Inspire Church founder John McMartin accused of molesting teenage girl in his Pleasure Point home

Inspire Church leader John McMartin denies groping a 19-year-old girl in encounter at his Pleasure Point home while his wife was overseas.

John McMartin founded the Liverpool-based church with his wife in the 1980s. Picture: Supplied

A teenager allegedly molested by a TV evangelical pastor inside his south-west Sydney home has told a court the married man kissed her neck, sucked on her earlobes and rubbed his hand on her thighs, stomach and genitals during the nighttime encounter.

The woman, whose identity is suppressed by court order, was 19 when she claims Inspire Church senior pastor John Robert McMartin groped her one evening at his home in Pleasure Point, near Holsworthy, while his wife was overseas.

Now aged in her 20s, the woman reported the incident to police in 2020, leading detectives to charge McMartin with one count of committing an assault with an act of indecency.

McMartin, who founded the Liverpool-based church with his wife in the 1980s and led televised sermons until his arrest, pleaded not guilty to the charge and is facing a three-day hearing in Liverpool Local Court this week.

Details of how the woman came to be at the home cannot be made public, however the court heard McMartin invited the woman to sit next to him on the lounge before putting his arm around her shoulders.

Inspire Church senior pastor John Robert McMartin. Picture: Supplied

She told the court McMartin was an “affectionate” man and hugs were “very normal”.

However, she claimed McMartin then put his other arm around her lower waist and she began to feel uncomfortable.

She said she did not voice any objections because she didn’t want to make “assumptions” or be seen to “overthink things”.

The woman said McMartin started caressing her arm, before asking if she wanted a back massage.

She told the court McMartin had given her massages in the past — and she him.

She said she agreed to a massage and turned her back to McMartin but stopped him when he allegedly put his hands under her shirt onto her bare skin.

The woman told the court McMartin then grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back against his body, wrapping his arms around her waist and caressing her stomach over her clothes.

The court heard McMartin then put his hands under the woman’s clothing and touched her stomach, before touching her breasts over her shirt.

“He then started kissing my neck and earlobes,” she said.

“I moved my head and my neck away … he was kissing and sucking [on] my left side.”

McMartin allegedly asked the woman if she felt uncomfortable, and she replied “yes”.

However, she told the court McMartin then started caressing her collarbone and tried to put his hand down the front of her top.

She said she got up and went to the bathroom but when she returned to the couch, McMartin again gestured for her to sit next to him. She said she did, “because he told me to”.

The court heard McMartin started caressing her thigh and backside, then rubbed his hand down to her crotch area.

“I removed his hand from that area, I went to move from the couch … he grabbed my breast then squeezed it,” she said.

The court heard the woman left the house a short time later, but reported the alleged incident to another pastor at the church the following day.

She told police McMartin was “angry” when called her later that afternoon.

“He asked why I told [the other pastor] what happened the night before,” she said.

Under cross examination from McMartin’s barrister, Phillip Strickland SC, the woman admitted she had failed to mention the consensual massage to detectives when giving her police statement in 2020, nor had she references any alleged breast grab in a statement to the church about what she said had happened that night.

Earlier in the day, Mr Strickland told the court McMartin agreed he had given the woman a back massage that night and accepted that was “an entirely inappropriate thing to do”, according to church policy, but denied any touching of a sexual nature had occurred.

The hearing continues.