Judgment Of Lord Justice Ward Concerning The Family

JUDGEMENT OF LORD JUSTICE WARD CONCERNING THE FAMILY : PT 9

Click Here For A Warning Concerning This Judgment

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

In October 1989 Maria published "Flirty Little Teens
Beware". This was to be read "unitedly" by adults and teens.
It referred to:

"Some teen girls play on sexual angles to try to get the
men's attention. That's all a lot of them want, attention,
but it can easily be misinterpreted by the men as meaning
something else. So you may need to take a definite stand in
your own hearts and minds that you're not going to be swayed
by anything that some young teen girl may do to interest or
even entice you. .... And likewise you adult women had
better not get involved with under age boys! There is
nothing wrong with fighting against giving in to sexual
desires if in some particular situation they are wrong.
Let's face it, sex is not something that's always good,
clear across the board. Just because we promote sex and
believe God made it and that it's his wonderful creation
doesn't mean that it's always good under every
circumstance."

That is good sound advice. She continued:-

"In most cases our teen girls have been fairly innocent.
They have probably seen their mothers and aunts and uncles
and everyone show lots of love and affection to others, so
they've just figured, "Well this is what we're supposed to
do!"

This was a tacit admission that the heavily sexualized ethos
of Family life as I have set out in this judgment,
contributed to the corruption of innocent children. Maria
gave the girls a warning:-

"So when you're trying to get him involved and you're trying
to make eyes at him and tease him and play up to him and rub
up against him and kiss him and everything else whatever
your motivation may be, he is the one who is going to really
suffer for it. ... I think in some cases the teen girls
provoke it even more than the men! (Fam: Our teen girls
definitely need to hear this message because some of them
really do initiate it. The little pre-teen girls usually
don't know what they are provoking, they're more uninformed
and inexperienced. But most of the teens are very much aware
of what they are doing, although they don't really fully
understand the consequences.) Yes, after hearing all about
our former FFing and everything, they probably want to try
the same thing. Well our people are already FFed and they
are in The Family, so our young girls certainly don't need
to try and FF them, it's very dangerous for them to do so".

Again this appears to me to be a tacit acknowledgement that
Family practices have contributed to the harm suffered.

There was a further grudging acknowledgement in this
passage:-

"This is the very thing the system would like to use against
us - sex with minors which they always term child abuse
although in our loving Family there would be very little
possibility of genuine abuse, and if there has been any,
hopefully we've now gotten rid of the problem completely.
Most of our teens are no naive they don't even understand
why someone would deserve to be excommunicated for a thing
like this." (My emphasis.)

I observe that in the "Loving Family" it would not be
"genuine abuse." This a worrying disingenuous statement
based upon the totally flawed belief that if done in love in
accordance with the Law of Love, sex with minors (child
abuse) is not capable of being abusive.

In June 1990 The Family published "Don't be Ignorant of the
Devil's Devices". This letter was written to help The Family
the better to "inform your children" about the false child
abuse accusations that were currently being stirred up
against The Family in many countries. It contained a
"special notice to Family teens" written by W.S staff at
Maria's request. This is an important document. I quote from
it:-

"Mama recently expressed concern for you teens that when you
read how strongly we are condemning any sort of intimate
relationships between adults and minors, some of you may
have some questions. Some of you could even possibly wonder,
"Oh my! I remember a few years ago when Uncle so-an-so and I
cuddled and had fun together, was that sex abuse?"

This again seems to me to be an acknowledgement that a few
years previously Uncles did cuddle and have fun - which is
an undisguised euphemism for sexual contact - with young
girls. There is a further tacit acknowledgement in the
following passage:-

"But we are sure you are probably aware of the fact that
there can be a very strong natural attraction between men
and blossoming teen girls and in the past, before our
hypocritical enemies started slinging all their child abuse
accusations at us, we enjoyed certain God given liberties
and that natural attraction occasionally did lead to some
involvement and affection shown between some of our adult
men and teen girls and the same thing occasionally took
place between some teen boys and adult women." (My
emphasis.)

World Services are not referring here to the ten children
who made confession at the 1986 Mexico TTC. World Services
knew full well that the problem was much more widespread
than that. The notice continued:-

"So if you happen to be a teen who happened to have any kind
of involvement or experience along these lines, we wanted to
encourage you that you do not need to feel condemned,
guilty, ashamed or confused. When you read in the letters
how any and all such activities are now strictly forbidden
and that anyone who engages in them will be excommunicated,
you don't need to go to extremes and start getting worried
about your health and your past. You'd be much better off if
you just trust the Lord and believe that your past is all in
His hands and leave it there!"

The psychiatric evidence I have heard expresses the view,
with which I agree, that rather than suppress these horrors,
they should be brought out into the open, fully and frankly
acknowledged, and then dealt with, with skilled therapeutic
help if necessary. Prayer may well be a help but Maria's
advice to bury the past and pretend it did not happen is
wrong and unacceptable.

The virtue of the Law of Love is then extolled because
whatever is done in love is acceptable in the eyes of God.
Expediency and the System "making such a big stink and
getting so freaked out and infuriated about anything they
even suspect may be child sex abuse", forced the complete
forbidding of any and all such relationships. Then followed
another tacit admission and another exculpation:-

"That's not to say that any intimacies or loving
relationships that may have taken place in the past were
necessarily all wrong, wicked, sinful or of the devil! That
is simply not the case."

