AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
October 15, 2014
Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter
A Pentecostal pastor may have overlooked suspicions about his paedophile son-in-law because of their family relationship, a royal commission has heard.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was told church members raised concerns about a relationship between youth pastor Jonathan Baldwin and a teenage boy.
The then senior pastor of the Queensland church, Ian Lehmann, told the commission he may have downplayed the claims because Baldwin was dating his daughter.
“He was in a relationship with my daughter and that would have blindsided me to a degree, because I would never have allowed my daughter to have a relationship with somebody if I thought he was engaging in alternate sexual activity,” he said.
The commission has heard Baldwin started abusing the then 13-year-old boy in 2004 and the molestation continued until 2006, after Baldwin married Mr Lehmann’s daughter.
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