Judgment Of Lord Justice Ward Concerning The Family

JUDGEMENT OF LORD JUSTICE WARD CONCERNING THE FAMILY : PT 8

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THIS IS THE JUDGMENT OF LORD JUSTICE WARD IN THIS CASE WHICH
HE GAVE IN CHAMBERS ON THE 26TH MAY 1995 BUT WHICH IS BEING
HANDED DOWN IN OPEN COURT TODAY. IT CONSISTS OF 295 PAGES
AND HAS BEEN SIGNED AND DATED BY THE JUDGE.

THE JUDGE HEREBY DIRECTS THAT NO TRANSCRIPT OF THE JUDGMENT
NEED BE TAKEN AND THAT THE VERSION HANDED DOWN MAY BE
TREATED AS AUTHENTIC.

THE JUDGMENT IS BEING DISTRIBUTED ON THE STRICT
UNDERSTANDING THAT IN ANY REPORT OF IT NO PERSON (OTHER THAT
COUNSEL AND THEIR INSTRUCTING SOLICITORS AND THOSE PERSONS
IDENTIFIED BY NAME IN THE JUDGMENT ITSELF) MAY BE IDENTIFIED
BY NAME AND THAT IN PARTICULAR THE ANONYMITY OF THE CHILD, A
WARD OF COURT, AND THE MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY MUST BE
STRICTLY PRESERVED.

SIGNED:

THE RT. HON. LORD JUSTICE WARD DATED 19TH OCTOBER 1995

W 42 1992 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

FAMILY DIVISION

PRINCIPAL REGISTRY IN THE MATTER OF ST (A MINOR)

AND IN THE MATTER OF THE SUPREME COURT ACT 1991h

Lord Justice Ward

THE ORAL EVIDENCE OF CHILD / ADULT ABUSE.

The Family stand condemned by their own experts. Dr Melton
agreed that there had been sexual abuse of children and
teenagers by adults within The Family to a greater extent
than outside it. Dr Millikan agreed. So do I. It is not
necessary to burden this judgment with all the oral evidence
that was led in this regard. This summary will have to
suffice:

1. MB. Her first encounter was with her step-father in
Paris when she was 7. He made her masturbate him. She was
sent to Greece to join "Music with Meaning" and from then on
it was constant sexual activity. She said:

"Paul (now the European CRO) immediately started sexual
interaction with us doing everything except penetration. I
began to realise I was expected to be "revolutionary", that
is to say sexually to service the different men aged 25 to
30 plus."

Among the men who abused her there was Jeremy S.. From the
end of 1983 to August 1987 she was with Berg.

2. AB:

She was in South America. At 7 a man in his 30's asked her
to touch him; she was revolted because "it was so horrible."
By 12 she had grown so used to it that she thought nothing
if someone touched her bottom or her breasts or masturbated
her. At 13 the Shepherdess asked if she would share with her
husband, a man in his 40's and that was her first full
sexual intercourse. It continued thereafter. It was
suggested to her that this evidence was untrue because she
had been examined by a doctor during the investigation into
The Family's activities in Argentina. She denied that she
had in fact been examined and she insisted that The Family
knew it. At that stage JN430 was not in evidence. It was
produced later. That records "The testimony of an arrested
teen" and AB says:

"(The doctor) was supposed to check me for signs of sexual
abuse, but since I looked so healthy and normal he decided
just to take my word for it. He asked me if I had ever had
sex and I answered no."

She said she lied to save The Family. She deceived to be
true.

2. The G Brothers. The younger brother JG who has left
the group, gave evidence for the Plaintiff that at 6, the
childcare worker in her 20's performed oral sex on him and
that mutual masturbation then occurred on a number of
occasions thereafter. His elder brother EG who remains in
The Family and who gave evidence for the defendant confirmed
that had happened. He explained that at the age of about 10
he would go to her room to look at her body and ask
questions about it.

"I would take my clothes off and show her my penis. I would
say if I play with if it feels nice. She would play with it.
We were kissing and fondling each other."

