Gloriavale man assaulted boys with brooms, pitchfork and shovel
A former Gloriavale member says he still feels the fear he experienced as a child, after coming face to face with the man convicted of abusing him and other boys more than a decade ago.
The Christchurch District Court heard Vigilant Standtrue was convicted of seven charges of assault with a weapon, involving four victims, while supervising boys working at Gloriavale’s moss shed between 2001 and 2013.
The victims were aged between eight and 13 when Standtrue used sticks, plastic pipes, broom handles, a shovel and a pitchfork on them.
Among the victims was Boaz Benjamin, who was born and raised in the West Coast Christian community and left just over three years ago.
Today, he returned to court in Greymouth as Standtrue was sentenced to 10 months’ home detention for multiple assaults with weapons.
Benjamin said seeing Standtrue again brought the past back into focus.
“Walking in and seeing him there just took me back to being a young boy again,” he said. “I could mentally feel that fear all over again.”
As a child, Benjamin said he was regularly rostered to work alongside Standtrue as part of Gloriavale’s after‑school labour system. He described an environment of constant yelling, intimidation, and physical violence.
“You didn’t know if you were going to get hit that day,” he said. “Sometimes I’d even hide because I was scared but you still had to go.”
In court, Judge Tony Zohrab found the assaults occurred while Standtrue was in a position of authority over young boys working at Gloriavale’s moss shed.
The judge said the victims were truthful and credible, and the violence was never justified, regardless of the pressures of the work.
The court also heard Standtrue had previously been sentenced in 2022 to a year of supervision for assaulting a child at Gloriavale. Standtrue then completed a year of supervision and undertook anger management programmes.
Judge Zohrab said Standtrue had addressed his behaviour but warned a prison sentence would have been unavoidable if this offending had occurred later.
He said the offending was serious but home detention was the least restrictive sentence that still met the aims of justice.
Despite the convictions, Standtrue continued to deny weapons were used, something Benjamin said was one of the hardest moments of the sentencing to sit through.
“That’s not something you can just make up,” he said. “Especially when multiple people are independently saying the same thing.”
Benjamin said the sentence fell short of justice.
“Ten months just isn’t enough. As a victim, I don’t think it reflects the length or impact of what happened.”
Standtrue was the latest of more than 20 Gloriavale adults to be sentenced in the courts, with several more investigations ongoing, including through the Teaching Council and a separate inquiry into alleged labour exploitation.
Benjamin said authorities must not ease their scrutiny.