Hallelujah! Essex is saved

Following my investigation into the Jesus Christians cult and its alleged abduction of Bobby Kelly in last week's ES, I decided that the next target in my hunt for British cults would be the curiously named Peniel Pentecostal Church of Brentwood, Essex.

Graham Baldwin, founder of the South London based anti-cult charity, Catalyst, had told me that, among other things, Peniel operated insurance scams, regularly staged fake healings, had infiltrated and 'completely taken over' their local Tory party and even had an anti-aircraft gun in their possession. I wondered if it was loaded and, if so, in which direction it was pointing.

Peniel was listed in the telephone book, so I decided to take the bull by the horns by tackling them head-on. 'Hello,' I said. 'I'm from ES magazine. Can I come round and look at your anti-aircraft gun?' 'I don't know you from Adam,' responded a booming voice. It was Peniel's leader, Bishop Michael Reid. 'How do I know whether to trust you?' I told him what Graham Baldwin had told me about the weaponry, the fake miracle healings, the insurance scams and their take-over of the local Tory party. There was a silence. 'Is that all he told you?' Michael finally asked. I wondered if there could be more.

The next day, Michael's secretary, Sheila, picked me up from Shenfield station. The number-plate on the fancy Vauxhall read B4 PPC, which, I later realised, stood for, 'Bishop for Peniel Pentecostal Church'. Unlike the Jesus Christians - who live in decrepit vans and shower at Heston Services - the Peniel devotees have clearly not renounced all possessions. Sheila drove me to their headquarters, 26 beautiful rolling acres, just two stops from Liverpool Street.

There, she handed me over to Anne, Michael's PR, who showed me the lakes, the creche, landscaped and Japanese gardens, and rolling fields for as far as the eye could see. There was also a 20-metre swimming-pool (which also comes in handy for baptisms), the executive cars with personalised number plates, the huge church and Georgian mansion, all behind tall black electric gates. 'Tell me about Michael,' I ask. 'What's he like?' 'Graham Baldwin says Michael surrounds himself with yes men,' says Anne. She laughs, scornfully. 'As Michael himself says: "I wish!" He's a strong character who leads from the front.'

Like most Peniel members, Anne has moved to live nearby. All the staff - the teachers, the creche workers, the cooks, the security, the groundskeepers - belong to Michael's 800-strong flock.

'Can I see the gun?' I ask Anne, back in the office.

'Oh, the gun,' she says. Anne concedes that the gun controversy is partly Michael's fault as he once gave an interview in which he said that it was 'loaded and pointed at the council building'. 'I could have kicked him,' says Anne. 'Michael has a very advanced sense of humour. Sometimes people don't get it.' Just then a huge presence enters the room. It is Michael himself. He looks like a cross between Ian Paisley and Michael Gambon. 'We were just talking about your anti-aircraft gun,' I say. 'It's from the Ark Royal,' yells Michael. 'Its got a bloody plaque! The Navy gave it to us. They said, "Which bit of the Ark Royal do you want?" And I said, "How about the gun?''' He takes me outside to show it to me.

It does, indeed, have a plaque on it, but its presence in the car park is clearly non-threatening. I am perplexed. Why has Graham Baldwin suggested there is anything sinister or menacing about the gun? It's like accusing the Imperial War Museum of being heavily armed.

'He's trying to goad me into suing him,' says Michael. 'But I'll sue him when I damn well want to, not when he wants me to. Oh, he loves his day in court. He loves to be the centre of attention.' Perhaps this is true. Perhaps Graham hopes that Peniel will go to court, score on the anti-aircraft gun point, but lose on the wider cult issue. What else could it be? I later phone Graham several times, but he fails to return my calls.

'You have a beautiful place,' I say to Michael. He stares darkly at me, his eyes narrowing. There is a long, long silence. 'When I said "You have a beautiful place",' I say, 'did you take it to mean, "Where do you get your money from?"' 'Why should I need to defend myself?' he roars. 'Anyone who questions my finances can go jump in a lake. Let's go for a drive. I'll show you the school.'

