Community rebukes pastor who impregnated 12-y-o
Published:Wednesday | July 31, 2019 | 12:22 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
While an affiliate of the Kingston-based Harvest Temple Apostolic Church was reluctant to speak on the outcome of the sexual offence case against their disgraced pastor yesterday, residents of the community heaped rebuke on the man of the cloth.
Kenneth Blake, who led the Slipe Road-based church, pleaded guilty on Monday after two years of maintaining his innocence in a case which he had been accused of impregnating a then 12-year-old girl.
Blake, who pleaded guilty to two counts of having sex with a person under 16 years old and one count of sexual touching, is to be sentenced on October 18.
When The Gleaner visited the place of worship yesterday, a church member held her head in her hands shouting, “Mi nuh know nothing! You can’t ask mi nothing! ... You affi go ‘round di road and ask. Mi nah follow it up.”
Asked whether she was aware of the pastor’s guilty plea, she said, “No, but somebody send something about it to my phone.”
However, residents of Clarence Villa – or Board Villa, as the section where the church is located is called – were singing a different hymn.
“Mi lose off a him. ... Nuh feel nuh way when the church member dem nuh talk up. Dem shame like dog,” a shop operator told our news team.
A resident told The Gleaner that the pastor was spotted at a nearby clinic recently. It was believed that he was taken there by the police.
“They saw him and him tell somebody say him soon come out. So everybody now shock now fi hear him confess after so long, so we know for sure him nah see road fi now. Road where? Him must go and hide him face!” the resident said.
Another community member said the pastor was an embarrassment to all churches.
“If him a do that, weh it leave the rest of people fi do? No example nuh set there so. Is a ugly situation and I know the little girl,” the resident said.
“When mi hear him plead guilty, mi say, ‘God can’t help him’,” another offered.
“How him plead guilty? Something must come over him. Mi wonder if a God talk to him,” still another commented.