Brian Houston, the founder of Hillsong, will find out whether he is found guilty or not on August 17. The date for hearing the verdict in his trial on a charge of failing to report the sexual assault by his father, Frank Houston, on seven-year-old Brett Sengstock was set at the close of final submissions today.
Whether having two sets of information about the pedophile crime meant that the reasonable excuse for not reporting it to the police, because the adult victim requested it not be reported, was addressed by Philip Boulten SC for the defence.
“It is a reasonable excuse now if the information is bifurcated,” Boulten maintained, referring to having two sources of information. In Brian Houston’s case, that was hearing about Brett Sengstock’s case third hand and then obtaining a confession from his father.
It is still a reasonable excuse not to report “ if the victim was an adult, if the accused obtained a confession, and the accused knows the victim does not want it reported.”
“It is very hard to tease out the effect on the accused mind, “ Boulten added. “It may not have been bifurcated in the way the parties [in court] have discussed it.”
In other words, Brian Houston may not have considered the two pieces of information separately but as a whole.
Bolton described the prosecution case: “The Crown has put that his [Brian Houston;’s} motives are pivotal, and that the accused did not have regard to Sengstock’s attitude [about reporting]. He then proceeded to demonstrate why the defence disagreed with both propositions.
If Brian Houston’s thinking about Sengstock “co-exists with human emotions and other things, he has a reasonable excuse.”
Magistrate Christofi asked, “Let’s accept the Crown’s argument that he acted out of selfish motives to protect the church. Does the reasonable excuse still exists?”
“Even if other factors drove him, the facts exist,” Boulten responds, relying on the evidence that Houston had taken note of Sengstock’s attitude. “They would have to prove that it did not form part of his belief.”
“There is a burden on both sides,” Magistrate Christofi said. “There is a burden on the accused to show that he had a belief. There is a burden on the prosecution to reduce the evidence for the excuse beyond reasonable doubt.”
Boulten then took the court through the evidence that Houston believed Brett Sengstock did not want to go to the police.
Boulten laid out a pattern of Brian Houston disclosing his father’s crime. “The evidence is that when Brian Houston found out about this, he began to talk about it. First to his family, then to the elders or board members of the CLC congregations. Right from the beginning, he began to tell people.”
Boulten pointed to Brian Houston’s frustration of not being told earlier. “He got on the phone to John McMartin. ‘Why am I finding out now?’ It might be a reason for McMartin dissembling about the order in which people found out.”
Tackling the difficult evidence from the earlier hearing for the defence, Boulten said on being told that Frank Houston had confessed to his son, a note by pastor Barbara Taylor records him asking, “Have you told Brian I am thinking of taking legal proceedings?”
Drawing a distinction between Sengstock seeking compensation as distinct from seeking to have Frank Houston charged by the police, Boulten responds. “Brett Sengstock did not say in evidence either here or at the Royal Commission that he was wavering about reporting to the police. The idea that Brett Sengstock was thinking of going to the police was never led by him.
“His evidence at the Royal Commission was read out to him in cross-examination, and he confirmed his position.”
Soon after Brian Houston met with Barbara Taylor and John McMartin after he had been told of the allegations, he phoned Rose Hardingham, Brett Sendstock’s mother. Rose Hardingham had disclosed that her son had a “terrible reaction” to his mother disclosing the abuse.
“The Rose Hardingham conversation gave Brian Houston a reason to believe that Brett did not want to go to the police,” Boulten said.
The court should accept Brian Houston’s evidence rather than Brett Sengstock’s about their conversations, said Boulten giving a list of inconsistencies in Sengstock’s admitted difficulties with “dates and sequences.”
Boulten provided an alternative to the Crown theory that Brian Houston had provided legal advice to the Assemblies of God National Executive and, in denying that, he lied.
Wayne Alcorn, the current National President of the Australian Christian Churches, had known that Frank Houston had been accused of sexual assault of a child before an emergency meeting of the national executive. “It’s beyond human imagining that Alcorn would not have thought ‘I know what this is about,” Boulten said. It is not remotely open to think that Alcorn would have remained silent … People talk about controversy. They may talk in hushed tones., but they still talk.’ Boulten suggested that Alcorn could have sought legal advice.
“You are being asked to use this line in the minutes as evidence of a lie. This is an attack on my client’s credibility. The line in the minutes might be an amalgamation of what several people said in the meeting.
“This is not a knock-out killer point.”
The fact that Wayne Alcorn was not called as a witness featured in a list of “forensic disadvantages” that Boulten listed as difficulties for establishing what happened.
They include having witness recall conversations from two decades ago, especially when they had been reconstructed at the Royal Commission, gaps in documents such as Rose Hardingham’s diary, only excerpts of which exist, and phone records. Boulten queried the basis on which witnesses were called.
“A lot of what my friend [the Crown prosecutor] says is assumption building or speculation. We say your honour should be comfortable to accept Brett Sengstock did not want an investigation by the church or the police.”
If Mr Sengstock’s attitude played a part in my client’s reasoning, that leads to an acquittal.”