Gloriavale is a safe place for a child sex offender, criminologist says
Thursday, 13 April 2017
Gloriavale could be the safest place for a convicted child sex offender to live, Christchurch criminologist Greg Newbold says.
Brent John Carpenter has lived in the controversial closed Christian community on the West Coast since at least 2015. He was convicted of sexually abusing a drunk 15-year-old boy in 2010 and sentenced to two years and five months in jail. He was released in May 2014.
Carpenter has changed his name to Courageous Sojourner.
Newbold, who has visited Gloriavale a couple of times, said the community would monitor a child sex offender closely.
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'Gloriavale is a closed community where every single action of the participants is scrutinised,' he said.
'It is very difficult at Gloriavale to be alone with any other person. Two men can't be alone together.
'With someone who is a known sex offender like that it would be very difficult for them to reoffend. All behaviour at Gloriavale is highly moderated and very controlled.'
Carpenter is not the only convicted sex offender in Gloriavale.
Community founder Neville Cooper, who goes by the name Hopeful Christian, was convicted of sex abuse charges in 1995. He was sentenced to five years in prison for three counts of indecently assaulting Yvette Olsen at the Springbank Christian Community in Cust, North Canterbury, where the community was based at the time.
A government investigation into the West Coast religious group, released under the Official Information Act in March, suggested a sexual predator may be at large in the community.
The Charities Services report stated that multiple allegations of sexual assault were made against 'the same offender'.
A Gloriavale policy document included in the report stated that the community will not notify police of sexual assault allegations at the first offence.
The policy states that allegations will be investigated by the community. If the allegation is found to be true, the 'involved parties' will be gathered together and warned not to 'disobey the commandments of the bible' or break 'the law of New Zealand'.
The trustees will then seek to 'bring the offender to genuine repentance for their transgression toward the person'. They would also 'bring the person who had been assaulted to genuine forgiveness towards the person who had assaulted them'.
They would also 'watch carefully afterwards and check up, that all such sexual assault has come to a complete end'.
If the offending continued they would then ask the offender to leave and notify the police.