In his affidavit he described instances of oral sex and
eventually full sexual intercourse. In his evidence, giving
a clue to the sexual mores of that time in The Family, he
said:

"She didn't think anything wrong with it, at the time there
was nothing wrong or evil in it."

3. EG said in cross examination that his parents knew he
was spending time in the child care worker's room and must
have known sexual activities were taking place between them
but they did nothing to stop it. It must not be forgotten
that the boys' father was Apollos or Pathway, the editor of
the Mo letters and the author of "Heaven's Girl." Their
mother is a European CRO. For them the Davidito Book would
have been common practice.

4. RF. He is a respected member of the video ministry not
far removed from the top leadership. He gave another account
of sexual education by an adult of the young. He spoke in
his affidavit of a childcare worker approaching him and RD-

"On the subject of sex education and told us the girls were
curious to know about the male anatomy and if there was
anything that we could do to help...I spent some time with
and spoke to the two girls and talked to them about my body
- no sexual activity occurred at all."

He made this affidavit in response to evidence RD had given.
I have already observed that although I accepted the general
purport of RD's evidence, much of which was confirmed by
later events, the manner of his giving it was so emotive
that I tended to look for corroboration of what he was
saying. He is very hostile to The Family and a great
publicist for their downfall. I do not, however, doubt his
account of the events of November 1983 when they were in
Dominica and the son and daughter of Peter Amsterdam and the
daughter of the financial minister of the group visited with
the child care couple in charge of them. This couple
approached RD and RF and asked them to share with the girls
who were only 10 and 11 years old. The little girl presented
herself in a sarong with no panties. She masturbated him. He
says that RF later told him that he (RF) had done likewise.
In his oral testimony, RF went further than he did in his
affidavit, admitting that at one point they asked to see his
penis and he showed it to them. He denied his penis was
erect. I regret that I did not believe him. He is a man
consumed by terrible guilt over this incident and as RD
says, he may have been "freaked out over it". He said he
felt "peculiar" about it. He made the extraordinary
admission of his having had a vision of his father coming
into the room. It may well be, as Dr Cameron thinks, that
this was his conscience. I am satisfied that as part of this
extraordinary sex education lesson RF allowed if not
encouraged these girls to masturbate him. In many other
respects RF was a most engaging man. His enthusiasm for his
work was catching. He forced me to watch one of the videos
he made of the children singing and dancing and praising the
Lord. I did not doubt his sincerity nor his belief that the
way forward for The Family was to be more open and for the
Teens to "be given more time and chance to express their
desires of what they want out of life".

5. The P's: I have read Shuly's letter and her pointing
to examples of lust and not love. It seems to be accepted
now by those who knew the P family that their childcare
worker, a man in his 20's, was an abuser. VP told me that at
the age of 7 she was sitting on her bed when the baby sitter
started masturbating her. He also abused DP. When, much
later, this abuse was disclosed, the man concerned was
removed from their home but later was admitted back because
DP felt she was then old enough to escape his attentions. MP
did in fact avoid his advances. She became sexually active
of her own choosing at a young age. She very readily had a
long and clandestine full sexual relationship with a
shepherd of about 38 when she was back in Mexico aged 15.
That was at a time when such contact had been prohibited.

6. DK filed an affidavit on the defendant's behalf. He
did not give evidence. VP said that he told her that a woman
had "jumped into bed with him". In his affidavit he
testified of the time when aged 13 he had a sexual
experience with a 20 year old woman. "I was a young teenage
boy, she was a pretty 20 year old, I was shy but I felt
like, "Wow, I scored".

