{"id":26740,"date":"2026-04-14T21:18:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T21:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=26740"},"modified":"2026-04-14T21:18:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T21:18:59","slug":"pastor-charged-after-man-dies-during-paddling-pool-baptism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=26740","title":{"rendered":"Pastor charged after man dies during paddling pool baptism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                            <span class=\"credit\">\u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Cheryl Bartley, 48, the pastor of Life Changing Ministries has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter following the death of a man during a baptism.<\/p>\n<p>Robert Smith, 61, died in Birmingham during the baptism ceremony, which was taking place in a paddling pool a back garden. The incident occurred on 8 October 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, who came from Jamaica, was pronounced dead at the scene by the emergency services.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The event was being live-streamed on Facebook, but the broadcast was terminated and the video subsequently removed.<\/p>\n<p>Bartley is due to appear at Birmingham Magistrates\u2019 Court on 14 May. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said she had been charged in relation to her role as a pastor during the baptism.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Malcolm McHaffie, head of the CPS&#8217;s special crime division, said,\u00a0&#8220;We remind all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are active and that she has the right to a fair trial.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is vital that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock) Cheryl Bartley, 48, the pastor of Life Changing Ministries has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter following the death of a man during a baptism. Robert Smith, 61, died in Birmingham during the baptism ceremony, which was taking place in a paddling pool a back garden. The incident occurred on 8 October 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[641,1695,1174,685,8907,983,8908],"class_list":{"0":"post-26740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-baptism","9":"tag-charged","10":"tag-dies","11":"tag-man","12":"tag-paddling","13":"tag-pastor","14":"tag-pool"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}