UK regulator found a Jehovah's Witnesses congregation made abuse victims face their abuser
A 2017 Charity Commission inquiry into the Manchester New Moston congregation found trustees mishandled abuse allegations — including an internal hearing where victims were questioned by the man they accused.
On July 26, 2017, the UK Charity Commission published the findings of a statutory inquiry into a single Jehovah's Witnesses congregation — the Manchester New Moston congregation — and its conclusions were pointed.[1]
The regulator found that the charity's trustees had failed to adequately handle allegations of child sexual abuse made against a former trustee, Jonathan Rose, who was later convicted in the criminal courts of two counts of indecent assault and sentenced to nine months in prison.[1] Along the way, the inquiry found, the trustees had mischaracterized one allegation as "a matter between 2 teenagers" rather than as child abuse; had ignored an earlier allegation when weighing later ones; had failed to enforce restrictions on the accused; and had kept inadequate records of their decisions.[1]
The most striking finding concerned an internal appeal hearing in 2014. There, the Commission reported, victims were "effectively required to attend the misconduct appeal hearing and repeat their allegations in the presence of the abuser, and the abuser was permitted to question the alleged victims."[1]
The Commission concluded that the trustees "did not cooperate openly and transparently" with its inquiry and had failed to report serious incidents to the regulator.[1] It also recorded changes the organization made in 2016 and 2017 in response: victims are no longer required to make their allegations in the presence of an alleged abuser, and protective restrictions must now be placed on anyone found guilty of child sexual abuse by the courts.[1]
The inquiry also faulted the trustees for the conflicts of loyalty that ran through their handling of the case — elders weighing accusations against a fellow leader they knew — and for keeping inadequate records of the decisions they reached. It amounted to a portrait of an institution poorly equipped, and in some respects unwilling, to treat abuse as a matter for anyone beyond the congregation. The report was among the first times a British regulator had set out, in detail and on the public record, how the Jehovah's Witnesses' internal disciplinary system could fail the children it was meant to protect.
Sources
- NewsUK Charity Commission, inquiry report into the Manchester New Moston Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses (26 July 2017) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/manchester-new-moston-congregation-of-jehovahs-witnesses-inquiry-report/manchester-new-moston-congregation-of-jehovahs-witnesses
- NewsUK Charity Commission, press release, "Investigation leads to improvements in safeguarding at Jehovah's Witnesses charity" (2017) https://www.gov.uk/government/news/investigation-leads-to-improvements-in-safeguarding-at-jehovahs-witnesses-charity
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