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A married preacher who banned a gay couple from sharing a room at his B&B bombarded a domestic abuse victim with saucy texts after she turned to him for help.

Obsessed Mike Wilkinson, 58, made passes at Sacha Williams-Rowe when she sought comfort at his church after being stabbed by her ex-boyfriend.

The father-of-four yesterday admitted his infatuation with the vulnerable single mum, saying: “I developed feelings I shouldn’t have. I got too close.”

Wilkinson showered Sacha, 32, with gifts, including a pink Bible, a watch and silver chain and cross. He also paid off nearly £2,000 in rent arrears but begged Sacha to hide it from his wife.

He sent her hundreds of texts, saying he wanted to give her the “biggest, longest, warmest most exciting hug ever and kisses everywhere you allow”.

And he told her: “I love you sooo much. I couldn’t sleep properly. Kept thinking of you and squeezing my pillow.”

The Sunday Mirror is publishing the details of Wilkinson’s behaviour in a bid to expose his hypocrisy. The church leader and his religious wife, Susanne, sparked ­national outrage in 2010 when they told Michael Black, 64, and his partner John Morgan, 59, they could not stay in the same bed at the £75-a-night Swiss Bed and Breakfast in Cookham, Berkshire.

sins

They were ordered by the High Court last October to pay £3,600 to the unmarried couple in compensation. Backed by church groups, Wilkinson slammed the ruling, saying: “For us, sex when you’re unmarried is a sin before God.”

But speaking today for the first time about Wilkinson’s obsession, Sacha told how he had betrayed his Christian values, allegedly trying to hold her, kiss her while they prayed for her children, fondle her breasts and even try to kiss her in the paint aisle of B&Q.

Sacha was hoping for support after the release of her ex Lloyd Lothian, 37, who stabbed her in 2010 with a kitchen knife in front of their children. The attack left her close to death in a coma.

(Image: SOLO Syndication)

The terrified mum wandered into Wilkinson’s non-denominational Marlow Christian Fellowship Community Church, while waiting for her son to finish football training last September.

Sacha said: “I was in a really bad place and it was nice to be around nice people. Mike said he wanted to help me. He invited me to his house with his wife for Sunday lunch. Then he said he wanted to come to my house. I said yes because I didn’t feel threatened. I’d met his wife, he was the church leader.”

In February, evil Lothian broke his restraining order and turned up at Sacha’s new home to terrorise her. She managed to flee and Wilkinson again offered his support. Sacha said he helped her decorate the house and fit tighter security measures. But then he began to take things further.

He sent her daily texts and started turning up unannounced at her home. He wrote to her: “I have a raging battle inside of me. I find you soooo attractive and think of you non stop.”

He would lace his texts with religious verse, including: “O Happy Day when Jesus washed my sins away!” She said she accepted his ­“miracle” offer to pay her rent arrears because she needed a house, but added: “Mike said ‘I need to know one thing, that this will be yours and mine secret. My wife must not know’.” Days later Wilkinson’s hidden desires finally consumed him.

Sacha – who revealed her domestic violence hell to the Sunday Mirror in June – said: “We were at my mum’s house and everyone had gone to bed. When he was going he said ‘let me pray for you’ and put his forehead on mine. He was holding my hands and then he opened his eyes and leaned over and kissed me. He then said, ‘I’m so sorry’ and scurried off down the corridor. The next day he said, ‘I’m really sorry, it was a mistake’.”

Wilkinson soon became obsessed with Sacha and left her feeling uncomfortable in her own home. He began texting at all hours of the day, pleading with her to meet him. Signing his texts with multiple kisses, he would repeatedly send the same message, saying: “I love you Sacha.”

He even drove for miles to have Sacha treat a cut on his nose after he fell.

Sacha said: “He put £50 on the gas card when I was ill. I didn’t ask him to do it and had actually given him my own card. He gave me a hug and started kissing me for 30 seconds and I froze thinking that this shouldn’t be happening. His wife is such a lovely lady. Then he touched my breast. I pushed him off.

“He also kissed me in B&Q in Slough down the paint aisle. But I said to him: ‘What are you doing?’”

(Image: Philip Coburn)

Troubled by his urges, Wilkinson frequently apologised for his advances and jealous feelings when Sacha was with other people. He wrote: “I can always dream of you. I have to learn to be a bit more patient cos so many things and people have come between us in the last week. I’ve found it hard but know that’s how it is. Love you.”

Eventually, Sacha found the strength to make a complaint to the church’s family liaison officer but feared it was brushed under the carpet to avoid an embarrassing scandal.

She said: “I told them and they made a report. I’ve not picked up the Bible since.”

She added: “I had to stop going to church in the end as Mike does these sermons about sins being washed away if you follow God and I’m sat there looking at him in a different way because of what he was doing to me.

“I thought ‘you’ve got a wife and kids. You’re ­pretending to be two people’. In church he’s one ­person and behind closed doors he’s another.” Sacha, who has a facial skin condition due to anxiety attacks, said she had ignored Wilkinson since last seeing him two months ago and on one occasion had even resorted to hiding upstairs and refusing to answer the door when he came round.

She said: “I just feel that when he’s going to the High Court and saying that marriage should stand for more and there’s the quote in the Bible saying that if you look at another woman then it’s adultery, then he tries this with me.

“You can’t preach one thing and be doing something else.”

After the B&B ruling in October, Wilkinson’s wife said: “A person should be free to act upon their sincere beliefs about marriage under their own roof without living in fear of the law.

“People’s beliefs about marriage are coming under increasing attack and I am concerned about people’s freedom to speak and act upon these beliefs.

“I am a Christian, not just on a Sunday in church, but in every area of my life – as Jesus expects from his followers.”

She is appealing the decision at the Supreme Court on October 9.

In May, preacher Wilkinson, who quit as a financial director in the City to devote all his time to God eight years ago, eventually confessed to his wife that he had grown too close to Sacha.

And he claimed: “I sat Sacha down to talk with her about that. I made it clear this was not something that I was comfortable with. She wasn’t the only person I was helping at the time.

“I was very stressed. My judgment wasn’t as good as it could have been. But I tried to help her.”

He went on: “I would hug her, and did pretty often. That was the level of affection. I might have kissed her, but nothing sustained.

“She was like a close friend, a very close friend. I did this for her and for her children and I think I got too close to her. But she is exaggerating. I’m not proud of some of it.”

He admitted he had considered stepping down but a spokesman for his church, in Marlow, Bucks, yesterday said it had carried out a probe and “decided that he could remain in his role after an extended period of absence”.

The spokesman, David Randall, added: “We took the allegations very seriously, investigating them in line with how the Bible says to treat such matters. We undertook to review how this kind of support to the community is provided in the future.

“The outcome of internal investigations is confidential in fairness to all concerned.”