Brother Souter Caught Again!
Former Brother Souter is apparently at it again. He was caught with a supply of child porn and faces new convictions for three more boys that he molested. It is estimated that as a Jehovah’s Witness Souter molested over 40 children. His victims continue to come forward.
Silent Witnesses
September 22, 2002
Reporter :Graham Davis
Producer : Kirstine Lumb
This week, Sunday reveals the extraordinary story of how the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Australia routinely cover up cases of child abuse in their ranks and obstruct police investigations. In a disturbing new twist to the scandals that have enveloped mainstream churches, Sunday penetrates the highly secretive Watchtower and Bible Tract Society – the official name of the Jehovah’s Witnesses – which claims some 60,000 adherents in Australia.
Child abuse victims speak out for the first time about how they were specifically instructed by church elders and overseers not to go to the police with their complaints. In one case Sunday investigates, the church’s failure to act on the complaints of one family resulted in up to 40 other children being molested by the same paedophile.
Simon Thomas was 12 and a member of the Corrimal congregation on the NSW south coast when he encountered Robert Souter, an adult member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Looking back it was amazing,” says Simon, “but I was actually molested at the local Kingdom Hall. At first Souter would follow me whenever I went to the toilet. It started with touching and feeling. But then at bible study sessions at his home, I was subjected to extreme abuse.”
Simon kept his ordeal secret until it emerged that his younger brother was also being molested by Robert Souter. “My brother had a nervous breakdown. It was horrific so my parents approached the church elders and told them what had happened. They were told they shouldn’t go to the police but should pray more and leave it to Jehovah.” Robert Souter was expelled from the congregation. But then six months later the family got some devastating news. “Souter was reinstated. I just couldn’t believe it,” Simon said.
Years went by as the family nursed its secret. Then finally Simon could cope no longer and went to the police. Robert Souter was arrested and appeared in the Wollongong District Court. Sentencing him to a minimum of three years in prison, Judge John Goldring said: “The Church authorities took it upon themselves to act as if they were the civil authorities which they had no right to do. This matter was not reported to the police, as it should have been…I cannot criticise the Church sufficiently seriously for not having reported this matter.”
Simon Thomas tells Sunday: “I know of ten people personally who were molested by Robert Souter but the police have told me the total number is around 40. If the Church had listened to my pleas, all of those kids could have been saved. I could have been saved too because I’ve since discovered that before I was molested, a woman in the congregation had complained to elders that Robert Souter had interfered with her son and nothing was done.”
Former Church elders interviewed by Sunday allege that they were given detailed instructions by the Watchtower Society to obstruct police investigations into child abuse. Elders were told not to reveal to the authorities if a particular child abuser had confessed to his crimes and to do everything possible to prevent police from gaining access to church files. Former elder Jim Donald says: “We were to resist every approach by the authorities to willingly give over information. It’s seen as an attack against pure worship and Jehovah’s name and so what they call “theocratic warfare” is to take place. That means we are in a battle situation with the state.”
These former elders say Jehovah’s Witnesses regard themselves as the only true representatives of God on earth. They live in what they call “the truth”. The rest of us live in “the world” – a world they believe is run by Satan. This – the elders allege - gives the Watchtower Society divine authority to impede police investigations and even lie to the courts.
Another child abuse victim, Natalie Webb, says: “I was specifically told by my elders that the authorities should not be notified and that they would handle the situation”. Natalie was sexually abused by her own father Victor – an outwardly devout Jehovah’s Witness – from the age of 4 to 17. She relates how she told the elders that he wanted her to have sex with animals and lesbian liaisons. “Oh yeah, they knew. And they said we don’t need to know the details…we’re being guided by God”. Years passed until Natalie was married. Her own husband informed the church elders of what her father had done. But even after Victor Webb confessed, he was allowed to remain a member of the congregation.
Eventually Natalie could cope no longer and went to the police. “I was very apprehensive but the police were just the most compassionate, wonderful lot of people. I got more caring and genuine concern from them than I got from any elder.”
Victor Webb was sentenced to ten years jail in the Victorian County Court. But even now he has not been expelled from the congregation. Sunday confronts the elder who Natalie first went to see, Maurice Hadley. He denies ever having told her not to go to the police, saying it is her word against his. But he tells Sunday it is not for him to judge Victor Webb’s behaviour. Revealing that he still goes to visit his old tennis partner in prison, Hadley says: “That’s between him and his God ultimately. I have never condoned that man’s behaviour. I go to see him in jail about twice a year. Why do I do it? Well, don’t you think people can change?”
Sunday interviews a former lawyer for the Watchtower Society, Rev Warryn Stuckey, who defected from the Jehovah’s Witnesses and is now an Anglican clergyman. “Why they haven’t cooperated fully with the authorities suggests there is something they are protecting. If they are telling people not to go to the police, that can have the practical effect of perverting the course of justice.”
Natalie Webb argues that there should be an official investigation into the Watchtower Society. “It needs reform forced on it. Waiting for Jehovah doesn’t work. It’s definitely time that Governments cracked down on this organisation. I hate to think how many children are being abused now even as we speak. Former elder Jim Donald agrees. “I think the organisation needs to have the lid taken off its activities. Young kids lives are being ruined”.
In a statement to Sunday, the President of the Watchtower Society of Australia, Harold “Viv” Mouritz, declines to be interviewed but says: “My inquiries indicate that the elders involved did not give instructions not to report the abuse to the police.” Mr Mouritz denies all knowledge of the concept of “theocratic warfare” and expresses the church’s abhorrence of child abuse.
The Sunday program is continuing to investigate this story. If you have information that might help please email us or phone (02) 9965 2483.
Past articles about Brother Souter:
Transcript of Australian Channel 9 Sunday Program
The Catholic and Anglican churches in Australia are already engulfed in the scandal of child abuse. Sunday has managed to get inside the Jehovah's Witnesses, and found the WTS has secretly pursued a policy of obstructing police investigations into child abusers.
Aired September 22, 2002
GRAHAM DAVIS, REPORTER: At the Melbourne Tennis Centre, the gods of sport make way for the real thing, as 10,000 voices praise the almighty. These are just some of the 60,000 or so Australians who belong to the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, better known as the Jehovah's Witnesses.
PREACHER: We need to be zealous as proclaimers of God's kingdom, shining as illuminators of the world.
REPORTER: They're the clean-cut evangelists who appear at our doors, preaching Armageddon and the paradise to come for true believers.
PREACHER: Call back on everyone who shows even the slightest interest, even if we've just left them with a tract.
REPORTER: Yet as we'll see, the shepherds, as church leaders portray themselves, have created a hell on earth for some of the most vulnerable of their flock and they're outlaws in the classic sense, having placed themselves outside the laws that protect children from sexual predators. When it finally dawned on you that what you were witnessing was a policy of covering up child abuse, how did you feel about them?
NATALIE WEBB, CHILD ABUSE VICTIM: Devastated. Disappointed. Angry.
REPORTER: Today, victims like Natalie Webb speak out for the first time, accusing the church of covering up the crimes against them. She was abused by her own father, Victor, an outwardly respectable member of the Bentleigh congregation in suburban Melbourne .
NATALIE WEBB: My earliest memory is having a bath with my father and he was touching me, and from other things around me, I realised that I would have been about four.
REPORTER: Four years old?
NATALIE WEBB: Four, yep.
REPORTER: And how long did the abuse go on for?
NATALIE WEBB: Till I was... just turned 17.
REPORTER: 17?
NATALIE WEBB: Mmm-hmm.
REPORTER: And presumably it progressed from...
NATALIE WEBB: Just touching to intercourse, penetration.
REPORTER: Natalie lived with her terrible secret until she was married - her father beaming like any other on her wedding day. Then, unable to bear it any longer, she told her story to this church elder, Maurice Hadley. Was there any suggestion whatsoever that the police be informed?
