Vicar flashed naked woman to congregation during sermon
Church issues apology after vicar flashed a naked woman to the congregation during Power Point sermon.
Vicar Daniel Watts was conducting the presentation at St Mark's Church, Harrogate, North Yorks, on Sunday evening when the pornographic image flashed up on the screen.The 'page 3' style image caused panic in the room with Rev Watts, a married father of two, hurried tried to remove it from view.
Now St Marks's has said sorry for the incident, which happened in the middle of the 'In The Mix Sunday Session' which from 5pm to 6pm, was billed as a 'café style teaching and discussion for adults and children.'
St Mark's claims the 'inappropriate' image was shown during a Power Point presentation to 50 adult members at the weekend and put it down to a 'technical glitch'.
The presentation was being delivered in a meeting room by overall group leader, the Rev Watts, as part of a separate teaching section .
Mr Watts - a self-proclaimed 'Only Fool and Horses' fanatic - is associate minister for young people at St Mark's.
The church said no children were present, and few people had noticed the error.
A statement read: "A separate teaching section was being held for about 50 adult members of the 5 o'clock service at St Mark's church last Sunday in a meeting room and a Power Point presentation was shown.
"It appears that a technical glitch accidentally caused an inappropriate image from the internet to appear momentarily on the screen, of a 'Page 3' type.
"This was clearly not intended but was so fleeting it was not spotted by the leader of the teaching session and very few people seem to be have been aware of it.
"No-one made any comment or complaint at the time or after the service, but if anyone was offended we of course would like to apologise for this unfortunate occurrence."
But an anonymous and concerned parishioner present at the meeting claiming the appearance of the image caused 'panic' in the room.
They said: "The vicar doing the service was doing an overhead projection for part of his service.
"He must have been using an iPad or something similar. One of the icons showed a pornographic picture.
"It appeared to show a naked lady. A lot of people noticed it and were quite shocked.
"There was a bit of panic, he was clearly trying to get it down.
"It was just so inappropriate, there were young children about."
The church website explains Rev Watts was born in Dorking, Surrey, and grew up in a tiny village near Gatwick. After working as a church-based Youth and Children's worker for 10 years in Surrey and Kent, he spent 2 years at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, before he was ordained in 2006.
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