SOUTHLAKE (TX)
Premier Christian News [Crowborough, England]
June 14, 2025
By Lydia Davies
Cindy Clemishire, who says Gateway Church founder Robert Morris sexually abused her from the age of 12, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Morris and the Texas megachurch, seeking more than $1 million in damages.
Filed jointly with her father, the lawsuit accuses Morris and Gateway leaders of falsely portraying the abuse as a “relationship with a young lady” rather than a crime against a child.
It also alleges church officials knowingly made misleading statements after the case became public in 2024.
Morris was indicted in March on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, stemming from abuse that reportedly began in December 1982 and continued for over four years while Morris served as a traveling evangelist.
A 2023 internal investigation at Gateway Church revealed multiple elders had prior knowledge of Morris’s conduct but failed to act.
“We now know that there were elders and employees at Gateway who knew… that Cindy was 12 at the time of the abuse,” Elder Tra Willbanks told the congregation last year, as reported by The Christian Post.
In court filings, Morris admitted to what he called a “highly inappropriate relationship,” recalling an incident involving kissing and touching a girl shortly before her 13th birthday.
Gateway Church has not commented on the defamation suit, but a spokesperson told The Christian Post, “There seems to be nothing that Robert won’t say or do to blame everyone else but himself.”