Mariella Blackman, who is married to pastor Gordon Manché, has filed a libel case against the editor of  The Sunday Times after the paper published a story in which a gay man declared that Blackman had tried to cure him from his sexual orientation.

Blackman, who is a psychologist, denied this accusation or that she had described gay people as “disgusting”.

She said that these were absurd allegations which were intended to hurt her husband who runs a religious group called ‘River of Love’ and whose opinion of gays is well-known to the public.