Hillary Alflat, 87, was accused of treating her victim like a slave and forcing him to take an oath of allegiance while working at a church in Sheffield in the 1980s. in front of him, to kiss his feet and call him “master”. Having been diagnosed with dementia, Alflat was deemed unfit to stand trial. A jury in the Hull court was tasked with deciding whether to commit the offenses instead of issuing verdicts. On Monday, the court found that he had committed real bodily harm for almost 10 years, repeatedly hitting the woman with a bamboo stick. The jurors could not decide on the charge that Alflatt branded the shape of a cross on the woman using a hot needle. He was acquitted of three other counts of causing actual bodily harm in connection with more specific allegations, and two counts of false imprisonment, which included allegations that he kept her imprisoned in a vicar’s room for five days. Judge Sophie McKone told jurors: “There is no mystery – you know Mr Alflatt is not here. He has dementia. is in a nursing home. “Even though you found out that he did the acts in category seven, the court does not punish him for that because he is not able to participate in the trial. He is not going to go to prison. “ She said her options for dealing with the case were to be discharged, to issue a guardianship order or to impose a hospital order. A hearing to decide this will take place on May 3. In police interviews, the unnamed woman said Alflat had made her take vows of obedience, poverty and chastity. Disobedience, she was told, would be “to obey God.” The jury also overheard police interviews with Alflatt from Northallerton in which he agreed that some of the alleged incidents had occurred. But he said they were consensual. Alflat, formerly known as Malcolm, said the woman had “hooked up” with him since meeting him in the early 1980s. He was at a “low point” in his marriage and she was “nice,” he said. in interviews read to the jury. She started “asking me to do things,” including hitting her, she said in interviews. “I felt I had to keep her happy because I was in a relationship that, if it came out, would have ruined my parish. He was really holding me. ” She told police she thought that if she “caused her more pain, she would leave me alone”. In her closing remarks, prosecuting attorney Louise Reevell said: “This case is not about a case and consensus, it is about power, control, expropriation and sadism on his part.” Responding, Kathryn Peters, defending, said: “They formed a romantic relationship, and although some of the processes that took place may make you raise an eyebrow, the reality, as it puts it, was: you do not know what is going on behind closed doors between two consenting adults “.