NATALIE WEBB: None at all. The opposite, actually. Maurice said to me that the authorities shouldn't be notified because it would be a bad witness and that they would be able to handle the situation.
REPORTER: So Maurice Hadley told you quite specifically not to go to the police?
NATALIE WEBB: Yes, yes, and no psychiatrists or psychologists either for me because I was having difficulties.
REPORTER: Why did he ban psychiatrists or psychologists from seeing you?
NATALIE WEBB: Because they're worldly and they are possibly Satanic and could fill my head with rubbish.
REPORTER: Incredibly, Natalie's story is the norm, not the exception, for child abuse victims in the Jehovah's Witnesses. Simon Thomas was 12 when he fell prey to this man, Robert Souter, of the Corrimal congregation on the NSW south coast. Even when Souter admitted his crimes to church elders, he was allowed to continue as a Jehovah's Witness. He also continued to molest other children. Was there any suggestion that anybody go to the police over this?
SIMON THOMAS, CHILD ABUSE VICTIM: No, none at all. My parents spoke to elders locally, they spoke to travelling overseers, and they were told that they shouldn't go to the police and the best thing to do would be to keep the congregation clean, not say anything, pray more and leave it to Jehovah.
REPORTER: How can you keep the congregation clean by keeping quiet and covering up something like this, when the person who's unclean is allowed back in?
SIMON THOMAS: Well, I don't know. I don't know.
REPORTER: Today, some disturbing answers, clear evidence that the Watchtower Society routinely tries to pervert the course of justice in child abuse cases by obstructing police investigations.
JIM DONALD, FORMER ELDER: Well, this is my copy of an elders' book and these are my handwritten notes taken down at the dictation from the circuit overseer.
REPORTER: Jim Donald is a former church elder now blowing the whistle on his fellow brothers with details of an edict so sensitive, it was never committed to paper.
JIM DONALD: This was a letter to all bodies of elders.
REPORTER: And it says here "child abuse confidential". What is it telling us there?
JIM DONALD: It's saying to us here "If interviewed by social workers or police or other authorities, "do not reveal if a confession has been made. "Contact society immediately."
REPORTER: So if a child ab user has said, "Yes, I did it", you're not to tell the police that?
JIM DONALD: No, not at all.
REPORTER: Do you think that's obstruction?
JIM DONALD: Obviously. Obviously.
REPORTER: Jim Donald is a Justice of the Peace who once spread Jehovah's word as a church elder in the northern NSW town of Glen Innes . Now he confines himself to spreading news of worldly matters on his paper round, having abandoned the church four years ago.
JIM DONALD: We were to resist every approach by the authorities to willingly give over any information.
REPORTER: And you knew, did you, that that was the agenda, that you were not to cooperate?
JIM DONALD: Absolutely. You see, every instance like that is to be seen as an attack against pure worship and against Jehovah's name, and so what they call theocratic warfare is to take place.
REPORTER: Theocratic warfare?
JIM DONALD: Yes.
REPORTER: What does that mean?
JIM DONALD: That means we are in a battle situation.
REPORTER: With the police? With the State?
JIM DONALD: With the State.
ANDY FARRELL, FORMER MEMBER: They have a phrase they refer to which is theocratic warfare, and that is basically that it's acceptable to lie or to cover over things if it's for the good of God's purpose.
REPORTER: Andy Farrell left the Jehovah's Witnesses five years ago after a lifetime's association.
ANDY FARRELL: They won't condone breaking the law where it's a more black and white issue, say it was a murder case or something like that, but there are certainly a lot of problems of a lesser scale that the church tries to deal with internally that probably belong in a court of law.
REPORTER: Child abuse?
ANDY FARRELL: Yeah, exactly.
REPORTER: You've written here "search warrants and subpoenas". Now, what did they tell you?
JIM DONALD: They may make a forced entry into the hall. So we were encouraged to stand in front of the door and not to willingly open the door for them.
REPORTER: Officially, the church denies all knowledge of the concept of theocratic warfare, but Jim Donald's account of the verbal instruction not to cooperate with police was confirmed to Sunday by another former elder, though he wouldn't be filmed. There's nothing on paper, right?
JIM DONALD: No.
REPORTER: Nothing on paper at all?
JIM DONALD: No.
REPORTER: Do you think this is because their legal department would have known they might have a problem with this in the future?
JIM DONALD: Oh, I think so, yeah.
REPORTER: Because they've got a big problem with this, haven't they?
JIM DONALD: Absolutely, yes.
REPORTER: And the man who was once the society's own lawyer agrees.
REV WARRYN STUCKEY, FORMER WATCHTOWER SOCIETY LAWYER: I think it can have the practical effect of perverting the course of justice.
REPORTER: It could?
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: It could have that practical effect.
REV WARRYN STUCKEY ADDRESSING CHURCH: Let's commence our service by singing together our first hymn number 673 - 'There is a redeemer'.
REPORTER: The Reverend Warryn Stuckey has left behind the law and the Jehovah's Witnesses to become an Anglican priest. It was a short journey physically, for his church is a stone's throw from the Watchtower's Sydney headquarters. But in personal and theological terms, his was a momentous defection and as a former elder and director of Watchtower companies, he's a potent witness against his former associates.
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: I could imagine that if it was a case of any other crime, like murder or something, that there would be full cooperation and why in this case there is not suggests that there is something that they're protecting.
REPORTER: Protecting the church's reputation or even protecting child ab user s perhaps?
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: Or particular child ab user s.
REPORTER: The Jehovah's Witnesses, in fact, routinely shield paedophiles from the law - as in the case of Robert Souter, allowing them to offend again and again. It's been called a 'paedophile paradise'. Would you agree with that?
JIM DONALD: Yeah, I've heard that, yes.
REPORTER: Would you agree with that?
JIM DONALD: Yes.
REPORTER: You would?
JIM DONALD: Yes.
REPORTER: Paedophile paradise?
ANDY FARRELL: Yes.
REPORTER: You'd agree with that?
ANDY FARRELL: I think that's true.
REPORTER: So this was the body of the Kingdom Hall here?
SIMON THOMAS: Yes.
REPORTER: And in the greatest betrayal of all, far from suffering the little children, the church has inflicted untold suffering that lingers into adulthood.
SIMON THOMAS: I remember that the first time he actually touched me and did something to me, I just - that was a real life-changing moment. It was terrible. I just knew it would never be the same after that.
REPORTER: For years, Simon Thomas has privately nursed the hurt of a blighted childhood at the Kingdom Hall. Now he wants his story told of how the church protected his ab user , Robert Souter.
SIMON THOMAS: It was supposed to be a really nice, safe place, but it wasn't for me or a lot of other kids.
REPORTER: You now know, don't you, that after Souter was abusing you, he was abusing a whole host of others?
SIMON THOMAS: Yes.
REPORTER: How many?
SIMON THOMAS: I know of 10 personally, but the police that I've spoken to have said there's around 40.
REPORTER: 40 others?
SIMON THOMAS: That they know of.
REPORTER: After you?
SIMON THOMAS: After me.
REPORTER: If the church had listened to the pleas that you were making, how many of those kids could have been saved?
SIMON THOMAS: Well, all of them, I think.
REPORTER: All of them - 40 kids?
SIMON THOMAS: I think all of the m c ould have been saved.
