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Methodist minister guilty of perverting course of justice
A METHODIST minister, described by one of her own stewards as a 'disciple of the devil', sent faeces and a dead hedgehog to herself in an attempt to win the support and sympathy of her congregation and because she loved to be the centre of attention.
The Rev Janet Magee (62), of St James Road in Brigg, who denied the offence, was convicted by a majority 11-1 verdict of perverting the course of justice after a six day trial at Grimsby Crown Court.
After circuit stewards voted in 2004 against her re-election as minister for Brigg and Barton, Magee and other members of the Methodist congregation in the area, began receiving anonymous computer printed hate-mail letters for about a year.
She successfully appealed direct to the congregations to turn down the stewards’ decision and for her re-election.
In December 2006, the hate mail started up again – this time with letters cut out from the Daily Mail newspaper – and Magee also complained to police she received a number of anonymous, usually silent, telephone calls, many in the early hours of the morning.
Amongst other things, she was accused of ‘showing her underwear in the House of God’ during a play in which she performed.
As a result of her complaints, one of the circuit stewards, who had been vehemently opposed to her re-election, and was said to have described her as a ‘disciple of the devil’, was arrested on suspicion of conducting the hate-mail campaign, but was subsequently completely exonerated.
Although initially treated as a victim, police came during 2007 to consider she might be responsible, particularly after she said the faeces had been posted through her letter box, but a covert cctv camera placed by police that she was unaware of, revealed no-one had gone to the door during the time.
After she was arrested, cut-out letters identical to those used in the hate mail, were found in an envelope amongst catalogues in her bedroom.
Investigations also showed the silent calls to her home were from a mobile phone of the type Magee had taken from a bag full which had been donated by church members as part of the campaign by the National Children’s Homes for recycled mobiles.
Magee admitted in court she had lied to the police about a dead hedgehog she said had been left on her back doorstep with a note saying ‘Dead like you’ll be soon’, and in fact it had been left inside her front door and she had moved it.
Magee has been sentenced to six months imprisonment suspended for a year and given a one year supervision order.
THROUGHOUT the trial, including the two and a half hours she was on the witness stand, Magee denied taking any part in the hate mail campaign.
She said she was ‘surprised’ at the opposition to her from the local church stewards at the time of her re-election in 2004 and thought it was because of her dislike of meetings and the church hierarchy.
This is how she explained the evidence against her.
• The cut-out letters found in an envelope in her bedroom and which matched those on the hate mail letters.
Magee said she decided to see how long it took to compile a letter made up of words and letters cut from a newspaper
“I thought it must take hours to make one of those messages,” she told the court, “so I sat in bed one night and cut some letters out. I think it said ‘Get out you stupid cow. Go now’.
“I cut the letters out and then destroyed them. I didn’t stick them on,” she said.
When cut-out letters were found in an envelope by police after her arrest, she said the catalogues amongst which they were found had been in the kitchen before she took them up to her bedroom and she believed the person responsible for the hate mail had put them there by coming through the back door, which was left open all day for her cat and dog to go in and out.
She said she did not believe the letters found were the ones she had cut out.
• The faeces inside the front door when no one was recorded on the covert cctv camera watching her front door.
“I believe it was placed there during the day as I was in bed with a migraine,” she told the court.
She said the only explanation she had why it was not picked up on the camera was that the person responsible had gone into the back garden, had walked in through the back door, through the house and put the faeces on the mat inside the front door where she found it under the post the next day.
She could not explain why that person did not leave it in the kitchen and how he got past her dog without him barking, even though he was said to have been inclined to ‘nip first’.
• The phone calls which seemed to have been made from a mobile in her possession.
Magee took several mobile phones which had been donated by church members for recycling to benefit the National Children’s Homes, although only two of them worked, and kept them in her bedroom.
She said she rang her home number from them during the night as she wanted to ask BT if the number was the same as the number which had been ringing her as she assumed the person responsible must be a church member.
On only a single occasion, she said, did her main telephone display panel show the number of the phone which had rung her in the middle of the night and she had passed this number on to the police. However, this number was the number of one of the mobiles and she wrote the number down with four of the numbers transposed.
She alleged she had received silent calls when two female members of her congregation were in the house in the middle of the night and so could not have made them herself, but prosecutor Simon Waley suggested she could easily have made them herself by pressing just one button while the phone was in her pocket.
• Why she lied to the police about where she found the dead hedgehog.
Magee told police she found the dead hedgehog in a plastic bag attached to the outside of her back door handle at about 6.30am on September 23 and that it fell onto the ground when she turned the handle from the inside. She told police she had not moved it and even said in her statement to them how angry she was that someone had been around the back of her house. She even photographed it herself at the back door.
However, when she gave evidence, she said she had actually found it in the same place as the faeces inside her front door and had moved it to the back door, although she denied doing this to embellish her story for the police.
“I didn’t need to tell you this. I could have just kept quiet,” she said under cross examination. “I have apologised for not telling the truth.”
Again, she said the person responsible must have walked through the house, or she had left the front door unlocked all night.
JANET MAGEE was born in the West Country with the name Hazel Ann, but was given the name Janet when she was adopted at just three months old.
She was married at aged 22 to Wesley Magee and remains married to him, although they now live ‘separate lives’. She said they still ‘spent their days off together’.
She was said to have children and grandchildren.
She trained as a teacher and was a teacher of 7 to 11 year olds on and off for 15 years, specialising in craft, drama and music.
She decided to enter the church and was ordained in 1994 after two years at theological college and then serving a two year probationary period.
From 1992 to 2000 she was minister at Thornton Dale near Pickering in North Yorkshire, and in 2000 moved to the position at Brigg, from which she was suspended following her arrest in September last year.
A succession of character witnesses bore testament to her devotion to and hard work for her congregation, who she referred to several times as ‘my people’. She was described by one as ‘inspirational’ and others said she was ‘different’ and ‘very informal’. It was said she had no time for meetings or the church hierarchy so it was little wonder she turned down the position of Superintendent Minister when it was offered to her in 2005.
As a result of this conviction she will lose not just her position but also the church house in which she lives.
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Sunday 05 February 2012
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