Former Gloriavale member Clem Ready says children ‘slaves to a cult system’ despite checks

| NZ Herald | Michael Morrah |

Seeking religious solace, Clem Ready joined the Gloriavale community as a 19-year-old. The then teenager wanted to be closer to God but as the years passed, he became disillusioned with the sect’s leaders. His questioning of their beliefs led to a spectacular clash with his superiors who he’d trusted and followed for much of his life. Despite sustained efforts to push him out, Ready and his wife are refusing to leave. Michael Morrah has the story.

A man who’s fallen out with Gloriavale’s leaders – but still lives at the commune – has likened the West Coast sect to a “prison” and doubts visits by police and Oranga Tamariki will ensure children and adults living there are safe.

“They [Gloriavale’s residents] are not free. They are slaves to a cult system,” Clem Ready told the Herald.

Ready followed Gloriavale’s system for decades which included adhering to the teachings of the leadership.

He told the Herald this extended to blocking the airways of his children – a practice taught to him and other parents as a method to silence crying babies and children.

The now 70-year-old can’t fathom why he’d follow a disciplinary tactic he now calls “criminal” but said when you’re a young parent dominated by Gloriavale’s leaders, you’re impressionable.

“I’ve apologised to my children for the practice. I’m revolted by it. I’m just like, how could I ever do that?”

In 2018, Ready was even convicted of physically assaulting two of his daughters. He admitted the offending and subsequently made amends with his family.

Ready was part of the Gloriavale community during the tenure of the now deceased sex offender and Gloriavale founder, Hopeful Christian.

In a letter written by Christian while in jail for his crimes, he openly encouraged his flock to “eradicate” the self-will of babies and children, so they didn’t form “bad habits”.

In Ready’s mind, the reason parents were taught the hand-over-mouth child discipline technique was simple – it was to break the will of youngsters in the community, so they would fall in line.

“You either have your will broken or you give it up freely and if you ever retract it as an adult over anything, the attempt will be made [by leaders] to re-establish their dominance over you.”

Ready would know. He claimed the leaders – known as Shepherds – spent years trying to break him after he questioned their decision making.

Over time, Ready became increasingly disillusioned with Christian’s regular lectures during Gloriavale’s communal dinners, and he’d bury himself in work as a way to escape.

In his mind, Gloriavale’s founder was a “voyeur and narcissist”.

“Hopeful used to say ‘I love the lord so much I would crawl around the block on my hands and knees on broken glass’. I always thought this was a load of nonsense,” Ready said.

“I would not submit to his lies.”

The final straw for Ready was when he tried to push for another leader to be punished for having a sexual connection with a young woman.

Ready’s efforts to have the perpetrator stood down were met with resistance, and the female victim was ostracised and belittled, he claimed.

“They turned against me,” he said.

He believes Gloriavale’s residents are essentially trapped by the leaders’ rules from a young age – brainwashed into thinking they’re following God.

Asked whether he thought Gloriavale is a Christian community, Ready said such a notion is a “total joke”.

“I call Gloriavale ‘Gulagvale’. It’s not glorious. It’s a prison.”

The Herald sent Gloriavale a detailed list of questions about the specific concerns raised by Ready and is yet to receive a response.

However, a spokesman has previously said the community’s current leaders do not stand by their founder’s remarks about the need to break the will of youngsters.

“The leadership of Gloriavale affirms our commitment to nurturing families and raising children with care, respect, and strong relationships,” he said.

The spokesman has also previously told the Herald safe parenting programmes have been implemented at Gloriavale and a child protection and safety policy was introduced in 2022.

Despite being repulsed by everything Gloriavale and its leaders stand for, Ready still lives at the site on the banks of the Haupiri River.

Together with his wife Sharon, they sleep, shower and eat on the mezzanine floor of a noisy workshop which was previously used as an aircraft hangar.

Video of their “home” supplied to the Herald shows fuel canisters, old tractors and machinery on the workshop floor and the constant whirring of a dust extractor is audible.

While living in the workshop, the pair – seen as dissenters by Gloriavale’s leadership – are isolated from others in the community, including three of their own daughters and their children who still live there.

