Gloriavale ‘slavery’ claim on path to hearing

| The Post | Wellington Court Reporter |

Former Gloriavale members have begun refining their claim of “slavery“ as it heads towards a hearing of allegations that the Crown failed to protect them at the closed community.

Four people ‒ Anna Courage, Pearl Valor, Gideon Benjamin and Hosea Courage ‒ filed the case against the attorney-general, Gloriavale leaders, and the Christian Church Community Trust.

But the trust, which owns and runs Gloriavale on the West Coast, has already said it wants a claim against it struck out.

The parties took a step in the case this week at the High Court in Wellington where the four “leavers” from Gloriavale abandoned an attempt to name individual public servants as defendants in the case.

The individuals’ names were not to be published, Associate Judge Andrew Skelton ordered.

The judge had heard an application before the first claim was filed in July seeking details for it. He was told it was intended the claim should cover about 46 people born into Gloriavale from 1996.

It was alleged government and civil servants failed to protect children from the alleged actions of Gloriavale leaders, and that children were being entrapped and enslaved at Gloriavale.

The names of the civil servants were sought.

The attorney-general, on behalf of several government departments, opposed the release of names, but provided some other information.

Several government organisations had investigated Gloriavale since 2012. The investigations covered its status as a charity, but in 2015, also resulted in a request to police to consider an “all-of-government” investigation, due to charities investigators hearing allegations of crimes.

Other investigations took place and further committees were set up in 2020 and 2022, it was alleged.

A Cabinet social welfare committee directed outcomes to be put in place at Gloriavale.

In the judge’s recent decision on the steps taken before filing the claim, he raised potential difficulties about suing individual civil servants who were immune from liability in civil cases, for actions or omissions made in good faith.

And an intended claim of negligence appeared to raise “novel” issues, and key elements of it were unclear, he said.

But in documents already public or that the attorney-general had supplied was information that could be used to set out the claim so the case could begin, he said.

The situation conceivably raised some prospect of a claim against the Crown, he said.

Once a claim was filed different rules would apply, more documents could be asked for, and the claim amended as needed.

The first version of the claim was filed in July and an updated one was filed on Monday.

No date has been set for the next hearing.