7. KJ spoke of remembering very clearly of the first
occasion, aged 3, in London, when her step father "touched
me up, playing with me, my vagina, I remember him licking me
out, fingers inside me". She spoke of this through her
tears. This sort abuse happened often. She felt "quite
scared" by it. She knew it was sex but thought he was
showing her love. He would grab her head and force fellatio
on her. He tried to penetrate her when she was only 7 or 8
and it hurt. He was a crude man who would boast openly about
his daughter being "a good fuck". That all of this abuse
occurred seems to be accepted by The Family but they
accepted no responsibility of it regarding step father as
not one of their own. What is totally extraordinary about
this sustained abuse is that KJ's mother was told about it.
She said that at the time:

"I went into a state of shock but because of the
indoctrination in the Mo letters I came to accept it. If Mo
said it was OK, it must be OK. In "My Childhood Sex" he says
his nanny was giving him oral sex and that it was acceptable
so I accepted it. It is something I very much regret, I am
ashamed by it, I am horrified to think I had such a belief
in David Berg that I bowed to his teaching against my own
conscience. I assumed him to be a man of God, a good man, it
was incomprehensible he would be evil or use the Bible for
evil, he talked with such authority. I am now deeply
horrified and regret these things. He had no right to do
these things to people who were vulnerable. I am very
angry."

She is very angry. She now conducts a campaign against The
Family to salve her conscience. I do not doubt that she
paints the picture as black as she can but even stripping
away layers of blackness, the picture still remains black.

KJ told me she "had sex" with 6 adults. It was clear from
her descriptions, vibrant with detail that she used the
words loosely to connote some form of sexual encounter
usually of masturbation or simulated sexual intercourse. She
complained that only Paul had full sexual intercourse with
her, and that without her consent. She was on a road team
from Pondacherry with two adults, Paul and Rose (not SF) and
with 16 year old S3. She was 9 or 10. Paul knew she was
sharing with S3. He wanted his share but KJ was unwilling.
She was being selfish. So he raped her. Her screams woke
Rose who did nothing to help. She was bleeding. She was very
upset and withdrawn on return to the home. Eventually she
explained what had happened to her in her Open Heart Report.
That resulted in the shepherd giving her a reading
assignment including "The Girl who Wouldn't" which conveyed
the message that she, the victim, was in the wrong and that
was out of spirit. In effect she, the child, was punished.
He went scot free. There can be no greater indictment of
Family practice than this. Here was an adult man whose
sexual urges were not regarded depraved, but God given. Here
was a child who did not have enough "love" to recognise his
need or to sacrifice herself to meet it. Here was an evil
corruption of the true notion of the noble ideal of love. KJ
gave explicit detail of other encounters e.g. with Jeduthan,
who was fat, old, bald and with glasses, with a fake laugh
and "Jesus talk" such as "You're doing good work for the
Lord, honey, Jesus loves you" but who would then "wank
himself off through my legs and make me lick the sperm off
his penis." And an the army officer-type Apollos (not
Apollos of World Service) who her "shoved" against a banana
tree until her back really hurt as he attempted to penetrate
her. And Uria who was fat and bald like Jeduthan, who was
sharing with her mother and who called her into his room. He
made her sit naked on top of him, his penis between her
legs. It was early morning and a man walked in to ask
whether Uria wanted coffee of tea in bed. It was apparently
unremarkable that KJ should be there. And Paulo who pulled
the ribbon off her "sexy" nickers which came off during a
gypsy evening so that she was naked. He put his hand "on my
crutch and put my hand on his hard-on. There was no
intercourse but he ejaculated on her. He was 30 and had a
strange accent. Or the man in Bangalore who had a moustache
which was prickly. KJ was showering in the garden when she
was frightened by a snake and as she ran away, she fell over
in the mud. He took her into the bathroom to clean her, but
got undressed and made her rub him all over. She said "it
was quite fun - he was kissing my vagina and his moustache
tickled and I was laughing."

8. MS. Her father is Jeremy S. of Music with Meaning. Her
mother is Dawn, a European Shepherd. She is a true child of
The Family. She is quite a pert little madam who learnt to
strip at the age of 4 and the irony is that her current
occupation is that of an "exotic dancer." In fact she would
prefer to read law. Her evidence was heavily attacked by Mr
Barton. It was suggested that the Plaintiff had bribed her
with promises of holidays in Kenya to come and tell lies to
me. I am satisfied that her evidence was not improperly
procured and that she was broadly telling me the truth. She
said in her affidavit:

"From my earliest memories until my time in India, sexual
activity pervaded The Family. Instances that stand out in my
mind are as follows:-

"My mother and my father frequently had sexual intercourse
and performed oral sex with each other and with other people
in the same room as us children, regardless of whether we
were awake or asleep. I distinctly remember my father having
sexual intercourse with Faithy Berg when we lived in a
caravan in Greece. I was around four years old at the time."

