Plymouth Brethren starts defamation against The Age, by Chris Merritt, Austrlralian (July 18, 2016)

After being on the receiving end of almost a decade of adverse coverage by a reporter at The Age, a small Christian Church has launched defamation proceedings and released a letter to Fairfax chairman Nick Falloon that raises questions about the newspaper’s methods.

Plymouth Brethren Christian Church launched the proceedings after Fairfax Media’s Good Weekend magazine published a cover story last month alleging a cover-up of sexual abuse within the church.

The church is suing Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd, The Age Company Pty Ltd and The Age’s investigations editor, Michael Bachelard, who has written more than 50 articles about the church as well as a book.

Statements of claim filed last week in the NSW Supreme Court indicate the church is effectively daring Fairfax to prove it engaged in an institutional cover-up of child sexual abuse.

This is where the decentralised structure of the Plymouth Brethren, formerly known as the Exclusive Brethren, could complicate the task confronting Fairfax Media. This church says it has no clergy and consists of autonomous assemblies.

On April 29, long before the Good Weekend article appeared, church elder Lloyd Grimshaw wrote to Mr Falloon outlining his concerns about Bachelard, who has been writing about the Brethren for almost a decade.

Mr Grimshaw was tired of having his church, which has 40,000 members internationally, referred to as a cult or a sect. He was concerned that Bachelard “is not interested in reporting the truth about our small conservative Christian church”. He told The Australian his church comprised assemblies, or congregations — each of which is an unincorporated association “and autonomous in their functions”.

“It does not have clergy, religious brothers or sisters or any appointed ministers,” Mr Grimshaw said. “Instead, the PBCC is essentially comprised of families who come together in local congregations known as ‘assemblies’ to worship together,” he said.

Court documents show the plaintiff in this case, a company known as Plymouth Brethren (Exclusive Brethren) Christian Church, claims Bachelard’s cover story conveyed four separate imputations of wrongdoing — all of which relate to the church as an institution, not individuals.

Much of Bachelard’s article concerned the role of Tony McCorkill, a former spokesman for the church, and the instructions the PR man was said to have received from the church’s Sydney-based global leader, Bruce Hales.

If the case goes to court, the evidence of Mr McCorkill, who was brought in after sex abuse cases came to light, could be crucial.

As well as damages and interest, the Brethren wants the Good Weekend article removed from Fairfax websites and an order that would permanently prevent Fairfax and Bachelard from publishing any imputations that are upheld in court.

Some of the pleaded imputations relate specifically to the case of Lindsay Jensen, a church member who was convicted and jailed for child sexual abuse. The church alleges the article contained imputations that it is an institution that covered up Jensen’s sexual abuse and forced two of his victims to live with him.

But other imputations are wide-ranging. If upheld, they could prevent Fairfax and Bachelard from stating in future that the church discourages victims of child sex abuse from speaking out and gives priority to protecting its assets ahead of protecting victims of child abuse.

Bachelard, who is a Walkley-award winning reporter, told The Australian he stood by his Good Weekend article as a piece of public interest journalism. He also rejected accusations about his methods that are outlined in the April letter Mr Falloon.

That letter had accused him of engaging in a campaign of vilification against the church that had been running for almost a decade.

“We ask that any future articles by Mr Bachelard are written both reasonably and in good faith, as required by the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act,” Mr Grimshaw wrote.

Bachelard, who has described the church in print as a secretive, separatist, anti-gay sect, sees things differently. “I have been engaged in a decade-long exercise in journalism,” he told The Australian.

The letter to Mr Falloon says Bachelard has repeatedly appeared on commercial television current affairs programs making “outrageous and false allegations” that the church is a cult that rips off taxpayers.

It complains that when he was preparing his piece for the Good Weekend he refused to use the full text of a statement from the church as a breakout to his article. Bachelard said the church’s statement ran to 445 words and his article accurately reflected the church’s responses.

The unpublished statement, which has been provided to The Australian, lists three studies by British academics who had been commissioned by the church in an attempt to debunk a survey, cited by Bachelard, that said 27 per cent of 264 former members of the church reported being sexually abused.