06/12/01 - Minister prayed and fasted for 'possessed' Victoria Climbie

A minister has told an inquiry into the death of abuse victim Victoria Climbie that he prayed and fasted for the child. He took the action as her great aunt believed she was possessed by evil spirits.

Alvaro Lima, a pastor at the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, told the hearing that the eight-year-old schoolgirl said Satan had told her to burn herself. The incident happened less than a week before her death. Victoria had 128 separate injuries to her body when she died in February 2000 after suffering months of abuse, torture and neglect.

Her great aunt, Marie Therese Kouao, 44, and Kouao's boyfriend Carl Manning, 28, of Tottenham, north London, are now serving life sentences for her murder. He also said in a written statement to the inquiry that the little girl had told him: "That Satan controlled her life, that Satan had told her to burn her body.

She said she liked doing bad things. I thought this was all part of her nightmares and a result of past traumas. She had an angry look on her face when she said this." Pastor Lima told the inquiry in central London he did not believe her, but decided to pray and fast with an assistant, Audrey Hartley-Martin because he believed she had "spiritual problems".

He said: "I was concerned but the mother was so desperate to find help for her child." The minister, who said he believed people could be possessed by evil spirits, thought she might have heard the words from television, books or her great aunt, whom at the time he believed was her mother.

At this meeting, he told the inquiry, he had no concerns about Victoria's medical welfare, despite her being withdrawn and having virtually no hair, which he described as unusual.

Victoria's great aunt Marie Therese Kouao, 44, had visited his church in Finsbury Park, north London in February last year with the child and her boyfriend Carl Manning, 28, in a bid to find a cure for the young girl and took her to a "deliverance from witchcraft" service before seeing the pastor the next day.