Gloriavale leavers calling for new investigation into community

Sunday, 26 July 2020

Dozens of former Gloriavale members are calling on the charities regulator to reinvestigate the controversial West Coast group, citing alleged abuse, mismanagement and a raft of other concerns.

It follows a 2015 investigation by Charities Services, part of the Department of Internal Affairs, into the operation of The Christian Church Community Trust, the registered charity behind the community.

Trustees may have acted in a manner that constituted serious wrongdoing under the Charities Act, the investigators found, particularly when it came to issues including the handling of physical and sexual assault allegations and members wanting to leave the community.

However, Charities Services decided it was in the public interest for the Trust to remain on the Charities Register, adding there was a high level of cooperation and genuine interest from the Trustees to act in the best interests of the Trust and the Gloriavale community.

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**

The Gloriavale Leavers Support Trust and a group of former members are calling on Charities Services to reinvestigate, with some expressing disbelief the Trust has managed to keep its charitable status.

Liz Gregory, support trust general manager, said over the past few years Charities Services had been fed hundreds of concerns about the oppressive nature of the Gloriavale leadership towards its members.

“I am at a loss to explain how bad an organisation needs to get before there is intervention. This is an embarrassment to New Zealand,” she said.

“There are people being harmed at Gloriavale regularly, and unless Government agencies get serious about it, there will be more and more harm.”

Gregory met with Charities Services last December where she presented a letter signed by 35 recent Gloriavale leavers asking the agency to open another investigation.

The letter set out a host of concerns, including alleged physical, emotional and spiritual abuse, the forced separation of families, poor health, including sick children being left alone because their parents had to work, no private space for families, unsafe working conditions for young children, a culture of domination and control and pressure for members to lie to outside agencies such as Oranga Tamariki and police.

Since the previous investigation, many more people were willing to speak up, the letter said.

“There is a sense that if nothing is done Gloriavale will continue its wholesale abuse of its people for another five decades, and for many that is unimaginable.”

Gregory said the leavers support trust had also provided Charities Services with additional information, including statements from other leavers and “heartbreaking stories of what’s been going on with separated families.”

The last update the group had received was in May, she said, when they were told Charities Services was still sorting through the material.

“We have been polite, but there is a level of frustration here.”

Charities Service service delivery and operations deputy chief executive Maria Robertson said Charities Services was “methodically working through everything that was raised in terms of our role” under the Charities Act, and it looked forward to engaging with the support trust “in due course”.

One Gloriavale leaver, who spoke to Stuff on the condition of anonymity, said Charities Services needed to do their job and investigate.

“The people at Gloriavale are not free. They are denied basic human rights. They are living in what amounts to a communist regime,” she said.

The woman said parents found it difficult to get medical attention for their children, in part because they were so busy working.

People were also “taught from a very young age that suffering in your flesh is actually a good thing”.

She had a family member who had a bladder infection for nearly four years, the woman said, and it was not always possible to get treatment.

Aside from access to medical treatment, the woman also took issue with the amount of control leaders had over people’s lives.

“They get to decide everything, even down to the temperature of your shower,” she said.

Gloriavale has been approached for comment.

The latest return for The Christian Church Community Trust, which operates Gloriavale in Haupiri, shows the trust controlled net assets worth $38.2 million in the year to July, 2019, and owned 100 per cent shares in 11 companies.

The call for an investigation comes as police investigate claims of child sexual abuse at Gloriavale.

It is alleged a teenage male inside the community has sexually offended against multiple boys.