Campaigners are urging for Helen Ukpabio, known as 'Lady Apostle', to be deported and banned from returning to the UK on the grounds her preaches are harmful to the public
A Nigerian ‘witch-hunter’ who claims any child who cries is a ‘servant of Satan’ could be banned from the UK following calls to British Home Secretary Theresa May that she is a risk to youngsters.
Campaigners are urging for Helen Ukpabio, known as ‘Lady Apostle’, to be deported and banned from returning to the UK on the grounds her preaches are harmful to the public. The born-again Christian Pentecostal preacher, who founded the controversial African Evangelical franchise Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries in Nigeria, is thought to currently be in the UK.
It understood she flew into London where she has been holding a number of church services to promote her belief in witchcraft and offer help to those ‘under threat’ from the wizardry.
Ms Ukpabio was one of a number of preachers who regularly travelled to the UK
A poster advertising one of Ms Ukpabio’s most recent talks – which was cancelled after the venue was leaked online – claims to offer help to people who are under ‘witchcraft attack, ancestral spirit attack or mermaid spirit attack’ and claims to help ‘disconnect' them. However, campaigners have warned her controversial views are dangerous to children – including the belief that ‘if a child under the age of two screams in the night, cries and is always feverish with deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan’.
The Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network (WHRIN), the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales and the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) have now written to the Home Secretary in an attempt to get Ms Ukpabio deported under the Immigration Act 1971 - on the grounds her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good.
Campaigners have written to Home Secretary Theresa May in an attempt to get the preacher deported under the Immigration Act 1971 - on the grounds her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good
In a letter to Ms May, the campaigners warn: ‘Whilst the Government has moved swiftly to block entry to the UK for Islamic preachers whose presence is considered as harmful to the public good, there have been no cases of Christian pastors facing such measures.’
The groups are hoping the pastor will be banned from returning to the UK once she has completed her final tour. Gary Foxcroft, of the WHRIN said Ms Ukpabio was one of a number of preachers who regularly travelled to the UK.
He told the Independent: ‘The fundamental problem is that churches need to be regulated. Anyone can set up a church tomorrow in their own garden shed with no commitment to child protection or making their accounts transparent or any theological training.’
Bob Churchill, of the IHEU, also told the newspaper: ‘It is important that the UK authorities send a message to the world that branding children, or anyone, as a witch is beyond the pale.’
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