Gloriavale founder and convicted sex offender Hopeful Christian was a sinner but was used by God to bring about change, a senior community leader says.
Shepherd Stephen Standfast told the Employment Court it should not have been acceptable for someone with Christian’s criminal record to remain the community’s spiritual leader, but he was not a false prophet.
Hopeful Christian - formerly known as Neville Cooper - was sentenced to five years in prison in December 1995 on three charges of indecent assault for repeatedly inserting a wooden dildo inside a 19-year-old woman.
In one of two Court of Appeal judgments tendered in the Employment Court on Monday, the chief justice noted there were no signs Christian had the capacity to accept responsibility for his offending and to reform.
Standfast, who expects to succeed Howard Temple as Gloriavale’s Overseeing Shepherd, said Christian was a dominant leader but was not beyond change.
“He appears to have been caught up in something that is completely foreign to the scripture and to godliness, but I don’t believe that everything that he was involved in as far as the church and community goes was false, as in false teaching,” he said.
“He was a person, he was a human, therefore he had the ability to fail. I believe God used him to bring about change. Hopeful was a tool God used.
“It would appear there were elements about him that I would call serious failing - sin - but I don’t believe that the church, the community, so many of the good right things that take place in our life are evil or wrong because he sinned in that area.”
In the period after Christian returned to Gloriavale from prison, the court heard 40 to 60 young men were before the courts for “male-on-male sex” and more were facing charges for “male-on-female misbehaviour”.
Barrister Brian Henry, representing the six former Gloriavale women who have brought the case, asked Standfast if Christian’s crimes should have disqualified him from leading the community.
“If it was me I would say definitely yes, it would disqualify me, and I would not consider it acceptable for anyone to remain in that position if that was what had happened,” he said.
The six leavers claim they were exploited and treated like slaves working on the Christian community’s domestic teams, preparing food, cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry.
Henry questioned Standfast about distressing testimony from plaintiff Rose Standtrue, who told the court her treatment at Gloriavale made her suicidal.
“Don’t we get to the position that so long as she cooked and cleaned and didn’t make any comments against the religion, nobody paid her any attention at all, she was just a cog on the rosters feeding you guys?” Henry asked.
“For me personally, nobody is just a cog. That she was not feeling valued and appreciated is a great shame,” Standfast said.
“Do you agree that she would see quite properly that she was subservient to the leadership of the community?” Henry asked.
“Yes, looking at it through her eyes I can see now how that’s how she would have seen it. That was her individual perception, that does not mean that others have that perception,” Standfast said.
Standfast conceded the women’s only options were to work on the teams, in education, in the sewing room or office, and they did not have the opportunity to have an education that was not for the benefit of the community.
“These things can change, I have no doubt will change. They would have been changing regardless of the undertakings we’re currently in, but certainly it’s something that we’ve been too tardy on,” he said.
The Gloriavale Christian Community on the West Coast. Photo / George Heard
Standfast called woman a whore over hairclips
The court heard Gloriavale’s leaders discussed stresses on the women’s workforce because of population growth at a meeting in 2014.
Standfast admitted little had been done to bring about change by November 2021, when the last of the plaintiffs left the community.
Last year plaintiff Pearl Valor testified about Standfast yanking the scarf off her sister Joy’s head and calling her a whore because she only had one clip in her hair, against the rules.
Standfast used his evidence to apologise to Valor for publicly shaming her sister.
“I am horrified when I think back to that incident and regret it deeply. I long ago acknowledged that it was a completely unacceptable way of addressing an issue. I have always been zealous about our faith in life, but as a younger man I failed to understand the real causes of behaviour and the need to balance concern with respect and empathy,” he said.
“I am truly and sincerely sorry for the trauma I caused to Pearl’s sister and those who witnessed the incident.”
Standfast told the court his father spanked him with his hand but had never used anything else to discipline him.
He said Gloriavale’s leaders wanted everyone to be safe and had made changes to ensure members were protected.
“The fact that community members experienced wrong-doing is a great cause of grief to us and we want to prevent it from happening again. This is not what we want for our family or community members,” he said.
“Any form of child abuse, or the abuse of anyone is unacceptable and should be reported to the appropriate authorities. There should be no stigma or shame associated with this, for the victims or their families.”
The court heard police had visited Gloriavale 80 times since January 2020 and Oranga Tamariki had been 74 times, while the Ministry of Education had paid eight visits and WorkSafe six.
