Walter Masocha was found guilty at the High Court in Livingston on Wednesday, 2 July, 2025, of a number of sexual offences, including attempted rape, committed against two women between January 2006 and July 2012. He was sentenced at the same court on Monday, 28 July.
Detective Sergeant David Brown said: “Masocha’s abhorrent actions have caused lasting harm, and he will now be held to account for them in prison.
“We hope this sentencing provides the women affected with some sense of closure and helps them in moving forward with their lives.
“I would encourage anyone who has experienced sexual abuse to report it. Every report is taken seriously and will be fully investigated, and support will be provided by our specially trained officers and partner agencies.”
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Convicted Pastor Walter Masocha Files Appeal Against 14-Year Sentence
27 April 2026
Convicted sex offender Pastor Walter Masocha has formally lodged an appeal against his 14-year prison sentence, setting the stage for a renewed legal process in June 2026.
Masocha, who is currently serving his sentence following conviction in Scotland, is expected to appear in court next month for the first hearing of his appeal against sentence. The challenge is understood to focus on the severity of the punishment rather than the conviction itself.
Sources close to the development say the church leader — widely known among followers as “Daddy” — is seeking to have the court reconsider what he claims is an excessively harsh custodial term exceeding a decade.
The case continues to draw attention across both the United Kingdom and Zimbabwean diaspora communities, given Masocha’s former influence through Agape for All Nations Ministries and the serious nature of the offences that led to his conviction
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Pastor Masocha’s sex convictions quashed by appeal judges
9 February 2016
Walter Masocha was known by church members as “The Prophet”, “The Apostle” and “Man of God”
A church pastor who was convicted of sex abuse was a victim of a miscarriage of justice, appeal judges have ruled.
Scotland’s senior judge, the Lord Justice General, Lord Carloway, said convictions against Walter Masocha would be quashed.
Masocha, 52, had earlier been told to carry out 250 hours unpaid work for sexually assaulting his parishioners.
The Crown said there had been alleged misdirection at his trial on a point over prior inconsistent statements.
When former university lecturer Masocha was sentenced at Falkirk Sheriff Court in June 2015, Sheriff Kenneth McGowan said he had suffered a “spectacular fall from grace”.
Masocha had denied sexually assaulting a woman at the Church of Agape and engaging in sexual activity towards a schoolgirl at its base at Sauchieburn, Stirling.
He was accused of touching and kissing them and putting his hands on the buttocks of one and pinching them.
Church leader Masocha had his own office at the premises to which access was restricted.
During his trial one woman was cross-examined over emails she had sent which included statements such as: “You did nothing wrong to me” and “My Hero, my mentor, my rock.”
The attacks took place at Coseyneuk House, Masocha’s mansion near Stirling
Following the case, lawyers acting for the founder and spiritual leader of the church lodged a legal challenge against his conviction.
John Scullion QC argued before Lord Carloway, sitting with Lady Paton and Lord Drummond Young, at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that a miscarriage of justice had occurred.
Five grounds of appeal were put forward on behalf of Masocha, principally focusing on alleged misdirection of the jury at his trial by the sheriff, but several were rejected.
Lord Carloway said that on one of the grounds the Crown accepted that there was a misdirection by a failure to direct on a point over prior inconsistent statements.
The senior judge said they were satisfied that a miscarriage of justice had occurred.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-35533835
Stirling Agape Church ‘Prophet’ guilty of sex attacks
27 April 2015
Walter Masocha was known by church members as “The Prophet”, “The Apostle” and “Man of God”
A church leader who called himself “The Prophet” has been convicted of molesting members of his own flock.
Walter Masocha, founder and Archbishop of the Stirling-based Agape for All Nations Church, was found guilty of sexual assault following a trial.
The 51-year-old was convicted of putting his hand down a schoolgirl’s trousers, claiming he was driving away demons, and groping a deaconess while praying for her stomach complaint.
He will be sentenced on 19 May.
Both women were targeted at Masocha’s seven-bedroom mansion, Coseyneuk House, near Stirling, where the Zimbabwe-born churchman regularly received followers.
During a six-day trial at Falkirk Sheriff Court, the 15-year-old girl said many in the church regarded Masocha as their “spiritual father” and called him “Dad”.
She said that in late 2013, she had been in a games room at Coseyneuk House when the church leader had repeatedly “pinged” her underwear and grabbed and pinched her bottom.
When she later asked Masocha why he had done it, he told her that he had seen “demons and things that shouldn’t be there” in her pants, and that he was clearing them away.
‘Anointed hugs’
The deaconess, a 32-year-old mother-of-four, had visited Masocha’s office for prayer while suffering from a stomach complaint, when he started touching her private parts.
She said: “I was so shocked. At that time I saw him as somebody who could never do any wrong, because that was what he used to teach us. He used to teach us his hugs were anointed.”
When she told her husband, a devoted member of the church, he told her: “The Prophet is seeing something in your genitals that needs to be removed, so he was removing that.”
She left her husband and the church shortly after members had tried to have her sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
Paramedics who they summoned to a service she was attending in England declined to act, concluding that the call had been made as an “act of public humiliation”.
She called the church a “cult”, and said she had been “brainwashed”.
The Stirling-based church has more than 2,000 members worldwide
Masocha denied the allegations, with his defence claiming the deaconess was at the centre of a conspiracy to bring down the church because Masocha had postponed publication of a church magazine she had been working on.
The court heard that the church had grown in eight years from a meeting in Masocha’s living room to an international organisation, with more than 2,000 members in the UK, USA, Canada and Africa.
The Strathclyde University PhD graduate was known by members by titles including “The Prophet”, “The Apostle”, “Man of God”, and “High Commissioner”.
A jury took 30 minutes to return majority guilty verdicts on the charges of sexually assaulting the deaconess and sexually touching the teenager.
The church leader was earlier found not guilty of two other charges, including one of engaging in sexual behaviour with a 13-year-old girl who retracted her claims that she had been induced to massage his half-naked body with oils.
Sheriff Kenneth McGowan deferred sentence until 19 May for reports, including an assessment of the risk Masocha poses to other women and girls.
Masocha’s name was added to the sex offenders register.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-32487571