REPORTER: Ingleburn, south-west Sydney , the Watchtower's Bethel or House of God, its sprawling Australian headquarters. More than 300 people live and work on this site, that includes a publishing arm printing Watchtower material in 70 languages. In the legal department here, every instance of child abuse known to the church is carefully filed away, but it's not reported to the authorities. The church regards such cases as confidential. So, just how many child ab user s are there on the files in there? Well, the church tells us pointedly, it's none of our business. But at every turn in this investigation we came across victims unwilling to speak out, not because of their ab user s, but because of the church - fearful of losing their friends, even their families. The church calls it "Keeping the congregation clean". Not of paedophiles, but of anything that damages the Watchtower's reputation. How do you think you're going to be treated by the church from now on?
SIMON THOMAS: I don't know. It's yet to be seen. But I would rather say something than to just be quiet and wait any longer.
REPORTER: Surprisingly, Simon still counts himself a witness, whereas Natalie Webb has left the church behind, unable to come to terms with the blind eye it turned to her father's depravity.
NATALIE WEBB: Because my dad wanted me to have sex with animals and have lesbian liaisons and like all these things.
REPORTER: And you told them that?
NATALIE WEBB: Oh yeah, yeah, they knew, and they said "We don't need to know details to make a decision. We're being guided by God".
PREACHER: Jehovah, our God of love, we come before your lofty throne and ask that we can be heard by you.
REPORTER: But before we examine these cases in detail, some understanding is needed of what sets the Jehovah's Witnesses apart, what makes their critics doubt they'll ever be shamed into reform by the kind of allegations that have forced changes in the mainstrea m c hurches, like the Anglicans and Roman Catholics. Is there any chance whatsoever that this organisation can reform itself?
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: No.
REPORTER: None?
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: None.
REPORTER: So if there's going to be any reform of their handling of child abuse, it's going to have to be imposed on them?
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: Yes.
REPORTER: To Jehovah's Witnesses, there's only one true religion - theirs. Jehovah God, the only God, his word in the Bible to be taken literally. The act of baptism through total immersion symbolises total surrender to Jehovah and his only legitimate authority on earth, the Watchtower Society. Witnesses live in what they call "the truth", the rest of us in "the world", a world the church would have it governed by Satan.
PREACHER: If you decide you want to do some of your own thing, well, you can. But be careful, because this world is deceived. It's deceived by the Devil.
REPORTER: And Satan's temptations abound, even across a crowded room. Jehovah's Witnesses aren't allowed to marry outside the church, a source of much heartache in itself. What were the circumstances that led to you leaving?
JIM DONALD: I attended a son's wedding.
REPORTER: Your own son?
JIM DONALD: My own son, yeah.
REPORTER: What was wrong with that?
JIM DONALD: Well, he was marrying a young lass who was an Anglican. Now, all other churches are considered as children of the Devil. So they said - and I quote from the man who was the branch coordinator at the time - "You don't give your children to the Philistines."
REPORTER: But the strictures go on. Jehovah's Witnesses can't vote, can't join the military, aren't allowed to celebrate Christmas, even their own birthdays.
ANDY FARRELL: Birthdays because they see it as bringing too much attention to a single person. With Christmas, I think everybody understands that a lot of the symbolism associated with Christmas obviously isn't Christian, it's come from other practices around the world and they use that as part of their justification.
REPORTER: And most controversial of all, Jehovah's Witnesses can't have blood transfusions, a dictate based on an obscure biblical passage that's cost many thousands of lives worldwide.
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: I was 18 at the time, my brother was 20. He shot himself in the next room. Um, he shot himself in the head. We rushed in there, he was bleeding from every - you know, from his ears, his nose, everything. My first thought, I said to my parents "Whatever you do, don't let them give him a blood transfusion".
REPORTER: So you'd been brainwashed?
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: I had been brainwashed. That is what I thought, he mustn't have a blood transfusion. Here's my brother dying in front of me, and that was my first thought.
REPORTER: Your priority.
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: My priority.
REPORTER: How do you feel about that?
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: Oh, on the verge of tears now as I think about it. It was just so callous, so... yeah, that's what the religion does.
REPORTER: Bad stuff.
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: Bad stuff. Bad stuff.
SIMON THOMAS: Some of it actually here inside the hall...
REPORTER: And then there's the child abuse, all the elements of exploitation, betrayal and cover-up present in the saga of what happened to Simon Thomas. He actually molested you inside the church itself?
SIMON THOMAS: Inside the Kingdom Hall, yeah, yep.
REPORTER: Amazing.
SIMON THOMAS: It is, looking back it was amazing.
REPORTER: And equally amazing, Natalie Webb's story. Her father's abuse compounded by the callous indifference of church leaders when it was brought to their attention. You must have been devastated?
NATALIE WEBB: Well, I tried to take my own life a few weeks later because I couldn't cope with it, mm.
REPORTER: So you tried to commit suicide?
NATALIE WEBB: Mm.
REPORTER: As a result of that, did you get any help at all from them?
NATALIE WEBB: I got a counselling session from them saying that it was due to me not forgiving my father, that's why I wasn't coping.
SIMON THOMAS: Well, I was told that to endure until the end is a... is to be faithful. It demonstrates your faith. And I was also told to leave it to Jehovah because Jehovah will work it out, but why can't we expose these things that are happening and then leave it to Jehovah?
REPORTER: In part two, the shocking details of these cover-ups. Yeah, I just wanted to talk to you about the sex abuse case involving Natalie Webb. And we confront the elders, who in Jehovah's name and with the church's backing, kept the authorities at bay. Do you recall telling her that she shouldn't go to the police?
MAURICE HADLEY, CHURCH ELDER: Not at all.
REPORTER: She says you did?
MAURICE HADLEY: Well, that's her word against mine, isn't it?
REPORTER: Like many victims of child abuse, Natalie Webb kept her secret into adulthood, but at the age of 26, she could cope no longer. It was her husband who finally brought matters to a head.
NATALIE WEBB: He rang up my father and said, "We can't live with this anymore. It has to come out in the open. "I'll give you a week to go to the elders."
REPORTER: But Victor Webb wasn't about to confess, so he was exposed. OK, so your husband goes to the elders. Which elder did he go and see?
NATALIE WEBB: Maurice Hadley.
MAURICE HADLEY: Maurice Hadley, yes, I'm Maurice Hadley.
REPORTER: Hi - Graham Davis from the Sunday program. I just wanted talk to you about the sex abuse case involving Natalie Webb.
MAURICE HADLEY: Oh, right.
REPORTER: You know her father?
MAURICE HADLEY: Well, indeed I do.
REPORTER: You used to play tennis with him, didn't you?
MAURICE HADLEY: (Laughs) Where did you get all this information?
REPORTER: Well, we have our sources. Do you still have any contact with Vic?
MAURICE HADLEY: Oh, occasionally.
REPORTER: What did Maurice Hadley say to him?
NATALIE WEBB: Um well, he was very shocked and couldn't believe it.
REPORTER: Because your father had been so devout?
NATALIE WEBB: And they were quite friendly.
REPORTER: What do you think about what he did to his daughter?
MAURICE HADLEY: Oh, I think it's deplorable. Absolutely disgusting.
REPORTER: Why had...
MAURICE HADLEY: And I have never ever condoned that man's behaviour.
REPORTER: As senior elder at the local Kingdom Hall, Maurice Hadley formed a judicial committee, the way the church deals with all breaches of its code of behaviour, from smoking a cigarette, through to serious crimes.
NATALIE WEBB: There were three elders, including him, in that committee. And they apparently - so Maurice told me - spoke to Bethel in Sydney and decided amon gst themselves that no-one should know about it, it should be a private reproof.
REPORTER: So, for sexually abusing his daughter from the age of four, a crime he readily admitted, all Victor Webb got was a reprimand behind closed doors. A private reproof?
NATALIE WEBB: A private, yep so, and then he would be put on a course of bible studies, because that's what was wrong with him - spiritually he was sick, so he was told.