At the age of 6 she had to use both hands to masturbate
Timothy in his 20's or 30's, ex-Vietnam veteran. At the same
age she had to "help her father out" which meant caressing
him and mutual masturbation. From the age of 7 her step
father made her masturbate him. She later told Mary Malay
about her step father but not about her father because she
liked him: "at least," she said, "he did not beat me". She
watched her brother aged about 12 having sexual intercourse
with older women and her sister H2 having sexual intercourse
with Solomon Touchstone whom she had seen on another
occasion in the swimming pool having sexual intercourse with
her mother. She saw her mother having sexual intercourse
with a 16 year old called J1 whom she believed to be the
same child J1 who was described as sharing with his English
step-mother Sally in Australia as shown in Video number 5
produced by the Plaintiff. MS spoke of being in Italy when
she was 11 when one of the men publicly put his hands in her
shirt to feel her "barely budding breast." She always felt:

"A bit funny when old men used to come and touch me and I
feel he is an ugly old man I don't want him touching me. I
didn't complain because I didn't feel I'd get a good
response because my mother thought it was ok, and would
think I should think it was ok and that there was something
wrong with me that I didn't like it."

She chose to have sexual intercourse with a 19 year old
called C1 in the Finchley Road home 3 days before her 14th
birthday. She was probably quite brazen about her having
sexual intercourse at Rugby with DM, who was 16. She was by
then well aware that it was against the rules.

THE FAMILY'S RESPONSE TO THIS ABUSE.

I am far from certain I have been given full frank
information by The Family. In his first affidavit SPM says
that "In 1985 a directive was sent out to all the homes
world-wide reminding everybody that sex between adults and
children was strictly forbidden and that this included sex
between teenagers and adults." He exhibited "Child Abuse?!
An Official Statement from the Founders of the Children of
God" which began with a quote from Moses David dated
December 1988 :

"We do not approved with sex with minors, and hereby
renounce any writings of anyone in our family which may seem
to do so! We absolutely forbid it!"

The article stated:-

"In order to try to substantiate these absolutely false
charges against us (of sex between adults and minors and
adults and young children) some of our opponents have begun
reproducing and distributing an article which was published
within our group over 10 years ago. Although the article in
question does make reference to an unusually loving
relationship between the young woman who wrote it and the
child she was caring for, even a quick glance makes it clear
that the article is only the writer's account of her own
personal experience and opinions. And it is by no means any
kind of policy setting or instructional text. Such intimate
relationships between minors and adults have never been
officially encouraged or condoned within our fellowship and
it was a very unfortunate oversight and mistake on our part
10 years ago to have allowed such an article to be
published. Since then we have expressly forbidden and
condemned any such conduct among our members."

That article was clearly "My Little Fish." I have already
sufficiently demonstrated that this attempt to lay all the
blame on Sara and none on the leadership is dishonest. The
article continued:-

"In early 1985 "(my emphasis)" when it was called to our
attention that some questions had arisen concerning sex
between adults and minors, we issued an urgent directive to
all of our communities world wide. In this missive, all of
our members were strongly reminded that any such activities
are strictly forbidden within our group. The following
excerpts are taken verbatim" (again my emphasis)" from this
directive:-

"For the record we want to say that we do not agree with
adults having sex with children! The Family should just not
do it. And even though teen sex with adults may be tolerated
in some countries, we are against it. Nudity and sex can be
wonderful and beautiful and we have a good godly healthy
attitude regarding it, but adults must refrain from
practising it with minors! The best thing we can do is just
not do it at all. Adults should refrain from any sexual
involvement with under-aged minors!"

