AUSTRALIA
The Austrlralian
JULY 18, 2016
Chris Merritt
Legal Affairs Editor
Sydney
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.
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