REPORTER: At the very least, Natalie Webb had wanted her father disfellowshipped - expelled from the congregation - the ultimate sanction for Jehovah's Witnesses. It didn't happen. Why didn't the elders of the church disfellowship him for what he did?
MAURICE HADLEY: Why didn't they?
REPORTER: Yep. Why didn't YOU?
MAURICE HADLEY: Well, I'm not the decision maker.
REPORTER: You were.
MAURICE HADLEY: No, no, I was only one of them - I was a committee - part of the committee at the time.
REPORTER: Can you tell me why he wasn't disfellowshipped?
MAURICE HADLEY: Well, not now I can't.
NATALIE WEBB: I'd believed all my life that when you do something wrong, you get disfellowshipped, and I guess I went a little bit crazy and I just couldn't work it out.
REPORTER: A secret deliberation, a private reproof, no recourse whatsoever to the proper authorities. Did you go to the police?
MAURICE HADLEY: ..which is a reasonable - no, I didn't.
REPORTER: Why not?
MAURICE HADLEY: Well, it was something for the family to decide and do.
NATALIE WEBB: Maurice said to me that the authorities shouldn't be notified because it would be a bad witness and that they would be able to handle the situation.
REPORTER: So Maurice Hadley told you quite specifically...
NATALIE WEBB: Mmm-hmm, yes.
REPORTER: ..not to go to the police?
NATALIE WEBB: Yes.
MAURICE HADLEY: Yeah, and I say that that's not true.
REPORTER: You swear by that?
MAURICE HADLEY: I swear by that categorically.
REPORTER: You never said that to her?
MAURICE HADLEY: Never said that to her.
REPORTER: Yet here's something that lends weight to Natalie's claim - a letter from her mother to Maurice Hadley and the other elders in 1997 -
"Your inability and reluctance to deal with the police shows we would have been waiting forever."
REPORTER: By now, the family had had enough and had gone to the police themselves.
NATALIE WEBB: Because I'd never had any dealings with the police, I was very apprehensive, but they were just the most compassionate, wonderful lot of people, and I was so surprised. I got more caring and concern from them than I did from any elder. Genuine caring.
REPORTER: Victor Webb pleaded guilty in the Vic tori an County Court to eight counts of indecent assault and seven counts of incest. He was sent to jail for 10 years, but the church elders supported the criminal, not his victim.
NATALIE WEBB: They sent three representatives from the congregation to be with Dad, yep, and...
REPORTER: During the trial?
NATALIE WEBB: During the trial, and no-one was sent for me, and in fact, they ignored us when we walked into the court, they wouldn't even speak to us. I guess they thought I was Satanic or heading down that way, yeah.
REPORTER: But the real evil-doer is still being supported behind bars. You go and see him in jail?
MAURICE HADLEY: I visit him periodically.
REPORTER: So you go and see him in prison?
MAURICE HADLEY: About twice a year.
REPORTER: And why do you do that?
MAURICE HADLEY: Why do I do it?
REPORTER: Mm.
MAURICE HADLEY: Well, don't you you believe that people can change?
REPORTER: Even now, Victor Webb hasn't been disfellowshipped, though the private reproof became a public reproof when the police became involved.
MAURICE HADLEY: Yes, before all onlookers, other members of the congregation were advised of his situation so that parents could, if they chose to, take precautionary steps to avoid situations that might compromise their children.
REPORTER: And that was it. How do you feel about the church now?
NATALIE WEBB: Mm, um... I'm still very disappointed. The more I hear, I just am so saddened that it's so endemic and everywhere. It's very saddening.
REPORTER: And there are other cover-ups in the church that have had even more serious consequences, allowing paedophiles to offend again and again. What happened to Simon Thomas is, by any measure, a shocking indictment of the Jehovah's Witnesses and their wilful disregard of the secular law. Now this is where he brought you or followed you quite a bit, wasn't it?
SIMON THOMAS: Yep.
REPORTER: We're back at the place where, aged just 12, Simon first encountered his ab user , Robert Souter.
SIMON THOMAS: You know, he'd touch and feel and he'd laugh about it or he'd give me a clip around the ear, give me a good whack, and...
REPORTER: Just to make sure you went along with him?
SIMON THOMAS: ..just to make sure I, yeah. And then he'd go back up inside.
REPORTER: And then there were the bible study sessions at Robert Souter's home.
SIMON THOMAS: Probably the worst of what happened to me happened here at this house.
REPORTER: And we're talking about extreme abuse?
SIMON THOMAS: Yeah, extreme, yeah, extreme abuse. At first it was almost surreal. It was like it wasn't happening, but I was afraid to say anything. It's just the usual - I was just afraid because I didn't want my parents to be upset and I didn't want the congregation to be upset, I didn't want bad things said about Jehovah's Witnesses, so I basically just...
REPORTER: Kept it to yourself?
SIMON THOMAS: ..kept it to myself, copped it on the chin.
REPORTER: For how long? SIMON THOMAS: For about three years.
REPORTER: Then one night, a shocking revelation. When Simon's younger brother has a nervous breakdown on a church trip to the NT.
SIMON THOMAS: He phoned my parents to tell them that he'd been abused by Robert Souter, and it was horrific, the situation was terrible. So my father approached one of the elders and said, "Look, Robert Souter has done this and this and this to my son." So the elder said, "OK, we'll take care of it." And I'd heard this, obviously, and I approached the elder that my father spoke to and I said, "Look, my brother's telling the truth because it's also happened to me."
REPORTER: Can you tell me the name of that elder?
SIMON THOMAS: That elder that we spoke to at that time was John Wingate.
REPORTER: John Wingate?
JOHN WINGATE, CHURCH ELDER: That's right.
REPORTER: Yeah, I'm Graham Davis from the Sunday program at Channel 9. I just wanted to talk to you about Robert Souter and the abuse of the Thomas boys in Wollongong .
JOHN WINGATE: No comment.
REPORTER: The boys first came to you, didn't they, the family first came to you?
JOHN WINGATE: No comment.
REPORTER: Well, Simon Thomas has told us that, so we know that. John Wingate is still an elder of the Cooma congregation in southern NSW, where Robert Souter had moved and we now know, had begun abusing children at the Kingdom Hall there. What did Wingate say to you?
SIMON THOMAS: Well, he said - he seemed to take it very seriously and he said, "Look." He said, "We'll chase it up and leave it with me." And that was the last we heard of it.
REPORTER: You said to him, "Leave it with me." He says that's the last he heard of it. Did you feel that you had any responsibility to get back to this family.
JOHN WINGATE: I have no comment to make to you. No, I have no comment to make to you.
REPORTER: Unbeknown to the family, John Wingate and the other elders did act. They disfellowshipped Robert Souter, expelled him from the congregation. But it wasn't long before the Thomas family got some devastating news.
SIMON THOMAS: It was around about the six months and they reinstated him into the Cooma congregation.
REPORTER: What did you think when you were told that?
SIMON THOMAS: I couldn't believe it. I was stunned and I was unbelievably upset.
REPORTER: Now, what that family wants to know is why he was reinstated into the church around six months later?
JOHN WINGATE: Ring the Watchtower Society of Australia and they'll answer all your questions regarding that situation.
REPORTER: Well, can you tell me, sir, why you...
JOHN WINGATE: I cannot make comments on it.
REPORTER: Why can't you speak about it?
JOHN WINGATE: Because I'm not at liberty to.
REPORTER: Why?
JOHN WINGATE: Because I'm not.
REPORTER: You handled the case.
JOHN WINGATE: That's none of your business.
SIMON THOMAS: I spoke to an elder down there and he said Robert Souter was repentant so when you're repentant, you're allowed back into the congregation.
JOHN WINGATE: Do you have a problem with hearing? Do you have a hearing impediment? I just told you...
REPORTER: I'm trying to find some answers.