We jump into his Mercedes and speed off. The in-car CD system revolves discreetly into place from the walnut veneer and Christian music washes over us as we cruise through Brentwood, Essex. 'I know what people are thinking,' he booms. 'Nice car. What a show-off. I don't care. Yes. I bought myself a Mercedes. Four years old. Cost less than a Ford. It's built like a tank. I paid £22,000. I think I should look after God's money wisely, don't you? Of course, Graham Baldwin calls me a "Mercedes-driving Bishop",' he thunders. 'Well, it's better than a "Lada-driving-Bishop". Also, when he writes about me, he always puts "Bishop" in inverted commas. He knows I've been consecrated, but he still likes to make an insult out of it all the time. Pathetic people are really pathetic.'

Michael then talks at length about his five pet hates: paedophiles, racists, New Labour, lesbians and gays, and Graham Baldwin. He is sometimes hilarious, sometimes shocking. Much of it is unprintable. He knows this. 'Don't you dare quote me on that,' he bellows, after informing me that public figure A downloads child pornography, public figure B eats boiled human hearts, and so on. 'I warned you about his sense of humour, didn't I?' says Anne, a little nervously.

We pull up outside a vast and quite breathtaking 18th-century mansion nestling in its own 72 acres of forest and parkland. This is Michael's school. 'I bought it for cash,' he says. 'But I won't tell you how much I paid for it because I never discuss money. We keep the grounds nice. I love beautiful things. What's Graham Baldwin ever built?' The school is open only to the children of Michael's church. He built it, he says, because he didn't want them being taught by 'pink-haired left-wingers'. Last year they attained a 100 per cent pass rate in their GCSE results. 'I just wanted to do something for the kids,' he says. Such is the prestige of the school, says Michael, that sometimes people want to join Peniel just so they can send their children to the school. However, he is strict on this point and says he won't even consider admission until the families have been members for at least a year. He takes me to the table-tennis room, where a dozen youngsters are practising. The standard of play is incredibly high. 'Peniel has become a centre of excellence in the field of table tennis,' says Anne. 'Baldwin conveniently forgets the positive things about Peniel,'says Michael, 'because it doesn't suit his theory.'

Michael is justifiably proud of his school. The children are well-behaved, quiet and studious inside their beautiful mansion.

'Baldwin also calls me the "Spanking Bishop",' grumbles Michael, 'because I advocate corporal punishment. But we have never, ever spanked a child at our school. We do have a punishment book but it is completely empty.'

On Sunday morning I attend a service inside Peniel's vast purpose-built chapel. I am beginning to suspect that the Peniels are not a cult, just a little eccentric, although the possibility that I am being brainwashed by Michael's charm preys on my mind.

The security guards let me in with a smile. 'We are completely open,' they say. 'We have nothing to hide.' I am hoping to witness a miracle healing, so I can judge for myself whether they are real or fake. Miracle healings are apparently commonplace inside Peniel. Indeed, on my last visit Anne showed photographs not only of the disabled getting up and walking, but also hauling around washing machines and fridges.

Last year, Peniel was at the centre of a miracle-related media storm. They put an advert in the local paper announcing the miracle healing of the fridge-carrying local businessman, David Gregg, but the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) objected and demanded they withdraw it. 'I was there,' says Anne. 'I saw it with my own eyes. When they carried him in, he was in so much pain that he had to lay in the aisle. Michael prayed for the pain to go away, and it did. Gregg wasn't even a Peniel member. But the ASA wanted proof that he was sick to begin with. But a miracle is the inexplicable work of God. I sent them a video of the actual miracle. I really don't think I could have done more, short of asking God to come and speak to the ASA personally.'

Unusually, the newspapers took Peniel's side, with the Daily Telegraph opining that the ASA would have been 'charging around Galilee demanding prior proof of withered arms'.

