The founder of the global megachurch Hillsong, Brian Houston, has been acquitted in a Sydney court over charges arising from his decision not to report his paedophile father to police.
Houston pleaded not guilty and stood trial on one count of concealing a serious indictable offence of another person, for allegedly failing to report to police his father Frank’s confession to repeatedly sexually assaulting and raping a young boy who was a member of a church where he preached.
Frank Houston confessed his offending to his son, Brian, in 1999. Brian Houston reported it to senior members of the church but not to police.
Frank Houston died in 2004 and was never charged. Brian Houston has conceded he has since learned of other offending by his father, telling the trial: “I have no doubt now my father was a serial paedophile and we’ll probably never know the extent of it.”
But Brian Houston maintained he had a “reasonable excuse” for not reporting his father’s offending to police, because that was in keeping with the victim’s wishes, who explicitly told him he did not want it reported, he said.
The victim of Frank Houston’s sexual offending, Brett Sengstock – who has chosen to waive his right to anonymity – gave evidence in this trial, telling the court Frank Houston’s abuse began when he was seven and escalated over years, including the senior pastor “repeatedly” raping him in his Sydney home. In his evidence, he said he never told Brian Houston he did not want the matter reported to police.
Sengstock was in court to hear the judgment on Thursday.
In Sydney’s Downing Centre local court on Thursday, magistrate Gareth Christofi said: “There is little doubt in my mind that the accused [Brian Houston] knew Mr Sengstock did not want the matter reported to police.
“He therefore had a reasonable excuse for not bringing the matter to the attention of police.”
Prosecutors had submitted that Brian Houston’s rationale for failing to report his father’s offending to police was not out of respect for the victim’s wishes, but out of a desire to protect the reputation of the church and his family.
This argument was rejected by the magistrate.
Christofi also discussed Houston repeatedly speaking in public sermons while his father was still alive about his father’s offending, describing it initially as “serious moral allegations”, but later referring to it as “predatory” behaviour, and “sexual abuse”.
Houston might have been “euphemistic” when speaking to thousands of people, Christofi said, but it was obvious what he was referring to and anyone left wondering needed only to ask fellow parishioners.
The fact he was speaking “widely and freely” about his father’s abuse publicly at all indicated he wanted people to know.
“That is the very opposite of a cover-up,” Christofi said.
Outside court, Brian Houston said his father was “a serial paedophile” who caused immense damage to the children he preyed upon.
“I express my sadness to Brett Sengstock, my genuine sadness about what my father did to him and all his victims. He was obviously a serial paedophile. We probably will never know the extent of the pedophilia.
“A lot of people’s lives have been tragically hurt, and for that I will always be very sad. But I am not my father. I did not commit this offence.”
Houston said he felt a sense of “relief that the truth had come out”, and alleged the prosecution had been spurred by animosity towards him and his church.
“As far as I’m concerned, this was a targeted attack. If I wasn’t Brian Houston from Hillsong, this charge would never have happened.”
Brian Houston and his wife, Bobbie, founded the Hills Christian Life Centre in 1983. In 2001 it merged with the inner-Sydney parishes founded by his father Frank to become Hillsong.
The Pentecostal and evangelical organisation has since grown to become a global megachurch with places of worship in 30 countries.
