UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Michael Safi
theguardian.com, Thursday 9 October 2014
The head of Sydney’s Hillsong Church, Brian Houston, has denied trying to “hide” his involvement in a $10,000 compensation payment made to a man sexually abused as a child by his father, the high-profile Pentecostal preacher Frank Houston.
The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse is investigating the way Australian Christian Churches, formerly the Assemblies of God, responded to allegations of abuse against Houston and two other men.
Frank Houston, who died in 2004, admitted to molesting the man, known as AHA, in Sydney in the late 1960s and early 70s.
After the victim’s mother approached the church nearly three decades later, Frank Houston was suspended from preaching and approached AHA offering $10,000 compensation, allegedly saying, “I don’t want this on my head when I stand in front of God”.
Brian Houston, who succeeded his father as head of the Hills Christian Life Centre (now Hillsong), attended a meeting with Frank Houston, Gloria Jeans Coffee CEO Nabi Saleh, and a lawyer to discuss the allegations.
Following the meeting, the lawyer drafted a document offering AHA $10,000 compensation as a “final” payment.
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