Unfortunately, there were no miracles at the service I attended. Instead, I saw a lovely choir singing dramatic rock-opera type Christian songs, and then a long sermon by Michael, in which he addressed the controversial subject of whether all other religions will go to hell. 'Jesus is the only way,' he announced. 'Is everyone else wrong? Yes.' So that's that one solved. My notepad didn't make me stand out as the congregation was full of other note-takers - adults and children assiduously writing down everything that Michael uttered. 'We've never had such a bunch of liars in government,' preached Michael. 'But Jesus is above them all.' And later he stormed, 'We live in a free country, but only free for the pervert filth.' By this, he meant lesbians and gays. The schoolchildren wrote it all down.

After the service, we sat in Michael's office. The mood was subdued. That morning a Sunday paper had published a full-page article about Michael under the headline 'Martin Bell set to challenge bizarre Tory "bishop".' It read: 'The "man in the white suit" has a new challenge - to curb the growing political influence of a bizarre right-wing church... Mr Bell said he had held talks with former senior Tories in the area who were expelled from the party after members of the [Peniel] sect infiltrated Brentwood Conservative Association in 1998.'

Michael quietly read the article, mumbling: 'Lies! I can't believe they would print such lies!' He admitted that, yes, 120 Peniel members had joined the local Tory party to support a Peniel member who was standing as councillor. And, yes, hundreds of anti-Peniel Tories had subsequently left in protest to form a breakaway party. 'But what's wrong with that?' he says. 'Prospective councillors who want to do well often co-opt their friends, so why shouldn't we?' He also pointed out that 120 people compared to the 1,400 membership of the Brentwood Conservatives was a drop in the ocean. 'Look at the maths. We can hardly influence things, can we?'

The Sunday papers' accusations continued - Peniel members had to ask Michael's permission to take a holiday, children were beaten in the school and so on in similar vein. But it didn't repeat the allegation, made in The Independent in 1999, that Michael coerces his flock to buy insurance policies - sometimes as many as ten per person - from a company of which he is a director. I asked Michael and Anne about these insurance policies. 'It originated with a woman called Caroline,' says Anne. 'We were all young marrieds together back then. But Caroline always wanted more: the designer clothes, the bigger house... She went to Baldwin who made out to the media that he was rescuing her from the clutches of an evil cult. Sure, she might have had ten insurance policies, but they had two cars, a house and three children. That's six accounted for already. Then there was the building insurance, BUPA, a pension and some extra endowments.' 'Baldwin made it sound as if the church was taking all her money,' says Michael. 'But you can easily account for ten policies.'

Then we all headed back to Michael's house for Sunday lunch. The table was set for 20: roast beef, Yorkshire pudding - full English fare, piled high. 'Cults lock people up and deprive them of food,' Michael pointed out, then asked: 'Do you think Martin Bell would really come here?' He seemed both nervous and excited at the prospect. 'If he wants to fight sleaze, hasn't he heard of Bernie Ecclestone? Hasn't he heard of the Paymaster General and his filthy friends?' And yet for all of this defensiveness on the part of Michael and his flock, I cannot but help feeling sympathy for them, under siege as they are by the likes of Graham Baldwin.

So, in search of a calmer analysis of the 'cult' situation in the UK than that offered by Baldwin, I visit Rachel Storm of INFORM, a government-funded organisation based in the London School of Economics. 'INFORM,' says Rachel, 'aims to dispel the "cult problem" by defusing some of the more sensational hysteria which the subject can give rise to.' She won't be drawn on the role of Graham Baldwin specifically, but has this to say about 'anti-cult' groups generally: 'A combination of lack of information and misinformation about unfamiliar religions causes great distress to, among others, the relatives and friends of converts. It can also contribute to the emergence of volatile and sometimes violent situations, as, for example, in the case of the confrontation between the Branch Davidians and the FBI at Waco.'

I do not expect a fiery conflagration in Brentwood, Essex, in the near future. But if the name-calling continues at this level of intensity, I do wonder what will happen next.