BBC TV `Private Investigations'

The programme was presented by a woman in her early thirties who had been a member of Peniel for 16 years. All the text are her words verbatim, except for the words in italics and within quotation marks (speakers in bold). We believe this programme confirms everything we suspected about the unbiblical and cultic character of Peniel. We invite Bishop Reid for a second time to answer these serious charges in writing.

Peniel Pentecostal Church took over my life—now I'm investigating it.

Mike Reid: "When Jesus is in a church, it's simple: miracles always happen. I tell people, `You see no miracles—no Jesus!'…The cancer's gonna go, the chains are gonna snap."

This is Bishop Michael Reid of PPC. I was a member of this church for 16 years. He controlled almost every aspect of my life. Last year I finally decided to leave Peniel. It was a very hard decision because I couldn't persuade my husband to leave too. We are now divorced and I have moved far away from the church with my three young children. During all the years I spent at Peniel, I didn't question anything. I did everything that was expected of me. I married someone in the church, we put our children in the church school, and we gave money to the church. In the end I found that my whole life and the lives of my children were completely dominated by Peniel. Now I want to find out more about the church and how it's run.

I first came to Peniel when I was 14 years of age. When my parents came up, they insisted that I came with them, even though at the time I didn't attend any church at all. I was told I would have to attend the services in the evening led by Michael Reid. I remember running out of one of the meetings very upset, and one of the assistant pastors coming out after me saying that I was going to go to hell, and that I needed to turn to God, and that my life needed to change. After the meeting, my mother and father were called up to the front to see Michael Reid, and it was suggested then that I went to the school and actually didn't go home. So that's what happened—they left me there with a family in the church and they went home. I never went back home again. I was discouraged by Bishop Reid and others in the church from seeing or having contact with any in my family.

I have come to Brentwood in Essex where Peniel is based. About 600 people come to the Sunday services, but the core membership is probably 250-300. I'm feeling very anxious. There's nobody around. Seeing it all again. Seeing… I've lived there for the last 16 years.

The way people usually join is that they come to some services and maybe a conference, and Bishop Reid says to them, "You need to be where God is," so they sell their houses and move here. Most people live within a mile radius of the church, and it's not acceptable to live any further away than that. To get some perspective on Peniel, I'm visiting Max Carter who left the church some time ago, but still lives in the area.

Max Carter (ex-member): "There was a general awe and sense that what Michael did and what he said was what God said and wanted to happen. I remember one particular meeting where this lady got up and said that she'd had this vision of plunging a knife into the Saviour's side. Michael came over and he spoke to everybody: `That's of the Holy Spirit, and unless you have that same vision, you're going to burn in the lake of fire.' And that troubled me greatly because I knew that was a load of rubbish. The following meeting somebody else got up and had the same vision. A lot of people had the same vision, and I knew then that somehow or other eventually I had to leave Peniel because it was going so wrong. But when you come out of Peniel, if you've moved from another area, you've no other Christian friends. You've nobody! Everything's cut off because you believe that's the only church there is. It was hard, it was terrible, and we went through a lot of hardship spiritually. People who had been friendly with us no longer speaking to us."

I was helped to leave Peniel by Catalyst, an organisation which provides counselling and support for people leaving religious groups. How does a man like Bishop Reid control people?

Catalyst spokesperson: "People are destabilised. First of all their self-esteem is knocked down by Michael Reid. He humiliates them if they're rebellious. He makes them feel very stupid, un-spiritual. He tells them that they really can't control their lives because they're not spiritual enough, but look at him: the Reverend Dr Bishop Reid. He has got the answers. He is the spiritual leader and you must take what he says. So he shifts responsibility from the individual onto him."

This is a video called Expect a Miracle. I was involved in producing this video at Peniel. It shows interviews of people who claimed to have been healed at the church. When I was at Peniel I didn't question whether the miracles were true or not, or why it was so important to have them every week. Bishop Reid used to say, "No miracles, no Jesus." I've brought the tape here to the surgery of Dr Peter May, a GP who is also a lay member of the Church of England General Synod.

I had a back problem and I went up to be prayed for, and I got up off the floor and the pain had gone. Within a couple of days, the pain had returned. How do you explain what had happened?

Dr Peter May: "Pain is something you can't see objectively. It is in the mind. It isn't just in the mind—there's a physical cause for it, that's causing the mind to give the effect of what we call pain. But add in other emotions—excitement, for instance—and it all fades into the background. You see this on the sports field every day. Pains in that sort of situation are likely to fade into the background. People feel better, their backache seems to be better. But when their emotions die down and they wake in the cool morning, the pains recur."

Mike Reid: "I'd just like to challenge you, wherever you are watching this tape. You'll see the story of Sam just after this interview…"

We were asked by the family of the little boy that Bishop Reid is talking about not to show pictures of him. What can you tell me about this case?

Peter May: "He clearly is seen as the most dramatic miracle that Peniel has to offer. Apparently we have a child who the film shows playing who had a very rare type of leukaemia. And we're led to believe that this child is cured and is wonderfully well. What we're not told is the outcome of that child and I understand that since that film was made, the child has died. I have a copy of the death certificate, and I understand the film is still on sale, which I find very difficult to credit."

Right, I'm off to London to find out about the money of Peniel. I want to find out about the charity accounts and Michael Reid's private accounts, the investments and all the companies that he owns. We gave probably about £600 per month into the church, and our school bills were about £400 per month. Then on top of that we were paying policies to McCartney and Downey, the church broker. I'd like to see the charity accounts for Peniel Pentecostal Church…These are the accounts for 1995 and 1994. In '95, the accounts had an income of over £1 million, which is an enormous amount of money.

I'm here today at Companies House to have a look at the companies in Michael Reid's name. We had our mortgage and everything through the church brokers, so I'd like to see who is on the board of directors and how much money is involved. Bishop Michael Reid is listed as director of seven companies. Interesting that on this his job description isn't a bishop, it's an insurance broker. This is a 1997 accounts for McCartney and Downey Investment PLC, a management company. The board of directors are: Michael Reid and Peter Lineker, one of the assistant pastors. Funds under management on the 31 December 1996 amounted to approximately £24.8 million. That is just an absolutely enormous amount of money. Unbelievable. And yet every time we asked them to come and give financial advice, they'd just get us to take out another policy. So we did. Got a bigger mortgage.

I took Peniel's charity accounts and the accounts of the private companies owned by the church leaders to Binda Hamlin. We bought all our financial products from the companies owned by the church leaders and I thought any of the profits from these companies went to the church. Is there any evidence of that?

Accountant: "Not in the face of it, because those companies have in the main paid tax. Normally if a company makes a profit and passes all its profits over to a registered charity, you would not expect to see a tax charge. Point 2 is that companies often have a dividend charge. Nowhere in these accounts am I seeing a figure for dividends received. It would imply to me, on the basis of what I see here that that dividend isn't being paid into these accounts."

I've asked Bishop Reid for an interview on this programme. I want him to explain why he still sells the miracle video tape with the case of the little boy on, even though he died last year. I also want him to explain why the companies which he owns don't seem to give any profits to the church, and why he doesn't see a conflict of interests between being a Bishop—bringing people to God—and an insurance salesman who sells policies to his flock.

Appeared in Volume 4.3 November/December 1998