JOHN WINGATE: You're not going to get answers off me because I've told you...
REPORTER: So in the absence of any answers from the elders, let's look at the Watchtower's guidelines for dealing with child abuse -
"When a judicial committee determines that a child molester is repentant and will remain a member of the Christian congregation, it would be appropriate to speak to him very frankly, strongly urging him as to the dan gers of hugging or holding children on his lap."
REPORTER: I mean, what sort of a deterrent is that?
JIM DONALD: (Laughs) Well, it's none, obviously, because those sorts of things would be just, what would be in public view. The thing that escapes the society's viewpoint on this child molesting situation is that all of this takes place in secret.
REPORTER: So secret is child abuse that Simon Thomas thought he was alone in being abused by Robert Souter, until he found out about his younger brother and then later, about another brother as well. Did you have any sense of guilt that you might have been able to save your two brothers?
SIMON THOMAS: I did, from then on, and I still have that feeling. And it's part of the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing today. Because if I'd said something back then, I could have saved - I could have helped, maybe in some way, dozens of others.
REPORTER: But maybe not. For in the most extraordinary dictate of all, the Jehovah's Witnesses rulebook insists on this - "There must be two or three eyewitnesses, not just persons repeating what they have heard. No action can be taken if there is only one witness."
REPORTER: Blind Freddy knows that a child ab user doesn't sit around waiting for two or three witnesses before doing anything. JIM DONALD: That's correct.
REPORTER: How is it that this escapes the elders of the church?
JIM DONALD: They rely on a biblical text which says that all matters are to be established on the mouth of two or three witnesses.
REPORTER: As Jim Donald tells it, this rule has stifled the plaintive cries of victims time and time again and was a major factor in his decision to leave the church behind for good.
JIM DONALD: A young lass made allegations that this particular individual had interfered with her sexual organs. Yeah. REPORTER: And you were given the job of investigating...
JIM DONALD: Yes.
REPORTER: ..this allegation? What happened?
JIM DONALD: Well, all we could do is pose the questions .
REPORTER: To him?
JIM DONALD: To him, and obviously he said, "Oh, no, no, that's all a mistake and she's had problems. And you know, she comes from a weird family," sort of thing.
REPORTER: So in the absence of the church's rule that there be at least two or three witnesses, this girl was not to be believed?
JIM DONALD: That's right.
REPORTER: And that was the end of the matter?
JIM DONALD: Yep.
REPORTER: But for her father's confession, that's just what would have happened to Natalie Webb. If he'd denied it and it was only your word against him, because of the two witness rule, nothing would have happened. Is that fair to assume?
NATALIE WEBB: That's correct.
SIMON THOMAS: This one's called 'The Wrestle'. It's actually wrestling with a decision on whether I should actually go to the police.
REPORTER: For Simon Thomas, years went by, as he and his family nursed their trauma - black years chronicled in his paintings.
SIMON THOMAS: This one there, that's called 'Life at 15'.
REPORTER: Then, six years ago, Simon approached the church elders again.
SIMON THOMAS: And I said to the elders there that I was really struggling with what happened to me and that I needed some help. I wasn't coping.
REPORTER: And what did they say to you?
SIMON THOMAS: They said to me back then, they said - and these are the exact words - They said, "Obviously for this problem to be bothering you "for so long, "you're not praying enough."
REPORTER: You're kidding?
SIMON THOMAS: That's exactly what was said to me, so I shut up again for another year or two.
REPORTER: And then?
SIMON THOMAS: And then I decided that I was going to go to the police.
REPORTER: Robert Souter was sent to jail for a minimum of three years by Judge John Goldring, who had this to say about the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society -
"The church authorities took it upon themselves to act as if they were the civil authorities which they had no right to do. This matter was not reported to the police, as it should have been and I am surprised that the police have not taken any action against the church authorities. I hope they will do so. The State has responsibility of protecting young people and all citizens have a serious moral responsibility to assist it in doing so. I cannot criticise the church sufficiently seriously for not having reported this matter".
REPORTER: Do you feel any moral responsibility for the fact that he continued to abuse other children?
JOHN WINGATE: I think you have a moral responsibility to respect my wishes and follow the procedure I've given you and that is to contact the Watchtower Society of Australia. Don't harass me.
REPORTER: Every child in this photograph with Simon Thomas was abused by Robert Souter. As we now know, the total number Souter molested could be as high as 40.
SIMON THOMAS: I think all of the m c ould have been saved, but I could have been saved myself because I found out that one of the sisters in the congregation had spoken to an elder and said that she'd seen Robert Souter doing something to HER son and this was before Robert Souter abused me.
PREACHER: Remember our hearts and minds are dedicated to Jehovah and we must be holy because he is holy.
REPORTER: We asked the Watchtower Society a series of questions about its handling of the cases of Robert Souter and Victor Webb and asked them to tell us how many child ab user s they've uncovered in their ranks. We were told it wasn't the business of the media to know, though the church did say very few were elders or those holding positions of responsibility. In this letter, Viv Mouritz, the society's Australian president, declined our request for an interview and said about the claims of Simon Thomas and Natalie Webb -
"My inquiries indicate that the elders involved did not give instructions not to report the abuse to the police".
REPORTER: It's at odds with everything we've heard from a number of sources, including a judge. But on previous form, the congregation will be told our story is the work of Satan.
PREACHER: The media out there, with all its power and its might, it presents human nature in three Ds, three Ds - debauchery of every kind, deception of every kind and demonism of every kind - and we need to be aware of that.
REPORTER: But the authorities and the courts need to be aware of something else, something far more sinister - the church's notion of the truth. In this book 'Insight on the Scriptures', it says here, doesn't it "Lying generally involves saying something false to a person who is entitled to know the truth".
JIM DONALD: Yes.
REPORTER: Would your average judge or magistrate be somebody who was entitled to know the truth?
JIM DONALD: It would be very difficult for a person not to uphold what the society would want. They would back the society, and they would see that as backing Jehovah, in which case, these people, the court, is not entitled to know the truth.
REPORTER: Is not?
JIM DONALD: No. And in that case they would say that's not a lie.
REPORTER: So it's quite possible, given this definition of lying, that a Jehovah's Witness could go before a civil court in this country and lie to their back teeth?
JIM DONALD: Yes.
REPORTER: And this from the man who was once the society's own lawyer.
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: That has always been, as long as I remember, has been Watchtower doctrine, that only those who are entitled to know the truth deserve the truth.
REPORTER: Right, but if they determined that a particular judge or a particular court is not entitled to know the truth, they won't tell the truth?
REV WARRYN STUCKEY: Correct.
REPORTER: Do you recall telling her that she shouldn't go to the police?
MAURICE HADLEY: Not at all.
REPORTER: She says you did?
MAURICE HADLEY: Oh, well that's her word against mine, isn't it?
REPORTER: So who is entitled to know the truth?
MAURICE HADLEY: I mean, who do you think you are anyway? Since when have you become the bees knees on all of this?
REPORTER: So is Vic repentant, is he, is that it?
MAURICE HADLEY: Well, I would like to think so, but that's not for me to judge, is it? That's between him and his God ultimately, is it not?
REPORTER: Him and his God?
MAURICE HADLEY: Well, don't you think that?
PREACHER: Brothers, as we continue to pray for help in controlling our sinful inclinations, we will see Jehovah help us.
REPORTER: Leave it to Jehovah, the constant refrain of those who purport to live in the truth and see themselves as his only true representatives. Their victims want them brought to account in the world, an official investigation into the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
NATALIE WEBB: It needs reform forced on it and waiting for Jehovah just doesn't work.
JIM DONALD: I think it needs to have the lid taken off, yeah, because young kids' lives are being ruined.
REPORTER: So it's time that governments cracked down on this organisation?