These are direct quotations from an internal memorandum
which was issued to all of our communities over 3 years ago.
"( I stress the fact that if issued 3 years earlier, then it
was issued before 1985.)

The Official Solicitor called for sight of that internal
memorandum. It has not been forthcoming. I have to wonder
why not. My concern is also roused because a slightly
different version of the same document was quoted by The
Family in April 1992, in their document issued by World
Services entitled "Our Replies to Allegations of Child
Abuse". That again gave the date of the internal memorandum
as being 1985. An explanation is given that:

"When rumours began to surface that some members were
possibly having sexual contact with adolescents, action was
taken to clearly explain to all members that not only was
such conduct not condoned but strictly forbidden".

No particulars were given of the date or substance of those
rumours. In this version of the memorandum, the reference
was to adults having "sexual contact" with children which
may be different from and so less serious than adults having
"sex" with children. It acknowledged teen sex with adults
was not tolerated "as its fruit is more bad than good." It
contained this revealing passage:-

"Although Dad (Father David) has written about teens, and
even younger children's sexual interests, these interests
can be satisfied by a natural and open attitude with others
of their own age. Also, it should be emphasised to our teens
and children that they need do nothing against their will.
They can always say, "No!" Young folks being affectionate
with each other is natural and healthy, as long as they are
not hurting each other; but let's keep it within the
confines of their own age. Let's set the record straight
here and now that youth with youth and teen with teen is the
normal, natural type of loving affection that we and even
society would expect."

The statement then acknowledged that:-

"Since 1985, even the above quoted degree of liberality
described above regarding children and adolescents being
sexually affectionate among themselves has been discouraged
in our communities."

It is pertinent to note from that statement how
inappropriately The Family shift the responsibility from the
abusing adult and place it not just on the teens but also on
the children, i.e. those below 13. They are the ones
expected to have to say "No" to prevent advantage being
taken of them against their will.

Yet another version is given in "The History of the Sexual
Policies of The Family" dated November 1993, upon which SPM
relies to answer the Official Solicitor's interrogatories.
This document refers not to rumours circulating in 1985 but
to a questionnaire given to the teens who attended the
Mexican Teen Training Camp in 1986. Some of the questions
enquired about their boy/girl relationships, and asked if
they had any questions or wanted to make any comments
regarding sexual matters. Of the approximately 110 teens in
attendance, 10 of them wrote they had experienced some form
of sexual contact with adults. Of these 10 3 girls aged 15
and 16 had experienced sexual intercourse. In all three
cases their mothers had separated from the girls fathers had
remarried and the sexual relationship occurred with their
step-fathers. Those reports were forwarded by Gary and
Faithy to Father David's household and Maria instructed Sara
(who was responsible for Family childcare publications at
the time) immediately to write an internal memorandum to the
entire Family categorically forbidding all sexual contact of
any sort between adults and minors. This memorandum,
entitled "Liberty or Stumbling Block", clearly defined the
policy regarding sex between adults and minors.

"Prior to this memorandum the need for a policy had not been
appreciated as it was not realised that such a problem
existed. However as soon as reports reached Father David and
Maria that sexual relationship between adults and minors had
occurred, a clear rule was imposed in which any such
relationship were unequivocally forbidden. This rule has
remained intact and has been enforced ever since".

I have to ask whether the internal memorandum of 1985
compiled after rumours had began to surface is the same as
Sara's memorandum, "Liberty or Stumbling Block" written in
1986 as a response to the TTC questionnaire. Neither have
been produced. Their importance is self-evident. I do not
believe that they do not exist. I am driven to find that The
Family have not been frank with me and I am bound therefore
to be suspicious that the internal records of this highly
organised computerised group contain information they wish
to withhold from the court. These records were, after all,
available in November 1993 two months before the trial
began. It would have been important to see whether it
contained any acknowledgement of responsibility, though I
doubt it, or any apology to those who had been victimised,
which again I doubt, or any offer of help which is
altogether too much to expect.

