From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manvine Rana.

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Nine o'clock Service at Fonsford.

At its height, back in the 1980s, the Nine o'clock Service was seen as the most exciting new movement in the Church of England,

drawing in crowds of young people to a rave in a church.

And there'd be a music, an ambient music beat going on.

And everybody was talking and some people were dancing and some people were just chatting

to each other and there was a real buzz whenever you walked in and then the service would start

and it was it was exciting and it was fun and we felt as if god was there.

The nine o'clock service, which began in Sheffield, was seen by many, including the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, as a model that should be replicated in every city.

But for some in the movement, it was becoming something much darker.

It was basically a Church of England approved sex cult.

Everything was about sex.

The images, the dress code, the black bikinis, the sermons.

Now, 30 years after the 9 o'clock service collapsed, the man who founded and ran the movement,

an ordained priest, has been found guilty of 17 counts of indecent assault. He was cleared of another 15

charges and the jury was discharged after failing to reach verdicts on five further counts,

including one of rape. What was happening inside the cult-like 9 o'clock service?

Why was its charismatic leader never held accountable by the church?

And what does it mean for the already beleaguered Church of England,

mired by scandal and blamed for mishandling cases of historical sexual abuse?

No. for mishandling cases of historical sexual abuse. The story today, abuse inside the C of C of E's rave church.

I am Sean O'Neill and I'm a senior writer at the Times.

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