Sheffield vicar beat woman for nearly a decade, jury finds

The jury at Hull crown court was tasked with deciding whether Alflatt committed the offences rather than delivering verdicts. Photograph: Mark Harvey/Alamy

A retired vicar accused of sadism repeatedly beat a woman with a bamboo stick for nearly a decade, a crown court jury has found.

Hilary Alflatt, 87, had been accused of treating his victim like a slave and forcing her to take a vow of obedience when he worked at a church in Sheffield during the 1980s. He was said to have punished her for looking him in the eye, making her prostrate herself before him, kiss his feet and call him “master”’