Hillsong founder Brian Houston respected the wishes of someone his father abused by not reporting it to police and could not have pulled off the cover-up alleged by prosecutors, his barrister says.
Members of the Assemblies of God national executive were not sufficiently invested in Houston’s churches to cover up child abuse and Houston had a reasonable excuse not to report it, believing the boy his father abused in the 1970s did not want any investigation, Phillip Boulten SC said.
Houston, 69, has pleaded not guilty to concealing a serious indictable offence, stemming from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
It is not disputed Frank Houston abused Brett Sengstock.
Frank Houston admitted it when confronted in late 1999, before being stripped of his credentials and banned from attending his son’s churches, Mr Boulten said in closing submissions to Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on Friday.
Crown prosecutor Gareth Harrison submitted on Thursday Houston oversaw a cover-up, using “entrenched reverence” of his father in the Pentecostal movement and a culture of silence.
“The accused knew he could control the narrative and protect the church and his father,” he said.
The national executive comprised confident and opinionated church leaders, Mr Boulten said.
“They are the authority figure in their own church, and they are not invested in Hillsong in the way that Brian Houston was invested in Hillsong,” Mr Boulten said.
Some attendees already knew or suspected what an urgent national executive meeting at Sydney's Qantas lounge in December 1999 was for.
“People do talk, and they talk about controversy. They might do it in hushed tones, or privately, but they still talk,” Mr Boulten said.
The Crown could not prove Houston told that meeting legal advice indicated police did not need to know, after revealing his father had confirmed the abuse and been stripped of his credentials, Mr Boulten said.
One witness gave evidence they were confident Houston had told the meeting that, but did not commit to it under cross-examination.
Houston denied it.
Absent evidence from potential witnesses and missing original documents posed fact-finding difficulties.
“I’ve harped on about that a lot,” Mr Boulten said, describing crown closing submissions as an invitation for assumption and speculation.
Houston believed Mr Sengstock did not want a formal investigation, but had to take it to national executive members after confirming the complaint by confronting his father.
“To call this some cover-up is a mischaracterisation, it’s very unfair, quite unfair to the accused, who had to do this and did it,” Mr Boulten said.
Giving evidence, Mr Sengstock could not remember who told him of the confession, saying “it was gossip everywhere”.
Mr Boulten urged Magistrate Gareth Christofi not to accept some evidence from Mr Sengstock, who was “confused” about specific dates some abuse occurred, his age when he first told his mother, who recorded the "bombshell" information in a 1994 diary, and whether he had only one phone call with Houston in the aftermath, or three.
Far from covering up his father’s crimes, Houston addressed them publicly in broadcast sermons, some of which were attended by the then police commissioner, and in media interviews, Mr Boulten said.
Mr Harrison said on Thursday Houston made “technically correct” statements “designed to mislead” speaking about his father’s abuse, conflating his crimes in NSW with others in New Zealand.
Mr Christofi will deliver judgment on August 17.
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