Accessible News

Top storiesNew ZealandPoliticsBusinessEntertainmentSportsWorld

'Absolutely abusive': Gloriavale leaders allegedly verbally attacked ex-member during meeting

Monday, 5 September 2022

Virginia Courage (middle) from the Gloriavale documentary. On Monday, she told the Christchurch Employment Court that while living there, she was summoned to a late-night meeting so leaders could abuse her in front of her peers.
Virginia Courage (middle) from the Gloriavale documentary. On Monday, she told the Christchurch Employment Court that while living there, she was summoned to a late-night meeting so leaders could abuse her in front of her peers.

Warning: This story discusses details of alleged sexual abuse.

A former Gloriavale resident says she was verbally attacked by the community’s leaders in a late-night meeting for over an hour for accepting a phone call from her brother.

Virginia Courage was seven months pregnant and in bed at 10.45pm one evening at the secretive West Coast Christian community when she got a knock on her door and was summoned to a “servants and shepherds” meeting.

There, she was “completely attacked about everything” – her single life and early married life were mentioned, and the main gripe was her accepting a phone call from her brother, himself a former member of Gloriavale.

Courage said the tirade was “completely abusive” as she continued her evidence at the Christchurch Employment Court hearing on Monday.

**READ MORE:

* Gloriavale employment case urgent to ensure other females' safety

* Police letter to Gloriavale reveals places where harmful sexual behaviour was rife

Gloriavale leaders are under growing pressure as more of their businesses suffer the consequences of bad publicity about working conditions.

* Founder's son fails to give evidence for Gloriavale in Employment Court

**

Courage is one of six women arguing in the Employment Court they should have been recognised as employees, not volunteers for the domestic work they did for years at the religious sect.

She told the hearing that Gloriavale founder Hopeful Christian “completely attacked” her in front of 12 to 14 servants and shepherds.

“No one was with me … I couldn’t defend myself. Hopeful completely attacked me about everything … and the main issue was that I’d taken a phone call from my brother who’d left the community,” she said.

She said shepherds used tactics to embarrass members in front of their peers to make them conform.

Listening to the shepherds was like listening to God, which she said was intentional.

Courage said she was left “shaken” from the meeting, despite feeling that she’d done nothing wrong.

“They have the power [over whether] you go to heaven, at least that’s how they make you feel.

“I didn’t break bread for five months because I didn’t even think I was Christian. That’s what they do to you. They’re in control of everything, every part of your life.”

In cross-examination, Phillip Skelton, QC, asked Courage if she was ever summoned to such a meeting for work purposes. She said she was not, but was summoned to similar meetings for other things.

On Friday, Courage told the court that inappropriate touching of women and children became part of the community’s culture, with leaders telling women: “I shall not fear what man do to me”.

“They demanded a cuddle … Any man could approach any girl or woman and inappropriately touch them.”

Overseeing shepherds would tell members that, as Christians, there was nothing they could do to protect their wives from being raped or molested.

They would tell women not to make a fuss over their bodies, she said.

“It’s just your body, no big deal, you’re not going to take this body to heaven … I shall not fear what man do to me, remember?”

Courage, a mother of 11, left the community in February 2019 after “un-Christian behaviour” became common, the court heard on Friday.

Gloriavale leaders deny claims the women were employees.

The case continues.

Where to get help: