AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
July 29, 2015
Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter
A group of Jehovah’s Witness Church elders ignored their own strict religious standards in failing to punish a self-confessed child abuser in their ranks, a royal commission has heard.
The sex predator admitted to molesting his daughter to a committee of church elders, who also heard corroborating statements from the victim, her sister and mother.
However, the evidence before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was that the confession and three witness statements did not amount to proof in the eyes of the elders investigating the claim, all of whom were friends of the perpetrator.
A Jehovah’s Witness elder involved in the investigation, Dino Ali, wrote in his statement tendered to the commission: “The judicial committee did not feel it had clear proof of the allegations of child sexual abuse from either party as it was one person’s word against another’s.”
Counsel assisting the commission Angus Stewart, SC, told Mr Ali he had “ample proof” of the child sexual assault, which Mr Ali denied.
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