NATALIE WEBB: Oh, definitely, mm. I'd hate to think how many children are being abused now.
REPORTER: Even as we speak?
NATALIE WEBB: As we speak.
SIMON THOMAS: I find it hard, even though there are beautiful people within the Jehovah's Witnesses - a lot are still my friends - I find it extre mel y difficult to have a bond and to be a part of a brotherhood with them now. The organisation - the organisational procedures need to change because kids cannot suffer like that anymore. It's wrong.
Transcript of Australia Sunday Program
05/30/05
GRAHAM DAVIS: They're called the silent lambs — silent because they've kept their s tori es to themselves for so long, lambs because as children they were meant to be protected from predators in the Christian flock, but weren't.
SIMON THOMAS: I was the little sheep that needed help — and I'm one of thousands, probably — and they didn't come back to look after me properly.
GRAHAM DAVIS: We've met Simon Thomas before, in a Sunday report I did back in 2002 on the child abuse crisis in the Jehovah's Witnesses.
SIMON THOMAS: I remember that the first time he actually touched me and did something to me, I just, that was a real, it was a real life-changing moment.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Simon Thomas was 12 when he fell prey to this man — Robert Souter. Even when Souter admitted his crimes to church elders, he was allowed to continue as a Jehovah's Witness. He also continued to molest other children. Nearly three years on, Simon is joined by another of those victims. Only now is John Dingham able to confront his own demons, given alcohol and molested by Robert Souter when he was just 13.
JOHN DINGHAM: I was that drunk in fact that Robert had to carry me back to the 4-wheel-drive. And it was there that night that I was sexually abused, without being too graphic. Um, so, yeah, it was pretty much my first sexual experience and my first ever hangover.
GRAHAM DAVIS: At 13?
JOHN DINGHAM: Yeah.
GRAHAM DAVIS: But John is just one of the fresh cases we'll meet as we revisit this story and again confront the Jehovah's Witnesses over their handling of child abuse. Sonia Mortimer was six years old when a church member by the name of Dennis Evans forced her to have oral sex with him. Confessing all, Evans was suspended from the congregation for just nine months. And what do you think about that?
SONIA MORTIMER: Oh, angry, hurt, devastated.
GRAHAM DAVIS: What is going on in that church?
SONIA MORTIMER: I've got no idea. I've got no idea.
GRAHAM DAVIS: John? But now Sonia wants answers from the elder responsible — John Wyngate.
SONIA MORTIMER: Nine months is quite sufficient for a paedophile, someone that abused me, that made me (bleep). Nine months is good enough for that, is it? What if it was your daughter? What if it was your daughter? How would you feel? Would you feel as devastated? You had an office as far as the congregation was concerned and as far as I am concerned you abused that. Nine months is good enough? God knows what he's doing to other kids.
GRAHAM DAVIS: What have you got to say, John?
JOHN WYNGATE: Well, what can I say?
GRAHAM DAVIS: What indeed? And God knows what if anything Dennis Evans is doing to other kids. Sunday has traced him to the Nanango-Yarraman congregation in south-east Queensland . What would you say to him, under the circumstances, if he is watching?
SONIA MORTIMER: That I hope his life is ruined just as much as mine.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Whether or not the congregation here has been told Dennis Evans is a convicted paedophile, we can't establish. But, on previous form, probably not. For parents are sometimes kept in the dark even while their children continue to be molested. We'll call her Lyn. She's a mother whose son was being interfered with. The molester confessed to church leaders. She wasn't told. How do you feel about the fact that the elders didn't tell you?
'LYN': They knew that he was coming to my home. They knew what he had been doing to my child.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And in fact he says in this correspondence, doesn't he, "I told the elder what I did to Bo." There's proof ...
'LYN': Yes.
GRAHAM DAVIS: ... that they knew.
'LYN': Yes.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And they didn't tell you.
'LYN': No.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Do you regard that as a betrayal of the trust that you had in them as elders?
'LYN': Absolutely.
GRAHAM DAVIS: But as well as shielding child molesters among its ordinary members, there is evidence of paedophile activity in the church hierarchy. An elder in the church having sex with his teenage daughter. How do you think he feels about it now?
'JULIE': I don't know.
GRAHAM DAVIS: The victim we'll call 'Julie' is still considering whether to go to the police with her allegation, that as a teenager she was raped repeatedly by her father, a prominent elder and senior office bearer in the Jehovah's Witnesses in NSW. We're obliged to conceal her identity and his until the law takes its course.
'JULIE': I was told that I had to come home at lunchtime. Mum was never home, my older brother and sister weren't home, so it was just set up that my father could use that as a time to abuse me, I guess.
GRAHAM DAVIS: What happened?
'JULIE': He would get me. I would have to go into their room — this was several times a week —
GRAHAM DAVIS: Several times a week, he was having sex with you?
'JULIE': Yes.
GRAHAM DAVIS: How old were you?
'JULIE': It started when I was 13 and ended just as I turned 15.
GRAHAM DAVIS: This is a story of the most shocking betrayal, of hypocrisy, arrogance and, for those affected, untold pain. Three years ago, there was global outrage over an avalanche of allegations worldwide that the Jehovah's Witnesses were protecting paedophiles and ignoring the plight of their victims. Of course, they weren't alone. Mainstream churches, like the Roman Catholics and Anglicans, also came under fire for their policies on child abuse, an allegation of cover-up even forcing the resignation of Australia 's Governor-General, former archbishop Peter Hollingworth. But while the mainstream churches were forced to confront their own misdeeds and introduce new protocols to protect children, have the Jehovah's Witnesses changed? On the evidence we'll hear today, not enough. Do you still insist on at least two reliable witnesses to any act like this?
JOHN WYNGATE: Yes, we do.
GRAHAM DAVIS: You do? It is the principle that protects the paedophile. The extraordinary dictate we exposed three years ago in the Jehovah's Witnesses rule book: "There must be two or three eye witnesses, not just persons repeating what they've heard. No action can be taken if there is only one witness." Such an edict would simply not hold in an Australian court of law. Blind Freddy knows that a child abuser doesn't sit around waiting for two or three witnesses before doing anything.
JIM DONALD — 2002, EX-JEHOVAH'S WITNESS ELDER: That is correct.
GRAHAM DAVIS: How is it that this escapes the elders of the church?
JIM DONALD: They rely on a biblical text which says that all matters are to be established on the mouth of two or three witnesses.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And three years on, passages from Deuteronomy and Matthew are still used to justify the two-witness rule. In edicts from the Australian church's headquarters, or Bethel , on the southern outskirts of Sydney .
SIMON THOMAS: Nothing's changed.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And what do you think about that requirement?
SIMON THOMAS: Well, I think it's ridiculous. You tell me anybody that assaults a child, that waits until there's a couple of people that can watch them.
GRAHAM DAVIS: In the case of 'Julie', it was a standard of proof her abusive father, the church elder, used to taunt her.
'JULIE': I got told at the time that there was nothing I could do about it.
GRAHAM DAVIS: In what sense?
'JULIE': Well, I couldn't tell anybody because nobody would believe me.
GRAHAM DAVIS: But while your father was having sex with you he was saying, "You can't prove this without two witnesses?"
'JULIE': Yeah, that's right.
GRAHAM DAVIS: He specifically said that?
'JULIE': Yes. And then the only other elder in the congregation there was my father's best friend, so I didn't stand a chance. There was nobody I could talk to.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Small wonder that 'Julie' eventually tried to take her own life and that many silent lambs remain acutely distressed.
JOHN WYNGATE: We can't change what's happened.
SONIA MORTIMER: I don't want you to change it. I didn't ask you to change it. Did I ask you to change it?
JOHN WYNGATE: What would you like me to do?
