Pastor found guilty of indecently assaulting teenage church member

Reverend Vincent Anthony Lowe was remanded to Dodds Prison on Friday afternoon when a jury unanimously found him guilty after deliberating for just over two hours. The Mount Standfast, St James resident showed no emotion when the verdicts were read as he stood in the dock of the No. 4 Supreme Court.

He had been charged with committing the offences between January 1, 2011 and March 8, 2013.

While Lowe’s attorney, Senior Counsel Angella Mitchell-Gittens, requested that he remain on bail pending sentencing, Principal State Counsel Olivia Davis, who prosecuted the case along with State Counsel Paul Prescod and Maya Kellman, asked that he be remanded.

Ordering a pre-sentence report, Madam Justice Laurie- Ann Smith-Bovell remanded the convicted man into custody and adjourned the matter until May 16.

During the trial, it was revealed that the complainant, along with her family, attended Lowe’s church, Prayer Palace Ministry, in Cheapside, The City.

The deposition of the girl’s deceased grandmother, which was read into evidence, stated that in May 2013, her granddaughter had confided in her about the pastor’s inappropriate behaviour.

“She said, ‘Pastor taking his hand and putting it where it should not be’,” the grandmother’s deposition stated.

She also said that her granddaughter came to her “crying and screaming and suicidal”, but she did not take any action.

Giving evidence from the witness stand, Lowe said that during a meeting with the girl’s mother, he had admitted to touching her but claimed this was done solely to resolve the matter. He maintained that he did not know the specifics of the alleged touching and only admitted to it to end the dispute.

“Why I admitted to it was [because] her mom said if I say I touched her, this case, this meeting is over, the whole thing is over, and because I wanted to resolve it, I said I touched her,” he testified.

Lowe also told the court that he would have rehearsals at his home in a bedroom he used as a studio alone with the complainant. (Jenique Belgrave)