Second senior member leaves secretive sect Gloriavale over management concerns

Friday, 2 October 2020

Former Gloriavale members John Ready, James Harrison and Virginia Courage outside the High Court at Greymouth, where they filed their civil action.

A second senior member of secretive religious sect Gloriavale has left the community over concerns with how it is being run.

Selwyn Love, the father of Dove Love who appeared in the TVNZ documentary on the community, left Gloriavale earlier this week.

Love was a servant leader, one of 16 shepherds and servants that make up the leadership council, which oversees the business operations, the various private schools, and the decisions over who should marry whom.

This group of 16 men is subservient to a group of four senior shepherds who run the tax-free Gloriavale charitable trust, which runs the lucrative business operations of the group.

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Howard Temple is the overseeing shepherd, who succeeded community founder Hopeful Christian.

It’s understood Love, who is married to one of Christian’s daughters, had been unhappy with the way Gloriavale was being run and tried unsuccessfully to bring about change.

The Gloriavale Christian Community at Haupiri, near Moana.

He was a manager of a large manufacturing plant at Gloriavale which sits on the banks of Lake Haupiri.

It’s understood he recently stopped going to meetings and left the community with his son this week and is living with family. His wife and some of his children remain in the community.

Love, who declined to comment on Friday, is the second senior member of the community to leave in recent weeks. Zion Pilgrim, Love's son-in-law, who was a trustee of the Christian Community Trust, was forced to leave Gloriavale on September 20 after writing a 14-page letter to leader Howard Temple outlining his concerns about the community.

Pilgrim told Stuff on Friday he did not think the two men’s departures would have a significant impact on Gloriavale.

“One thing about Gloriavale is life rolls on. There’s a large number of people there, every person does have an impact, but I don’t think the place is falling apart or anything like that.

“We were put in an untenable position that we couldn’t comply with, so we weren’t really given any choice on that, and Selwyn was put in a similar position.”

Despite his concerns, Pilgrim is confident there will be change at Gloriavale.

“I think there’s a lot of hope, and I just see everything that’s going on as part of that journey.”

He said deciding to leave the community was a stressful decision for him and his family, but said they were “doing fine” living in South Canterbury with support from the community and the Gloriavale Leavers Support Trust.

“When you know you’re doing the right thing you’ve just got to do it, it’s not meant to be easy to do what’s right.”

On Friday, WorkSafe announced it had issued two improvement notices, one directive letter and one verbal direction covering risk assessment, forklifts and work-related health risks to the isolated West Coast community this week.

The Labour Inspectorate and WorkSafe visited Gloriavale on Monday and Tuesday over claims some members had been forced to work more than 20 hours a day.

A WorkSafe spokeswoman said four assessors visited Gloriavale on Monday and spoke to 13 workers. The visit focussed on allegations Gloriavale was not managing fatigue risks in the workplace. No evidence to support those allegations was found.

The news comes as former member John Ready filed a civil suit against the trustees for dereliction of duty to its members.

Stuff earlier revealed the Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust met with Charities Services last December and 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, sick children being left alone because their parents had to work, no private space for families, and pressure for members to lie to outside agencies such as Oranga Tamariki and police.

On August 17, Charities Services general manager Natasha Weight told the trust it would not open another investigation at this stage.

It followed 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.