When a church takes control of your life

Hope City Church in Liverpool appeared to be an exciting blaze of bright lights, smoke machines and trendy pastors. But the truth was very different

Dear members — today’s story is about religion, coercion and trauma. In 2014, Richard Turner got a new job working for a charity in Liverpool helping the victims of human trafficking. It was attached to a church with a trendy pastor who wore white trainers and filled his sermons with jokes. Over the course of three years, Richard gradually found aspects of his life were being controlled.

But first, Steve Rotheram makes the next step towards delivering a London-style bus network, and our sources tell us about discontent ahead of a council meeting…