Police consider charging Gloriavale leaders over failing to act over sexual abuse
Police are considering whether to criminally charge Gloriavale leaders with failing to protect children from sexual harm.
Police became aware of intergenerational harmful sexual behaviour at the Gloriavale Christian Community in 2015, a Coroner has heard.
Detective Senior Sergeant Kirsten Norton said Gloriavale’s community members were reluctant to co-operate with police before 2020 and though leaders were aware of wide-spread offending they did not report it to authorities.
She made the comments at the inquest of the death of 20-year-old Gloriavale man Sincere Standtrue who died in Christchurch Hospital’s intensive care unit, 10 days after he was discovered unresponsive in Gloriavale’s paint shop in 2018.
The leadership of Gloriavale publicly apologised for its role in failing to prevent and protect victims of sexual abuse in 2022.
Coroner Alexandra Cunninghame is exploring whether Standtrue’s death was an accident or self-inflicted, whether he was bullied, physically disciplined and subjected to harmful sex behaviour and whether that influenced his actions or state of mind.
She is also examining whether Standtrue may have been exposed to toxins due to poor workplace practices possibly causing brain damage that affected his decision making and survivability.
Norton told the Coroner there was a “really high likelihood” Standtrue was exposed to sexual harm. She spoke about a previously undisclosed investigation called Operation Mango, which she was not involved in but had reviewed after another investigation into sexual harm in the community – Operation Minneapolis – was launched in 2020.
She said eight files were created in Operation Mango after complaints to police in 2015 revealed a pattern of physical and sexual offending.
“The matter of sexual violence wasn’t addressed in 2015… However, upon review in more recent times it’s clear that for example the harmful sexualised behaviour that was then addressed in 2020 was spoken of to police back in 2015,” she said.
She told the coroner there was a peak in the wave of offending around the 2018 concert which the community put on every two years for the wider public.
Many parents were working long hours on the concert and had a reduced capacity to watch over children, she said.
She said Operation Minneapolis found 61 young people were involved in intergenerational offending, typically when older boys were supervising their peers or younger boys in work without adult supervision. The investigation resulted in two men and three boys being charged. Others were dealt with through alternative means, such as education.
She said Operation Minneapolis also identified the community’s leaders failed to address the offending and allowed it to grow.
One of the key youth offenders had become known to some parents and one couple wrote an anonymous letter to leadership outlining their concerns about him.
“At the time the young person was interviewed by police his parents professed to not previously having been spoken to by anyone in leadership about their son,” she said.
Police had sought legal advice about whether it could charge the leaders with failing to protect the children from sexual harm.
“This was not able to be progressed based on the evidence at the time but remains an open consideration,” she said.
The boys were distressed and carrying guilt, particularly because homosexuality was deemed to be a sin within Gloriavale but at the same time the offending became “a normal thing” within the community.
She said intervention by the educational STOP programme was “paramount to changing the tide of the intergenerational pattern of sexual offending”.
After significant advocacy by the area commander three extra investigators were appointed to the Gloriavale investigation.
“From 2020 … we had quite significant engagement with the community and certainly there was a real willingness from the leadership and also from the parents themselves as a result of Operation Minneapolis coming to light that they wanted to help,” she said.
Parents said they did not know sexual offending was criminal behaviour until educational programmes were rolled out.
“A lot of the parents struggled to cope with the discovery of offending by their own children because they too had been offended against and had never dealt with those wounds themselves, so they were quite triggered by that,” she said.
A police spokesperson said two of the eight files in Operation Mango went to prosecution in 2017 and 2023.
They said the allegations were fully investigated. Five related to sexual offending and three to physical assaults.
The inquest continues in August.