Jehovah’s Witnesses let convicted paedophile interrogate victims

UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

David Brown, Chief News Correspondent
July 27 2017
The Times

The Jehovah’s Witness policy of allowing convicted paedophiles to interrogate their victims has been condemned by the charities’ regulator.

A report into a congregation in Manchester said that elders misled investigators, concealed evidence and allowed a senior member convicted of abusing two girls, aged five and ten, to cross-examine them.

Similar disciplinary policies at the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, which oversees local groups and distributes literature, are being investigated by the Charity Commission.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have 138,000 congregation members, known as publishers, in the UK. The charity regulator is examining a rule that requires two witnesses to give evidence before a member can be expelled and the running of “judicial committees” which allow abusers to question their victims.

An investigation into the Manchester New Moston Congregation was prompted by a complaint that Jonathan Rose, an “elder” of the group and trustee of its associated charity, had abused a young female member in 2002.

He was later convicted of abusing two girls and it was revealed that he had been cleared in 1995 of similar charges against a third teenager.

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