Beware of unsolicited texts from pestering pastors

I really feel sorry for folk around Port St. Mary.
There was a famous TV advert a few years back in which a small girl had to choose between ‘Daddy’ and ‘Chips’, and chose the chips. Sometimes I think it could be revived for unfortunates around the island’s answer to an Alabama trailer park, except in their case it would be ‘Jesus or Heroin?’
Seriously, have you SEEN Port St. Mary since Living Hell (‘Living Hope Community Church’, to give them the current trading name) set up shop and anyone who could spell their own name tried to sell up and move out?
Which brings me to this week’s Manx Indifferent and an article under South News about a ‘community choir’ being formed to have fun and raise cash for charity in the process. Given that Living Hell are involved any sane person will disregard such myths as the ones about choir members choosing the music or the charity. Forget it, that money has a US bank account's name on it already, however many 'religious charities' it has to pass through to get there.
But a more serious word of warning – especially if you have a daughter who is slightly under the age of consent but could (especially in dim lighting) pass as older. In the near future your daughter may start to receive texts ‘inviting’ her to join the choir. These could become persistent, and will emanate from adults who have obtained the number via Education Department staff, though neither the Education Department staff nor the persistent pests they passed it to obtained it by legitimate means.
If this happens, also be aware of several other things.
Firstly, this has happened before, and even though one culprit was identified and an official complaint made to the school it was not investigated. The culprit continues to roam schools preying on under-age girls under the pretence of ‘mentoring’ and the Education Department staff member who illegally obtained the child’s mobile number and passed it to him was never reprimanded, or even questioned.
Secondly, as long ago as 1999, other individuals involved in the project helped cover the tracks of a Ramsey evangelist, also with an unhealthy interest in girls in their mid-teens. Though he was eventually charged over one incident of many alleged to have taken place in Ramsey, Douglas, Peel and Port St. Mary it was only due to the persistence of a family who later left the island to avoid the backlash. Other incidents were simply never investigated, due to the collective refusal of the church venues involved to cooperate and the lack of will on the part of appropriate government staff to make them (including, to my certain knowledge, at least one church elder).
Should a young relative be pestered as the result of the current project, my advice would be report it to the school and the Education Department, but before either of those to the police. Mud sticks eventually, and while evangelicals hold key positions in the Education Department and Police Consultative Forum thankfully they no longer do so in the police force itself.