CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and the 300,000 other Pentecostal Christians in Australia, have been criticised for not reporting the alleged criminal behaviour of the former leader of the Australian Assemblies of God and Hillsong founder Brian Houston.
This comes as a victim of Houston’s paedophile father and fellow Hillsong Founder, Frank Houston, accused the man’s son of not doing enough to expose his father’s crimes.
Brett Sengstock, who finally revealed his identity as he told Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes program on Sunday night, has come forward to reveal he was sexually abused by Frank Houston, the influential leader of the Pentecostal denomination Assemblies of God in the 1960s and 70s.
The victim had previously testified before the royal commission into child sexual abuse in 2013 under a pseudonym, where it was found that Brian had known of his abuse since at least 1999.
Frank was accused of sexually abusing nine boys, including Sengstock, and the royal commission found Brian Houston had failed to report his father’s abuse to police, which in any other circumstance would result in criminal charges.
Brian Houston sacked his father from his role as a pastor in 1999, but wrote to churches telling them not to make the allegations public, and did not inform police of the multiple allegations.
Brian Houston’s plea to keep his father’s allegations out of the public eye seems to be a message that has trickled all the way down the line to Australia’s first Pentecostal Prime Minister, who is yet to address or even condemn the criminal behaviour from within his own religious community.
Critics say that in order to keep Australia safe, these communities need to report this kind of behaviour as soon as they see it.
