By Kelley Valencia\/Europe Corrrespondent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A pastor has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter after a man died during a paddling pool baptism in Birmingham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Robert Smith, 61, from Brixton, was pronounced dead at the scene after emergency services were called to the ceremony in October 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed pastor Cheryl Bartley, of Life Changing Ministries, faces one count of manslaughter in connection with the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malcolm McHaffie, head of the CPS’s special crime division, said they had worked closely with West Midlands Police as it carried out an investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring this case to court and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings.
\u201cWe have worked closely with West Midlands Police as it has carried out its investigation.
\u201cWe remind all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are active and that she has the right to a fair trial.
\u201cIt is vital that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.\u201d
Ms Bartley will appear at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, 14 May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Kelley Valencia\/Europe Corrrespondent. A pastor has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter after a man died during a paddling pool baptism in Birmingham. Robert Smith, 61, from Brixton, was pronounced dead at the scene after emergency services were called to the ceremony in October 2023. The Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed pastor Cheryl Bartley,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[703,1006,643],"coauthors":[364],"class_list":{"0":"post-11899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-faith","8":"tag-baptism","9":"tag-death","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11901,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11899\/revisions\/11901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11899"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}