Constance Marten spent months at 'torture' church, friend tells BBC

Constance Marten was a disciple of infamous Christian preacher, TB Joshua, who was accused of rape and violence in a BBC News investigation.

Marten spent four months at Joshua's Synagogue Church of All Nations in Nigeria as a teenager.

A fellow disciple, who knew Marten when she was at the church, told the BBC it was "a place of torture" and sexual assault. The BBC has no reason to believe Marten was subjected to any abuse there.

Marten, 38, has been found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter following the death of her baby, Victoria.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of physical and sexual abuse

Now the retrial is over BBC News can report Marten, who comes from an aristocratic family with royal connections, was a disciple at the Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan) from September 2006, when she was aged 19.

She lived at a compound while at Scoan, one of the world's biggest Christian evangelical churches.

The BBC Eye investigation, published last year, found evidence of widespread abuse and torture by Joshua. A televangelist who had an immense global following, Joshua died in 2021.

As part of the investigation, dozens of former members alleged atrocities by Joshua, including rape and forced abortions, spanning almost 20 years.

Marten was taken to Scoan by her mother, Virginie De Selliers, after leaving school. She remained in Lagos, Nigeria, to become a disciple when her mother returned to the UK.

Angie, the fellow disciple who spoke to the BBC, said she had shared a dormitory with Marten while the pair were at the church.

"It's no wonder she just ended up distrusting normal institutions - because clearly, something broke within her at some point," she said.

Joshua had a worldwide following among some evangelical Christians thanks to videos of his "miracles" posted online by the church. After meeting him, people in wheelchairs were seen to walk again, and people with HIV and Aids showed off certificates saying they had been "cured".

However, the BBC Eye investigation revealed those videos had been faked and found how disciples had been discouraged from contacting their families, deprived of sleep, forced to denounce one another, and sometimes physically assaulted by Joshua - a man they called "Daddy".

One woman told the investigation it was her role to recruit teenage female visitors as live-in disciples, because Joshua liked to prey on them, especially virgins. Other interviewees said they were stripped and beaten with electrical cables and horse whips.

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

"Making unfounded allegations against Prophet TB Joshua is not a new occurrence… None of the allegations was ever substantiated," it wrote.

Angie, who was a Scoan disciple for 10 years, recalls Marten as being "bright, witty, compassionate, funny, kind, and very independent".

She told the BBC how the church was "a place of torture, psychological abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, and sexual abuse" under Joshua's leadership.

Angie said: "I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone and I feel very sad that she [Marten] was taken there in the first place."

Unlike some Scoan disciples, who remained under Joshua's control for years, Marten was thrown out after a few months and returned to the UK, where she went to Leeds University to study for a degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies.

But messages seen by BBC News suggest she was still affected by her experiences in Nigeria years later. In October 2012, she got in touch with Angie via Facebook Messenger.

"I haven't spoken to anyone about what happened at the synagogue," Marten wrote. "All my university friends are secular, and if I told them about what I'd seen in Lagos, they'd think I was lying or mad!"

Marten wrote about how TB Joshua had abruptly thrown her out of the church and explained that, for years, she thought it was her fault. She said she didn't want to acknowledge Joshua was effectively running what she and others felt was a cult at the time.

Marten said she had tried to deal with what she experienced "silently and with a lot of confusion". "It's taken me years to get back to normal," she wrote.

She said it would be a great help "both emotionally and spiritually" to talk to Angie, who replied and later met Marten twice.

In another message, Marten said she couldn't talk about her experiences with her mother, who BBC News understands continued to donate small sums to the church at the time, prior to allegations about Joshua surfacing.

"I honestly think that she needed help back then and that she needs help now," Angie said of Marten. "I feel extremely sad to see what has happened subsequently."

"The story that I see is very different from what you see on the headlines. The story that I see is a young girl who was taken to an awful place, was broken down, doesn't understand what happened to her, and is therefore unable to process what's happening to her now. She really, really needs help."

For Angie it has been difficult to watch how events have unfolded for her former friend. "My heart breaks for her because I don't wish this on anyone - at the same time I wish I could shake her," she added.

Marten's first job after leaving university was as a researcher at the Al Jazeera news channel, where she tried to make a documentary about TB Joshua's megachurch - a project she mentioned in messages sent to Angie in early 2013.

"I really want this film to give an understanding to viewers of how cults work, and the very subtle manipulation that happens, so subtle that you can't even notice it," Marten wrote.

She said Joshua's "hoodwinking of innocent people" must "come into the light".

Bisola Hephzibah Johnson, another former disciple, told the BBC she persuaded Marten not to return to Scoan in 2013 to carry out secret filming for her documentary, saying it would be too dangerous.

She says everyone who spent time at Scoan has been deeply affected by their experiences there. "Some cannot until today co-ordinate their lives," she said.

The last message Angie received from Marten was in September 2014.

Marten and her husband Mark Gordon were found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter on Monday, following the death of their baby daughter, Victoria.

At an earlier trial, which ended last year, they were found guilty of child cruelty, concealing a birth of their daughter and perverting the course of justice.

That trial heard Marten and Gordon, 51, were "arrogant" and "selfish individuals" who were in a toxic relationship.

Their baby had been "neglected and exposed to dangerous conditions", the trial heard.

The BBC approached Constance Marten's mother, Virginie de Selliers, for comment but she did not respond.