A Birmingham Crown Court has sentenced a Nigerian pastor found guilty of numerous charges of rape and abortion to 34 years in prison.
Michael Oluronbi was jailed on Friday after he was convicted of a catalogue of rape and sexual abuse against children and adults over two decades.
Judge Sarah Buckingham said Mr Oluronbi, 60, carried out “one of the worst cases of sexual abuse” against children to come to court.
The Nigerian pastor was convicted of 15 counts of rape, seven counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault at a trial that ended in January.
His wife, Juliana, 58, was found guilty of three charges of aiding, abetting rape and helping to arrange some of the terminations. She was jailed for 11 years.
The court heard that Oluronbi ran a splinter group to the Cherubim and Seraphim Church at a private home in Birmingham where he held “spiritual baths” for people in an upstairs bathroom, a pretext for sexual abuse.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said those abused fell under the “influence and authority the defendants held and honestly believed their actions were on God’s behalf”.
The court was told there were at least 88 separate occasions on which he raped his victims, who are now adults.
Judge Buckingham called Oluronbi “arrogant, selfish and vain”, adding, “You abused your position of trust.
“They (his victims) trusted you like God…. In my judgment, your offence must be one of the worst cases of sexual abuse of multiple children to come before the courts.”
Oluronbi was arrested in May 2018 at Birmingham Airport while trying to flee the UK.
When asked about the offences, which took place in Birmingham and London dating back to the 1980s, the court was told, he said,“The devil made me do it.”