SONIA MORTIMER: What would I like you to do? At this point, nothing, because you've done it.
JAMES KERR: Yeah, you do that well.
SONIA MORTIMER: You've done it.
GRAHAM DAVIS: I first caught up with John Wyngate in September 2002 when I asked him about his handling of the case of Simon Thomas, abused by Robert Souter when he was just 12. What that family wants to know is why he was reinstated into the church around six months later.
JOHN WYNGATE — 2002: Ring the Watchtower Society of Australia and they will answer all your questions regarding that situation.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Well, can you tell me, sir ...
JOHN WYNGATE: I cannot make comment on it.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Why can't you speak about it?
JOHN WYNGATE: Because I'm not at liberty to.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Why?
JOHN WYNGATE: Because I'm not.
GRAHAM DAVIS: You handled the case.
JOHN WYNGATE: That's none of your business.
SIMON THOMAS: I spoke to an elder down there and he said Robert Souter was repentant, so when you're repentant you are allowed back into the congregation.
GRAHAM DAVIS: It was the police who eventually established that as well as Simon, Robert Souter may have abused more than 40 other minors. But three years on, with new evidence centred on the congregation John Wyngate presided over as an elder — Cooma, in southern NSW. Just how many paedophiles are on its files the Australian church won't say but if the record in this tiny congregation is any guide, the scale of this scandal is truly frightening. Here in Cooma we have established that at least two paedophiles have preyed on young people in the congregation. Well, today comes the reckoning, as some of the victims speak out for the first time. I know this will be a difficult question for you to answer, but what was the nature of the abuse?
JAMES KERR: Well ... I've never told anyone.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Would you prefer not to?
JAMES KERR: It just hurts too much.
GRAHAM DAVIS: James Kerr is yet another of Robert Souter's victims. He has never told his story to the police or anyone else.
JAMES KERR: After, he said, "Why did you let me do that to you?"
GRAHAM DAVIS: So he was blaming you?
JAMES KERR: Yeah. He was blaming me for everything.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And have you felt that it was your fault?
JAMES KERR: My whole life, even now.
GRAHAM DAVIS: But while Robert Souter targeted the boys of the Cooma congregation, the girls fell prey to Dennis Evans. There's Sonia Mortimer, who we've met.
SONIA MORTIMER: It's had an impact on every aspect of my life — trusting, having relationships, yeah. It haunts me every day.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And someone who doesn't want her real name used but is willing to show her face.
'MARIE': He assaulted me in, uh, sexually assaulted. And forced me to perform oral sex. And he did that on three occasions.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Three occasions?
'MARIE': Yeah.
GRAHAM DAVIS: How old were you?
'MARIE': 13.
GRAHAM DAVIS: As we'll see, both abusers have been dealt with by the law. What's at issue is the church's handling — its critics say mishandling — of these cases. To understand the scope of this tragedy, some understanding is needed of the nature of the organisation whose representatives have knocked on virtually every Australian door.
PREACHER: We need to be zealous as proclaimers of God's kingdom, shining as illuminators of the world.
GRAHAM DAVIS: The Jehovah's Witnesses are officially known as the Watchtower, Bible and Tract Society, and unlike mainstream religious groups, see themselves as the only true faith. In fact, to be a Jehovah's Witness is to be in the truth, to be saved when the rest of us in the world are destroyed by Armageddon, God's day of judgment, that is supposedly just around the corner.
PREACHER: We pray, Father, that you will watch over them.
GRAHAM DAVIS: The Sunday program isn't just the work of Satan, the devil lurks at every turn in the apocalyptic hyperbole of Viv Mouritz, the church's Australian head.
VIV MOURITZ: If you decide you want to do some of your own thing, well, you can. Be careful, because this world is deceived. It's deceived by the devil.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Set apart from the big bad world, the 60,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Australia can't celebrate Christmas or birthdays. They can't vote, join the military or marry outside the church. But what many don't grasp, say the critics, is something more fundamental — the brainwashing, the insidious hold the church has over its followers and the twisted logic of some of its teachings.
MIRIAM HUGHES, LECTURER, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA : Well, I'm disfellowshipped, which means I have been publicly removed from the congregation.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Adelaide academic Miriam Hughes fell foul of the sect for writing about its disempowerment of women.
MIRIAM HUGHES: With paedophilia and the complicated way in which Witnesses think, if a paedophile were to be deemed repentant by the elders in the congregation, he is in line for reinstatement within the congregation, and that also means redemption as far as God is concerned. But for someone like myself, if I were to ask to return to the congregation and to be allowed back into the congregation, I would be refused.
GRAHAM DAVIS: This letter to all elders says: "It is possible for a person to stop his or her wrongful course, repent and thereafter live in harmony with God's righteous standards. This is true of all wrongdoers, even a former child abuser." So all Robert Souter and Dennis Evans had to do was repent, and they were back among the children. The routine recidivism and cunning of paedophiles ignored — more victims, more abuse. Let's look at what happened when James Kerr went to the Cooma elders after Robert Souter had confessed to having sex with him.
JAMES KERR: First of all, one of them said to me, "Why didn't you come and confess your sins earlier?
GRAHAM DAVIS: Confess your sins?
JAMES KERR: Yeah, my sins. And I was dumbfounded by that straight away. I was told that what had happened between me and Robert Souter was a homosexual act and that I was basically a homosexual and I'm no better than any other homosexual out there.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Who said that to you?
JAMES KERR: John Wyngate.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Is it true, John, that you said to James that he was a homosexual?
JOHN WYNGATE: No, it isn't.
JAMES KERR: Yes, it is.
JOHN WYNGATE: He has a different version of what I said at that meeting with himself and two other elders.
JAMES KERR: I had committed a homosexual act and I was the same as them. And we know what God will do to homosexuals.
GRAHAM DAVIS: What's that?
JAMES KERR: Well, they'll be destroyed at Armageddon.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Did you say that?
JOHN WYNGATE: I said to him, in front of the other members, that what had taken place between those individuals was a homosexual act.
GRAHAM DAVIS: It wasn't a homosexual act though, John, it was child abuse. It was abuse. And James wasn't the first that Robert Souter sexually abused.
JOHN WYNGATE: We were not aware of that at the time.
GRAHAM DAVIS: What sort of impact has it had on your life?
JAMES KERR: Sick of being depressed all the time. Sick of feeling suicidal all the time. Sick of thinking that nothing cares. I don't care what happens to me. I couldn't give a rat's arse.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Have they ever offered you, the church, any counseling whatsoever?
JAMES KERR: No. As far as they are concerned it was my fault. I hate them for that.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And then there's the abuse of Sonia Mortimer by the resident paedophile who preferred girls — Dennis Evans. It took Sonia 24 years to speak out about what had happened to her as a 6-year-old. Now, you told somebody you were living with, didn't you, what had happened. They then went to the church elder, didn't they?
SONIA MORTIMER: Yeah.
GRAHAM DAVIS: What was his name?
SONIA MORTIMER: John Wyngate.
GRAHAM DAVIS: What happened to Dennis?
JOHN WYNGATE: He was disfellowshipped from this congregation.
GRAHAM DAVIS: For how long?
SONIA MORTIMER: For nine months.
JOHN WYNGATE: For nine months. At that time they said they were quite happy with the disfellowshipping.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Is this true? After nine months he was back in the congregation?
SONIA MORTIMER: Yeah.
GRAHAM DAVIS: How do you feel about that?
SONIA MORTIMER: Angry, very hurt, because something so pure, someone so evil can be in that organisation.
GRAHAM DAVIS: This was a confession from a paedophile.
JOHN WYNGATE: That's right.
GRAHAM DAVIS: He confessed to it!
JOHN WYNGATE: Yes.