“Some of those grandchildren we have never seen. We’ve never been introduced to them. The parents are afraid. The leadership says, no, you can’t do this.”

He doesn’t hold anything against his daughters for not visiting them – he’s familiar with being under the thumb of the leaders.

“They [my daughters] know what it means to not be obedient to the leadership. I understand that and I’m not angry and upset with them,” he said.

Ready likens efforts to exclude him and Sharon to “suffocating us” by ensuring they’re not only isolated but are known as “illegal aliens” by the rest of the community.

Because of Ready’s unwillingness to leave, Gloriavale has instructed lawyers to take legal action to have them evicted.

“The point is our fight, and it is a fight, is not just for her [Sharon] and I, it’s for all the children and the parents who are suffocated by the leadership’s demands,” he said.

Central to Ready’s rationale for staying at a place where he’s treated with such disdain is because it was his home for 30 years, he lacks money to buy a home elsewhere because he alleges all his earnings were “robbed”, and, importantly, Gloriavale is where his youngest daughter Prayer Ready is buried.

Prayer, who had Down syndrome, died of asphyxiation after choking on a piece of meat in 2015.

The 14-year-old had been locked in an isolation room at the time of her death.

Ready said remaining at Gloriavale meant the pair could regularly tend to their daughter’s grave.

“My wife is very devoted to her memory, so leaving Gloriavale is never going happen. It’s a way of her maintaining her connection,” he said.

Ready has previously lived outside the community.

In 2017, at the height of his rift with the leaders, he fled in the middle of the night with a backpack, his driver’s licence and some toiletries.

But his wife Sharon would not leave – Gloriavale was all she knew and it was where her daughter was buried.

When Ready returned in 2021 to be with her, Sharon was also shunned by the leaders after they learned she was still engaged in a sexual relationship with her rebellious partner.

The pair held clandestine meetings at the workshop – the same place that subsequently became their home.

Ready said Sharon lost her job as a teacher at Gloriavale’s school after admitting to former leader, Howard Temple, she was still having sex with her husband.

“That was the basis for her removing her from her teaching position. There was no paperwork. There was no ‘let’s sit down and let’s talk about this’,” he said.

Life in the noisy workshop is at times intolerable for the couple, but Ready insists that “this is our home”.

“We are not going be just shoved and pushed around and silenced and suffocated because this is somebody else’s determination.”

The Herald has previously revealed that police and Oranga Tamariki (OT) quietly launched a mass allegation investigation into the suffocation of babies and children at the end of last year.

More than 100 interviews were conducted with parents and children and police issued two formal warnings.

Police and OT also spoke to Gloriavale’s adults and gave them “suggested parenting techniques” for dealing with childhood behaviours and scenarios.

The investigation was triggered by evidence heard at the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care, and its recommendation that the Government take “all practicable steps” to ensure the safety of children and adults at Gloriavale.

The mass allegation investigation into suffocation tactics was preceded by another investigation by police and OT in 2017.

During that earlier inquiry, authorities offered the leaders parents tips, but the investigation concluded without any formal warnings or any other type of enforcement action.

Social Development Minister Louise Upston, who’s overseeing the response to the Commission, told the Herald staff from police, health and OT are currently visiting the isolated community “multiple times a week”.

Despite assurances of official oversight, Ready remains sceptical of the intentions of leaders showing them around the compound.

“They [OT and police] don’t know how much this is just like a play, a pantomime. It’s just a deceptive manoeuvre to obscure the truth,” he said.

Ready is convinced that as soon as officials leave Gloriavale, the dominance, isolation and oppression will resume.

Upston, who told the Herald she has “serious concerns” about Gloriavale planned to visit the group’s new Overseeing Shepherd Stephen Steadfast in the new year.

Ready is grateful Upston is showing care and concern for what’s unfolding at Gloriavale but doubts the visit will be a useful exercise.

“It’s a joke because he [Steadfast] is going to spend all his time between now and then preparing for that meeting to convince her that Gloriavale is viable,” he said.

He said seeking answers about life at the community from the leadership was a waste of time.

“Don’t ask leaders. It’s their job to con you. It’s their job to prove to you that they’re the real deal.”