Faith healer sentenced for sex assault told to stop 'curing' people in person

Dungannon Crown Court heard that Coote's victims had been left "traumatised" after he sexually touched them without their consent

An elderly faith healer convicted of sexually assaulting two women who went to him for help has been ordered to stop giving people "the cure" in person.

Robert John Coote, 80, of Loughrans Road, Aughnacloy in County Tyrone was given a 10-month custodial sentence, suspended for three years.

He was also placed on the sex offenders' register and ordered to pay his two victims £1000 each.

Dungannon Crown Court heard that Coote's victims had been left "traumatised" after he sexually touched them without their consent.

In his sentencing remarks, the judge said Coote had claimed to have a "gift" for healing, which was passed to him by his mother on her deathbed.

He said Coote had "quite fantastically" claimed that he saw upwards of 14,000 people a year.

The court heard that one of Coote's victims had gone to him with a lower stomach complaint in 2016.

She later told police that he placed his hands under her trousers and underwear in the "pubic region", and then "forcibly grabbed her and kissed her" before she left.

A second woman reported that when she visited Coote for faith healing in 2017, he "put his hands down the front of her body touching her breasts".

The court heard that Coote did this while the woman's father was also present, but he made her stand in such a way that obscured his view.

He also grabbed the woman by the arm discreetly - an act which, the court heard, she "took as a threat".

'He seeks to blame the victims'

Coote, who runs a 13-acre farm, had denied the allegations against him.

The judge said the fact he fought the case lost him credit in the eyes of the court.

"He not only maintains his innocence, which he is entitled to do, but he goes further," the judge told the court.

"He seeks to blame the victims and claims they have made false allegations against him for money."

The judge said it had not been the case that the women were seeking compensation.

The judge described Coote's claims that he saw "tens of thousands of people" in the years since the offending, while purportedly remembering the victims, as "fantastical, nonsensical and contemptuous".

"You took the view that what you said was gospel and that everybody else were liars," he said.

The court also heard that Coote had two previous convictions for common assault, dating back to 2015 and 2016 - close to the time of the two sexual assaults - for which he had been conditionally discharged.

Since then, there have been no further allegations, and Coote was not deemed to a risk of serious harm to the public.

The judge noted that Coote had no longer been giving people "the cure" in person, but that he had somehow managed to so over the telephone.

Handing him the suspended sentence, he said: "If somebody believes you have some kind of gift or power and seeks to meet you in person for a better cure, you're not to do it.

"Nobody is to be put at risk."