GRAHAM DAVIS: To abusing a 6-year-old.
JOHN WYNGATE: Yes.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And you disfellowshipped him, you banned him from the congregation for nine months.
JOHN WYNGATE: Yes.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And that was fair enough?
JOHN WYNGATE: No, well ...
GRAHAM DAVIS: Seriously.
JOHN WYNGATE: At the time we acted with the information we had.
GRAHAM DAVIS: The information you had was a confession that "I have abused this 6-year-old."
JOHN WYNGATE: That's right. His conduct, it was a one-off thing.
GRAHAM DAVIS: A one-off thing? With a 6-year-old? That's okay, is it?
JOHN WYNGATE: No, no, let me qualify my remarks. There was no evidence of sexual abuse of other children by this guy.
GRAHAM DAVIS: As we'll see, no evidence yet. That was to come. And, well, Dennis Evans was repentant.
JOHN WYNGATE: In a situation like that, you look for a person's remorse, and all of these qualities that go along with a request to be able to be allowed back into the Christian congregation.
GRAHAM DAVIS: But every paedophile is remorseful when he gets caught. That is the problem with paedophilia.
JOHN WYNGATE: It's all right for you to stand there and tell me all the facts.
GRAHAM DAVIS: But we know that he molested ...
JOHN WYNGATE: But you've never dealt with it, have you?
GRAHAM DAVIS: But we know he molested more girls than just Sonia.
JOHN WYNGATE: We do now, don't we?
GRAHAM DAVIS: We do.
JOHN WYNGATE: Yes, we do now.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Yes, Dennis Evans was also abusing this girl, when she was just 13.
'MARIE': I told my father and my mother what had happened and then my mother went to the congregation and asked the brothers what they were going to do about it. Then we had a meeting and he admitted what he had done and they just said not to talk about it to anybody and that they would deal with it.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And did they deal with it?
'MARIE': No. They haven't dealt with it.
GRAHAM DAVIS: It was only when 'Marie' and Sonia discovered years later they had both been molested that they finally decided to go to the police. Evans confessed all, was tried and convicted, but because he's partially blind, escaped a jail sentence.
SONIA MORTIMER: He said I could take it through the society or I could take it through the legal system. And what did I do? I had to take it through the legal system. I had to tell strangers, people, what had happened to me. How do you think that made me feel? How do you think that made me feel?
GRAHAM DAVIS: John, what are you going to do? What is the church going to do to help these people now because they are clearly in a state of trauma? What are you going to do about this, mate?
JOHN WYNGATE: Well, we will try ... It is up to those individuals, if they wish us to help them in some way, we are quite happy to do that.
GRAHAM DAVIS: You've offered spiritual help, in other words, bible readings. What they need is ...
JOHN WYNGATE: Not just bible readings.
GRAHAM DAVIS: What they need is counseling.
JOHN WYNGATE: If they choose to employ professional counselors to help them cope with their distress and their abuse ...
GRAHAM DAVIS: They can send you the bill?
JOHN WYNGATE: No, that is their choice.
GRAHAM DAVIS: As we've heard, Dennis Evans now attends this Kingdom Hall in the small Queensland town of Yarraman . Do you worry about the safety of the children in that congregation?
'MARIE': Yes, I do, and not only because he's there — if they've let him in there, who else is there as well?
GRAHAM DAVIS: Who else indeed? A two-witness standard of proof, derisory punishment, routine forgiveness for acts of contrition — the Jehovah's Witnesses are truly a magnet for paedophiles.
JAMES KERR: God is supposed to be someone of love. How is any of that love?
GRAHAM DAVIS: Wolves who prey on the lambs harboured and forgiven, lambs silenced, shunned and abandoned. And can you explain to me why they would favor a paedophile over somebody like yourself?
SONIA MORTIMER: No, I can't, because I don't know. It's like I'm the one that's done the wrong.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Is that how they've made you feel?
SONIA MORTIMER: Yeah, yep. I'm a victim, I'm not the perpetrator.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And do you think you did anything wrong?
SONIA MORTIMER: No. I just trusted.
GRAHAM DAVIS: So the lambs are sacrificed for the continuing good name of the sect. Those who go public pilloried, like the two who appeared in our last story, three years ago. Natalie Webb's father, Victor, was sent to jail for 10 years from having sex with her from the age of 4 until she was 17, yet, incredibly, some Jehovah's Witnesses directed their venom at her.
NATALIE WEBB: I was a liar, basically, and that God's organization wouldn't allow that to happen.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And while Robert Souter eventually received a 3-year jail sentence for abusing Simon Thomas and John Dingham, it wasn't the paedophile who was denounced by the circuit overseer, but the victims.
SIMON THOMAS: Basically a lot of lies that were told on the show and the people on the show were bordering on being apostate.
GRAHAM DAVIS: You?
SIMON THOMAS: Yes, me.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And an 'apostate' meaning?
SIMON THOMAS: A person who speaks out against God and the Holy Spirit.
GRAHAM DAVIS: We asked the self-appointed custodian of the truth, the Watchtower Society, to take part in our story and received this response, which included: "We make a strenuous effort to protect people from persons known to be guilty of sexual abuse." But tell that to the mother whose son continued to be abused while church elders knew all along, and didn't tell her. When the crime was finally exposed came the ultimate indignity that convinced the family to leave the church for good.
'LYN': Even though there was a restraining order, even though he had confessed to the police and he was waiting to go to court, he still came and sat right in front of us in the Kingdom Hall, and my son was just so traumatized by it we had to leave straight away.
GRAHAM DAVIS: As we've seen, the sect is now facing a fresh crisis over this woman's rape allegation against her father, the prominent elder. Given your father's senior position in the church, do you expect the rest of the hierarchy to believe you?
'JULIE': No.
GRAHAM DAVIS: You don't?
'JULIE': No. My father is very well-known within the church.
GRAHAM DAVIS: He has committed a crime against you.
'JULIE': Uh-huh.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Don't you think you should go to the police?
'JULIE': Possibly should, but I don't know if I could. When all is said and done, it is still my dad. Yes, it's destroyed me and I'll never get rid of that, but I don't know if I want to destroy the rest of my family.
GRAHAM DAVIS: But as this victim wrestles with her appalling dilemma, those who did go public three years ago seem to have found a certain peace that's always eluded them. When we last met Simon Thomas he showed us his paintings — tortured images of the pain he had endured. Are you still painting those kind of images?
SIMON THOMAS: No, I don't. I don't paint like that any more. That was a stage that helped me purge the feelings I had, and, no, I'm past that.
GRAHAM DAVIS: You felt empowered by showing your face?
SIMON THOMAS: Yes, I did. I did.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And Natalie Webb, the girl abused by her father. This was her three years ago.
NATALIE WEBB: My earliest memory is having a bath with my father and he was touching me. And from other things around me, I realized that I would have been about four.
GRAHAM DAVIS: And this is Natalie today. You look a lot happier.
NATALIE WEBB: I am, thank you.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Was it beneficial talking to us, do you think?
NATALIE WEBB: Very beneficial, yes.
GRAHAM DAVIS: In what sense?
NATALIE WEBB: I think it validated a lot of what I felt, but it also made me feel like I wasn't the only person who had been through it and I wasn't abnormal or demonic or any of those things.
GRAHAM DAVIS: Those we've met today have helped lift the veil higher on the darkest secrets of the Jehovah's Witnesses. But their journey towards closure is just beginning.
JOHN DINGHAM: You can't stop people from coming into these organizations, there's good and bad everywhere. But at least put something in place to try and make them think twice.
JAMES KERR: God is the god of love. How can a god of love allow anything like this to happen in his so-called organization here on earth?
SONIA MORTIMER: I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm just telling people what happened, putting it out there so other people don't get caught up in the same situation.