Shocking moment bishop tells choir 'get out of my house' in his dressing gown

A shocking video has captured the moment a bishop stopped a choir performance and told people to get out of his house.

Churchgoers at St Andrew's church in Holborn, central London, were left gobsmacked when Jonathan Baker, the Bishop of Fulham, stormed onto the stage. The City Academy Voices choir were wrapping up their performance when the bishop appeared with no shoes and a dressing gown on.

The lights abruptly went on as the crowd, made up of 360 people, looked on with confusion on Friday. Bishop Jonathan, 58, suddenly started to shout and branded the music a "racket". In a clip, which has since gone viral online, he said: "You are in my house. It's gone past 10pm and this is a terrible racket."

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He added: "Goodnight. You are in my house – can you leave it now please. Thank you, it's over." A church worker then asked everyone to leave the premises, which they referred to as a "residential home". The choir decided to sing a rendition of Abba's Dancing Queen, which saw the audience erupt into cheers.

Leigh Stanford Thompson, the choir's director, branded the incident "bizarre" and said he had mistaken the moment for some kind of "comedy act." He stated: "I’ve never experienced anything like it. A lot of people thought it was some weird thing that I had organised, like a parting thing, but I knew exactly what was happening."

Benedict Collins, who took his 10-year-old daughter to the concert, initially thought the outburst was a joke. He told Sky News: "The church willingly rents out the premises for performances, for money.They can hardly be surprised if they take bookings for concerts and there is music in the hall."

Another choir member commented: “There were boos and everything, it’s just really disappointing. At the end of these concerts, we always end on a real high and everyone goes home full of joy, but this dampened things.”

A diocese of London spokesperson said: "Bishop Jonathan reached out to the organisers on Saturday to apologise for his late-night appearance at the concert, which he now understands had overrun due to earlier technical difficulties."