Hillsong Founder, Brian Houston, has been giving evidence at Downing Centre Local Court since last week. Source: J Bar.
Hillsong founder, Brian Houston (68), has told a court that he has “no doubt” his father, Frank Houston, was a “serial paedophile”.
In 1999, Houston’s father confessed to him about one case of abuse regarding Brett Sengstock, who was seven-years-old at the time of the abuse in the 1970s, which occurred in New Zealand.
In the wake of the confession, Frank Houston was banned from preaching. However, neither the public nor the authorities were notified. Frank Houston later died in 2004, aged 82.
Brian Houston has pleaded not guilty to concealing a serious indictable offense related to the alleged abuse case. He began giving evidence last Friday in Downing Centre Local Court.
Brian Houston’s denies claims of a “cover-up” or that a $10,000 payment to the victim, Sengstock, for the alleged purpose of buying his silence. Brian Houston confirmed that he was involved in organising a payment, but did so through a lawyer to avoid it appearing like a cover-up and or that Sengstock’s was being silenced.
“I was wanting to be careful that there was no cover-up here … and it couldn’t be seen that there was a cover-up,” Brian Houston said.
He added that he intended to distance himself and the church from the payment. Brian Houston said that it was his understanding that eventually, the money was paid but he did not know who had paid it.
His lawyers are arguing that it was reasonable not to report his father to the police in 1999, as the victim, who was an adult by that time, did not want authorities to know.
When asked whether he would have spoken to police if he were to relive the events, Brian Houston said he was “conflicted” on how to answer the question.
“Because I believe did the right thing,” he said, and that he would have done the same thing as “Brett Sengstock said to me … ‘I don’t want you going to the police.’”
The court was also told of how Brian Houston was told in 2000 of another abuse allegation regarding his father. During a meeting at a café in Sydney’s CBD, another man alleged who he had been abused by Frank Houston in the 1960s, at the Houston’s Wellington home.
Brian Houston told the court he believed his father’s alleged abuse of Sengstock had been a “one off”. However, the Hillsong Founder now knew that to be untrue, and that the full extent of the abuse may never be known.
