Democrat reporter
A church pastor is facing a lengthy jail sentence after being convicted of rape and child abuse.
The Rev James Haram, who had been with the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing), was found guilty of 19 charges of physical and sexual abuse, including raping a woman and beating children.
His crimes took place between 1997 and 2020 at addresses in Glasgow, Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire and in South Ayrshire.
The 51-year-old was remanded in custody at the High Court in Glasgow and will be sentenced next month.
The jury heard Haram raped, attacked and verbally abused the woman.
This included suggesting she should kill herself.
He also tracked her movements and forced her to take part in religious activities.
The victim recalled her “whole body going limp” while being choked by Haram.
Jurors heard the pastor would pressure her into sex while making biblical references.
The victim said she was told that she had to “subject” herself to him and recalled how she would sob as a result of the encounters.
The court also heard he once mowed over flowers she had taken time to grow.
Haram admitted only to “occasional flare-ups of aggression” and claimed every sexual encounter was consensual.
‘Modesty checks’ on children
The court also heard evidence of Haram’s child abuse, with one girl recalling how she was regularly beaten by the pastor.
He also hit children with a wooden spoon or a rod and carried out “modesty checks” on girls to see what they were wearing.
Jurors heard he flew into a rage while in a car with two of the children and claimed that he would deliberately crash the vehicle, killing them all.
Haram told the trial: “They knew I did not mean it.”
Judge Tom Hughes told Haram: “It appears that [what happened] was truly awful – incidents of violence, aggression, all sorts of difficulties and the sexual offending which took place.
“During that period, you appeared to be living a life whereby you were acting in an official capacity as a man of the cloth.
“You have now been convicted of extremely serious offences which will obviously carry a lengthy custodial sentence.”
Haram who had been on bail, was remanded in custody.
- The Free Church of Scotland is a Presbyterian Church adhering in its worship and doctrine to the position adopted by the Church of Scotland at the Reformation. Its divergence from the body known as the Church of Scotland dates from the Disruption of 1843 when, under the leadership of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, the Evangelical Party in the Church of Scotland as by Law Established, withdrew from the Establishment to form the Church of Scotland, Free.
The immediate cause of the Disruption was the insistence by the civil courts that the Established Church had to ordain men to the parish ministry irrespective of their acceptability to the parishioners. The Evangelical Party regarded this as an intolerable interference in the spiritual liberties of the church and so they withdrew from the Established Church to form the Free Church. Editor