Story By: Simon Glover, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

Video Credit: CEN/@Daai_Man_Nzwaki

This is the moment a female church leader dubbed ‘The Angel’ is caught on camera brutally beating a young woman with a length of pipe for drinking alcohol.

The video, filmed by an eyewitness with a smartphone at the Endumisweni Faith Mission Church in the township of Mdantsane in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, sparked outrage after it was shared on social media.

The footage that was shared only slowed down leaving the woman’s cries distorted shows a woman repeatedly hitting her victim about 20 times as she lies on her bed, screaming in pain and apologising as she tries to ward off the blows.

Picture Credits: CEN

Local media reports the young woman’s crime was to post photographs of herself with friends on social media after they had enjoyed an evening out together.

The woman administering the punishment can be heard admonishing her victim, whose name has not been released, for drinking alcohol as she beats her and as onlookers cheer her on.

Twitter user ‘SpitchNzawumbi’ named the woman as Tsidi Spampool, a leading figure in the church at Mdantsane.

‘SpitchNzawumbi’ said: “She is notorious… Members of the church allegedly refer to her as ‘The Angel’, whatever she says, goes.”

Another leader of the church, Asivo Nosenga, later defended its right to beat “unruly children”.

But many people who saw the video on social media were appalled at the incident.

One unnamed user said: “Shouldn’t she be praying for them instead?… The brutality of it…”