The Hillsong church founder Brian Houston spoke with a barrister about his father’s rape of a child and was told if the matter went to court “his father would surely be incarcerated”, but the offence was not reported to police, a Sydney court has heard.
Brian Houston is on trial for allegedly failing to report the abuse to police after his father confessed in 1999 to sexually assaulting the boy.
He has pleaded not guilty to one charge of concealing a serious indictable offence of another person.
Brett Sengstock was a seven-year-old boy in 1970 when Frank Houston, then a senior pastor with the Assemblies of God – now known as Australian Christian Churches – began assaulting him over years, including raping him in his bedroom in his family’s home in Sydney. Frank Houston died in 2004.
Barbara Taylor, Sengstock’s great-aunt, was a pastor at Emmanuel Christian Family Church when she was informed of the abuse by the boy’s mother in 1998.
On Wednesday, Taylor, now aged 90, spent a second day in the witness box, and gave evidence about her frustration that the allegations were not being sufficiently or swiftly addressed by church authorities.
She said she repeatedly raised the issue with senior church leaders and implored them to respond to the allegations.
“Nothing was really being done about Brett’s case,” she told the court. Frank Houston himself “more or less ignored” her, Taylor said.
The court discussed contemporaneous notes, taken by Taylor, of a meeting she had with Brian Houston and other church leaders in November 1999, shortly after Frank Houston had admitted to his son that he had sexually assaulted Sengstock.
Taylor wrote: “Brian [Houston] said he had spoken to a barrister who had told him that if it goes to court his father would surely be incarcerated for the crime.”
In a handwritten addendum, she wrote: “After this meeting, I heard nothing from Brian … or anyone.”
Under cross-examination, Taylor was questioned about her memory of the meeting with Houston. Asked by defence barrister Phillip Boulten SC whether she could be mistaken in her recollection, she stood by her evidence: “I believe he [Brian Houston] did use the word barrister”.
Taylor told the court of her frustration at the church’s inaction.
“I told Brett the church would judge and deal with the matter fairly, but it seemed no one wants to touch it.”
She said Sengstock, who was “bitter” at being disregarded, had little faith the church would respond adequately.
“He said the church would only say a little prayer and sorry … the church would not do anything.”
Taylor told the court that Brian Houston told her not to “put anything in writing” about his father’s offending, and speak about it only on the phone, and only to him.
Taylor earlier testified that she believed the church could broker a “reconciliation” and told Sengstock he should not report the offending to police: “If he goes to the church I will stand with him, if he goes to the secular courts, I will not,” Taylor wrote.
Taylor told the court Sengstock was “livid” the offending against him was known by senior members of the church community and felt betrayed his mother had disclosed the offences.
Sengstock gave evidence earlier in this trial.
The court heard that Frank Houston’s abuse of him, which included “repeated” rapes, began in 1970, when Frank Houston would board with his family, who were members of the Assemblies of God congregation.
Sengstock told the court he first disclosed the offending to his mother about nine years after it occurred – when he was 16 (in about 1979) – after he was sent by his mother to see Frank Houston for counselling. Frank Houston was masturbating under his desk during the meeting, causing Sengstock to leave, he told the court.
Sengstock’s mother “tried to dissuade” her son from publicly revealing the “sordid mess”, the court heard this week.
The court has also heard that Brian Houston did not learn of his father’s offending until 1999, nearly 30 years after it was committed. He confronted his father about it, who confessed to it.
Sengstock said when he confronted Frank Houston over his abuse, Frank Houston apologised, sought forgiveness and “was emotional”, but, Sengstock said, “without being sorry for the damage he caused, only that it might be exposed”.
The court has previously heard that in 1999 Sengstock signed a blank napkin at a meeting with Frank Houston at a McDonald’s restaurant in exchange for agreeing to accept a $10,000 payment, which he described as him being “paid for my silence”.
When the money had not arrived weeks later, Sengstock called Brian Houston who, Sengstock said, told him: “You know this is all your fault, you tempted my father.” The money was ultimately paid.
Brian Houston and his wife Bobbie founded the Hills Christian Life Centre in 1983, which, in 2001, merged with the inner Sydney parishes founded by his father to become Hillsong. The pentecostal and evangelical Hillsong has since grown to become a global megachurch with places of worship in 30 countries.
Boulten has told the court Brian Houston’s defence for not reporting his father’s crimes to police would be predicated on him having a “reasonable excuse” – that he understood Sengstock did not want his allegation reported or investigated by police.
Boulten said Sengstock was “adamant” at that time he did not want Frank Houston’s offending reported or investigated. “He was making it very clear he did not want the police involved.”
Boulten told the court there were “tens of thousands of people”, including members of the New South Wales police, who also knew of the allegations but did not report them.
The trial continues.
