A court docket in Sydney, Australia, acquitted Brian Houston, the founder of worldwide megachurch Hillsong, of hiding sexual abuse dedicated by his father, former pastor Frank Houston, within the Nineteen Seventies.
On Thursday, the Downing Centre Native and District Courtroom pardoned Houston, 69, by saying that he agreed to the desires of his father’s sufferer Brett Sengstock by not reporting the crimes to the cops. The court docket acquitted him of concealing an indictable offence.
Houston informed reporters outdoors the court docket that he’ll all the time be unhappy for the folks whose lives had been tragically harm. “However I’m not my father. I didn’t commit this offence,” he added.
Gareth Christofi, the Justice of the Peace, mentioned there was “little doubt” Houston knew Sengstock didn’t wish to report the abuse. “Due to this fact, he had a legitimate excuse for not bringing the matter to the eye of the police,” mentioned Christofi.
In the meantime, the sufferer, Sengstock, who rejected his proper to anonymity, was within the court docket through the listening to.
Beforehand, he informed the court docket that from the age of seven, Brian Houston’s father, Frank Houston, who was a pastor, repeatedly raped him. After the decision, Sengstock mentioned, “Frank Houston was no pioneer for Christianity. His legacy stays a light reminiscence of a paedophile. No matter at the moment’s final result, I’ve acquired a life sentence.”
Brian got here to know in regards to the abuse a long time later. He knowledgeable the Church leaders about it. Nonetheless, he didn’t inform the police.
Frank Houston admitted his crime. Though the church defrocked him, he was by no means charged and died in 2004.
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Frank Houston confessed to his son about his crimes in 1999. Brian maintained in court docket that he didn’t report his father’s crimes as a result of when he came upon, Sengstock was an grownup and didn’t need the police concerned.
In 2022, when Brian was accused of concealing the crime from the police, he informed Sydney’s Downing Centre native, “I’ve little question now my father was a serial paedophile, and we’ll in all probability by no means know the extent of it.” Frank Houston admitted he sexually abused kids to different executives in Australia’s Pentecostal church community.
(With inputs from businesses)
