August 2007 Pervert preacher is sent to prison A JUDGE has launched a stinging verbal attack on a lay preacher who sexually abused a teenage boy at his church. Sentencing Eddie Harrison to three-and-a-half years in prison, Judge Roger Hetherington said he had ’embarked on an insidious process of manipulation’. Judge Hetherington described Harrison’s behaviour as ‘an abuse of trust on a major scale’ and said Harrison had displayed ‘quite breathtaking arrogance and hypocrisy’ when giving evidence. He added: ‘You denigrated the boy for his perceived inadequacies, whether relating to his weight or his application to school work, while at the same time puffing yourself up as a man of stature, experience and expertise. ‘When he was 17, on a pretext of helping him, you got him to submit to things done for your own sexual gratification, but which masqueraded as sessions of therapy conducted by you at your own address ‘You gave him all sorts of ludicrous explanations for what you were doing.’ During Harrison’s trial at Portsmouth Crown Court the jury heard how the preacher, who worked with the St James Church in Clanfield, gained the trust of the boy. The 62-year-old pervert told the youngster he was a psychologist with the SAS, had enjoyed an audience with the Pope, and was the youngest ever magistrate in the country. When the boy was 16, Harrison invited him to his offices in London Road, Waterlooville, where he took a video of the naked boy performing a sex act. Harrison then threatened to distribute the video if the boy did not get good enough grades in his GCSEs. When the victim was 17 he often went to Harrison’s offices for bogus therapy sessions. Harrison would give the boy a massage using baby oil. And as the sessions went on Harrison asked him to wear less and less clothing until the teenager wore no clothes at all. He also gave him Bacardi Breezers to drink. On one occasion the boy woke up to find Harrison indecently assaulting him. Harrison of London Road, Waterlooville, was found guilty of one count of indecent assault and three counts of distributing indecent images of children. He had denied the charges.