NEWCASTLE, NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)
Newcastle Herald
October 18, 2017
By Joanne McCarthy
.
By day he was the committed Pentecostal Christian youth pastor who ran a Hunter refuge for youths and praised Jesus during Assemblies of God church services at Hamilton.
By night Christopher Laban Bridge was a sexual predator, whose abuse of two boys was known by at least one Assemblies of God church leader from the early 1970s, before Bridge moved to the Hunter to take up a youth pastor position.
Court documents show Bridge moved to a Hamilton Assemblies of God church in 1975 after a Dubbo Assemblies of God minister was told Bridge sexually abused two boys in far west NSW. Bridge went on to sexually abuse a third boy at Charlestown in 1976 and a fourth boy at Cardiff in the early 1980s.
Bridge, 69, of Yarramalong, has entered guilty pleas to sexually abusing the four boys, including a boy who was abused at a Hunter refuge for “young people with drug addictions” after Bridge told him: “I need to check you to see if you are a virgin.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.