Bishop told congregation they’d ‘drop dead’ from Covid if they didn’t buy his £91 protection kits
A preacher who sold bogus £91 kits to ward off coronavirus warned his flock they could die if they didn’t buy them, a court has heard.
Bishop Climate Wiseman, 47, who preaches at the Kingdom Church in Camberwell, South London, claimed the kits could cure Covid-19 sufferers and prevent people contracting the illness.
The faith healer has gone on trial accused of one count of fraud and two counts of engaging in unfair commercial practice over the year between 23 March 2020 and 24 March 2021.
He claimed his mixture, made from cedarwood, hyssop oil and olive oil, had cured at least 10 people who had the virus and that investigators probing him were “the antichrist”.
Jurors were told the faithful could purchase kits through the bishopclimateblog.com, prophet-climate.com, and prophetclimate.net by signing a Prayer Agreement Form.
They could also use the form to make donations without buying the kits.
Bishop Wiseman said in a blog that by using the mixture, which had sat upon the altar for seven days next to a scarlet yarn, the ingredients would “act like an invisible barrier” and that “coronavirus and any other deadly thing” would pass over the user, prosecutors said.
Inner London Crown Court heard the kits were considerably more expensive than other items he was selling, and that his sales pitches were all motivated by money.
In an instructional video, he said people with the bug should put their head under a towel over which some boiling water imbued with the oil.
He claimed his concoction kills the virus because it “can’t stand the power of the oil” and said after inhalation Covid is coughed out of the body and “just dies.”
He urged faithful viewers not to do nothing and buy the kits as soon as possible or they “may end up dropping dead.”
Testimonial videos claimed a woman with no sense of taste and high temperature felt “much better” after drinking some of it, and that a family had been cleared of “any symptoms of coronavirus” which had “completely disappeared.”
He also said on his website that a woman who was so ill she called paramedics was cured after a friend gave her the oil and that a nurse in Yorkshire had recovered three days after taking it.
Trading standards from Southwark Council were first made aware of the so-called cure on 24 March 2020, the first full day of the first lockdown, which was being advertised on his bishopclimateblog.com.
On 31 March they contacted the Bishop and asked him to remove any mention of the supposed coronavirus-curing powers of the kits.
Some claims were removed but he still claimed the kits offered “divine protection during the coronavirus plague”.
His church was also being investigated by the Charity Commission, which was investigating the Kingdom Church GB, a charity which Bishop Wiseman and his wife were trustees of until summer 2020.
It was aware that the oil was being sold as a coronavirus cure through a website linked to the charity, and Bishop Wiseman was asked to ensure that all links between the charity and Bishop Climate Ministries were severed immediately.
He said they were not sold through the Kingdom Church and that neither he nor the church claimed to cure the virus.
