Founder of Hillsong, Brian Houston has been found not gulity of the charge of “Conceal serious indictable offence of another person between 15 September 1999 and 9th of November 2004” under section 316 (1) of the NSW Crimes Act.
The first date is when Brian Houston may have first heard of his father’s sexual assault of victim/survivor Brett Sengstock, a young boy in 1970 and the last is the date of Frank Houston’s death.
The description of the offence in the court papers reads “Whereas in 1970 Frank Houston committed a serious indictable offence namely indecent assault of a male [between the charge dates, Brian Houston] at Baulkham Hills and elsewhere believing that Frank Houston committed that offence and knowing that he had information that he had information that might be of material assistance in securing the prosecution of Frank Houston for that offence, without reasonable excuse failed to bring that information to the attention of the NSW Police.”
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that Brian Houston had failed to report his father to police. However the issues in this trial moved beyond that to the issue of whether Brian Houston had a “reasonable excuse” not to report.
In summing up at earlier hearing magistrate Gareth Christofi indicated the issues to be resolved:
“I would say that the issues become pretty simple in the end,” said Magistrate Christofi responding to a suggestion that oral submissions could take days.
“Is there a reasonable excuse?
“What is the reasonable excuse?
“Can it be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no reasonable excuse?
“Did the complainant [Brett Sengstock] say he did not want to go to the police?
The Crown case was that Brian Houston had a predominant aim – to protect the reputation of the Hillsong church. They submitted that Brian Houston has slow-walked information about Sengstock’s allegations, used vague terms in sermons and the media and attempted to influence the denomination’s response. However, the magistrate found that “the accused was not slow to act, confronted his father and called an emergency meeting of the national executive and disclosed the allegation to them, and disclosed to them a detail few people knew, that his father had confessed. He let the national executive act as it saw fit.
Magistrate Christofi pointed out that after disclosing information to the Assemblies of God national executive “at the relevant meetings, he left the room”
In his judgment, Christofi detailed how Brian Houston had spoken to a wide circle of people, his family, the 150 pastors at his churches, a vision night of 2000, the whole church congregation and the Hillsong conference of 10,000. “He spoke widely and freely. He wanted people to know about it. That is the very opposite of a cover-up.”
The magistrate reasoned that it was possible that Brian Houston could have had two reasons not to report the offences to the police. He could – as the defence had maintained – be taking note of Brett Sengstock’s desire for privacy and, at the same time, wanted to look after the reputation of the church. It would be difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt that one totally was outweighed by the other.
Having shown that, in his view, the evidence showed that Houston had recourse to a belief that the adult Sengstock did not want his father’s offending reported to the police, Christofi concluded, “I am not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that in not reporting to police the accused did not take the victim Brett Sengstock’s wishes into account.
“Therefore, I am not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused did not have a reasonable excuse.
“Therefore, the verdict is not guilty.”
Defence barrister Phillip Boulton KC indicated that they will make a further application and be seeking costs.
I imagine Dan Andrews will say: ‘But he’s still guilty!’