The barrister conducting an independent review over the allegations against a Watford pastor has urged more people to come forward.

Fiona Scolding was appointed by the trustees of Soul Survivor Watford, Soul Survivor, and Soul61 to produce a publicly available report on lessons that can be learnt about the organisation’s culture, practice, governance, oversight, and safeguarding arrangements.

The review began in November and yesterday (February 14) the KC shared a message urging more people with information to allow their experiences to be included.

Fiona Scolding said: “We recognise the trauma and difficulty that many of those contributing to the NST investigation may have faced when sharing their experiences.

“We do not want to cause you further upset and distress by meeting with you again (unless you wish to).

“However, we are unable to reflect your experiences in our report unless you give the NST consent to share them with us.”

Anyone who wishes to give their consent but has not already done so is asked to contact soulsurvivor@landmarkchambers.co.uk by March 15.

Those who did not come forward for the Church of England investigation, but would like to contact the independent review, are also invited to get in touch in the same way.

The internal church probe into Mike Pilavachi, former pastor at and founder of the Greycaine Road church Soul Survivor Watford, concluded in September and found concerns around allegations of abuse of power relating to his ministry, and spiritual abuse, over a 30-year period “substantiated”.

It described a “form of emotional and psychological abuse characterised by a systematic pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour in a religious context”.

The review’s terms of reference state: “The reviewers will consider the extent to which the conduct specified in these allegations was, whether tacitly or explicitly, enabled, condoned or exacerbated by the past and present culture and practices of Soul Survivor and/or deficiencies in the governance, policies, practices, arrangements and oversight by the Trustees of Soul Survivor, others in leadership positions within Soul Survivor, and those who had oversight of Soul Survivor in respect of their governance.”