived in “quietly and with too much confusion.” “It took years to return to normal,” he wrote.

He said that talking to Angie, who answered Marten and then encountered twice, would be a great help “emotionally and spiritually”.

In another message, Marten said he could not talk about his experiences with his mother, where BBC News continued to donate small amounts to the church before the allegations of Joshua’s climbing.

“To be honest, I think he needed help at that time and now he needed help, Ang Angie Marten said. “I feel very sorry to see what happened later.”

“The story I see is very different than you see in the headlines. The story I see is taken to a terrible place, torn, does not understand what happened to him, and therefore cannot commit what happened to him now. Really, he really needs help.”

It was difficult to watch how the events emerged for Angie for their old friend. “My heart is broken for him because I don’t want it to anyone – even though I can shake it.”

Marten’s first job after leaving the university became a researcher at Al Jazeera News Channel, where TB Joshua tried to make a documentary about Megachurch – a project he mentioned in the messages sent to Angie in early 2013.

“I want this film to give the audience about how the cults work, and the very fine manipulation that took place, you can’t notice it so thin, Marten Marten wrote.

Joshua said that “looking at innocent people” should “enter the light”.

Another former student Bisola Hephzibah Johnson said BBC convinced Marten to not return to Scoan in 2013, and he would be very dangerous to make secret shootings for the documentary.

He says that everyone who spends time in Scoan is deeply impressed by their experiences there. “Some people can’t coordinate their lives so far,” he said.

Angie’s last message from Marten was in September 2014.

Marten and her husband Mark Gordon were found guilty of having a heavy negligence on Monday after the death of their baby daughters Victoria.

At an earlier hearing that ended last year, they were found guilty of child persecution, hid the birth of their daughters and misled the course of justice.

This hearing heard that 51 -year -old Marten and Gordon were “arrogant” and “selfish individuals” in a toxic relationship.

At the hearing, their babies were “neglected and subjected to dangerous conditions”.

The BBC approached the Comment of Constance Marten’s mother, Virginie de Selliers, but did not answer.