I have already referred to an undated document "Questions
You Always Wanted to Ask" which referred to the fact that a
question and answer session held "at recent TTC". I assume
that to be the 1986 TTC. I see the document Teen Graduation
which follows that article is dated September 1986. Apart
from a question as to the ability of "older teens" getting
"mated with an adult man", the answer to which is not very
informative, there is nothing at all by way of general
guidance to the other teens in The Family who did not have
the benefit of going to Mexico. Why was this opportunity not
taken to put them in the picture?

In May 1987 there was the publication "Good Thots". It
contained someone's good thoughts on sex. Despite the
apparent repudiation the year or two years previously, this
reported:

"An idea that is becoming more popular among doctors etc. is
that young children should be allowed and perhaps encouraged
to conduct a full sex life without interference from
parents. According to the argument children are sexual
beings who need to develop skills early in life. Mary
Calderone, head of the Influential Sex Information and
Education of Council of the US says that "the child has a
fundamental right to know....sexuality and to be sexual.
Sexologists consider Freud's latency - a time of low sexual
interest from about age 4 to puberty - to be misimposed by
British society. They pointed out that the boy's sexual
system beginning early - infant boys have erections and the
vaginas in infant girls lubricate....Many researchers
maintain that adult child sex is basically harmless to the
child. Psychologist Douglas Powell of Harvard Health Service
says "I have not seen anyone harmed by adult child sex so
long as it occurs in a relationship with someone who really
cares about the them."

This is an extraordinary bit of exculpation. Despite the
literature purge, it remains current literature for The
Family's consumption.

I have already referred to the "Child Abuse Official
Statement" published in March 1989. That referred to:

"A written statement by the founding father of our group
when he was recently asked what our official stance was
regarding any of our past publications that purportedly
condoned adults having sex of any kind with minors. "We do
not approve of sex with minors, and we hereby renounce any
writings of any one in our Family which may seek to do so."

I have not seen that written statement. It would appear from
the quotation to have been issued in December 1988. Peter
Amsterdam wrote to me to point out that the statement of
renunciation was intended to include Berg's own writing
among those which were capable of repudiation. It is a pity
Berg himself did not make that clear. It is a greater pity
he did not renounce the many statements, such as those
identified in this judgment, of most of which he was the
author, which, as I have demonstrated, cannot be construed
otherwise than as conniving adults having sexual contact
with minor's. The only document referred to in the "Child
Abuse Official Statement" is Sara's "My Little Fish"
published by "very unfortunate oversight". I reject that
statement.

In June 1989 Maria wrote "Child Abuse: A Final Warning". In
it she said:-

"Parents - or any other adults for that matter - certainly
do not have sex with children! Or under aged teens! For
example, no matter how much a man may feel drawn to a sexy
teen girl, and love her and want to get intimately involved
with her, it's simply not wise. They don't have to, and they
had better refrain from it. To have any kind of affair or
sexual relationship with a minor is just about the most
dangerous thing any of our adults could do. And it's not
even necessary! There's no need or legitimate reason for it!
In fact nothing is necessary if it's going to hurt the
Lord's work! And anybody who does it is in serious trouble,
not only with the world but with us!...So if we hear of any
who violate these rules, we're going to immediately
excommunicate them...It's been researched and proven by
experts that in almost every case where an adult got
involved with a teen, the relationship fails simply because
there are too many differences of interests, teens who have
had such involvement with adults have almost unanimously
manifested a very negative, regretful or remorseful reaction
to such experiences. So I definitely think it's far better
that our adults completely avoid such involvements with
minors!"

That is a determined attempt to stamp out the practice which
I highlight because it deserves as much even double the
emphasis as I have given to the objectionable passages. It
has to be applauded. It contains some acknowledgement of the
harm these sexual contacts cause the teenagers. The letter
might have taken the opportunity to stress just how much
such actions hurt not only the Lord's work but the children.
It might have made more plain that such actions were not
only "simply not wise" but also categorically wrong. The
letter is addressed to disciples and friends. It is a shame
no letter was written to the teenagers offering them help,
advice and apology.

Go To Part 7 . . .

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