There followed this important passage:-

"But you don't know my story," some teens may say. "It
wasn't very intimate or loving - I feel like I was "abused"
or at least "used" by so-an-so!" Well, if you were actually
mistreated or hurt in any way, we're certainly very sorry
about that(my emphasis) - "and we're sure that whoever was
involved with you is sorry as well. Let's not forget, we all
make mistakes and we know that there have been adults and
teens who simply didn't realise how much they were "playing
with fire" when they may have gotten involved in a playful
experimental or crush type of relationship in the past. And
sometimes before they knew it, things got more serious or
went further than either of them had originally anticipated.
If this was the case with you, you need to realise that you
don't have to look back on that experience as a horrible
mistake of some kind or that the person you were with was
some sort of dirty old man or monster! All of us have learnt
a lot of lessons over the past few years, and we've realised
that adult teen relationships should not only be avoided
because they cause trouble with the system, but they are
also very difficult for either party to handle emotionally,
it's easy for people to have their feelings hurt, and the
people involved often become distracted in their work for
the Lord etc etc., which are all reasons why we have
expressly forbidden any such relationships. We live and we
learn!"

That passage is important because it contains what seems to
me to be the first apology to the hurt children. It is a
step in the right direction. But acknowledgement of
responsibility is still woefully lacking. The mistakes that
seem to be acknowledged to have been made were the mistakes
of those who played with fire. There was no acknowledgement
of any mistake made by Berg or in any of the literature,
still less was there any admission of responsibility. On the
contrary, the notice informed the teens that:-

"You can be very thankful for the honest, open and loving
attitude towards sex that Grandpa had taught us in the
letters."

At least WS acknowledge learning a lesson in realising that
adult/teen relationships have to be avoided not only because
of trouble with the system but because of their own
inherent, harmful consequences. It is an admission of some
of the truth, but not the whole of the truth.

In November 1991 the Good News published "Questions and
Answers on Sex, Freedoms and Relationships." When The Family
asked why things were so much more restricted than they were
when The Family used to be a lot freer sexually, the answer
was because many within The Family missed the freedom -

"A lot of us found ourselves caught in a maelstrom of
romantic and sexual feelings, emotions and relationships
that were very overpowering and could virtually control us
because we let them occupy so much of our minds and hearts
and time. This of course resulted in quite a few serious
problems causing our work and fruitfulness for the Lord to
suffer greatly."

The Family then had the honesty to ask the next question.

"If it resulted in all kinds of problems, then all of that
sexual freedom must have been wrong."

Answer:-

"There was - and is - absolutely nothing wrong with the
freedoms that the Lord gave us. The Lord showed Grandpa that
the scripture, "All things are lawful unto us", literally
means exactly what it says; that there are no exceptions,
all things indeed are lawful for believers in Jesus who are
motivated by love...the problems resulted because a lot of
us abused these freedoms and began looking on them as a
means to gratify our own fleshly lusts instead of using them
to sacrificially and lovingly help others."

The Family continued the cross examination, no doubt with
the same sense of futility as may have been experienced by
the grandmother and Official Solicitor. The next question,
and it is a very good question, was:-

"If Grandpa knew that The Family would probably have as much
trouble handling such freedoms as the early church did, then
why did he ever promote it?"

"Answer:

The Lord used it to test us and teach us many lessons that
we would never have learned otherwise".

I see no hint of any acknowledgement on the part of the
leadership that they, or their leader Berg, were even partly
responsible for some at least of the harm which they knew
was bound to have arisen. Nor is there in that document a
sniff of contrition or sympathy.

In 1992, partly as a result of proceedings in Australia and
in this Court, The Family published their "Beliefs and
Teaching regarding Sex" and their "Replies to Allegations of
Child Abuse. This was a guarded document with guarded
concessions, for example:

"So although a number of articles that were written several
years ago could be construed as seeming to condone some
rather questionable practices concerning under age minors
and sex, such things never in any way became an official
policy....nor did the majority of our membership of that
time ever have sexual involvement with a minor whatsoever."

One notes the concession made in respect of "a number of
articles", which is an advance on just "My Little Fish". The
authors must have had in mind Berg's other writings than
those referring to putting a young male child to sleep by
fondling his penis, because they referred to his also having
"broached the subject of whether each and every sexual
contact between an adult and minor was in fact necessarily
harmful". He did more than broach the subject. He promoted
it. They "regret that some speculative views were published
in which the massaging or fondling of a young child by the
mother or nanny was discussed as a means of relaxing or
putting the child to sleep." In their conclusion they
acknowledged:

"that some mistakes were made in the past but we also
believe we have done our best to correct them and to put
stringent measures in place to prevent them from happening
again".

Importantly, World Services were able to say:

"To anyone who may have been abused in any way in the past
by a member of one of our communities, we sincerely
apologise. It was never our intent that anyone especially
children should ever be hurt, and we hope that you are
assured by the above mentioned safeguards now in place, that
today no abuse of children is tolerated in our fellowship."

Such glimmers of hope as I might derive from that public
statement is badly dented by the three letters written in
December 1992 in response to a message Berg received from a
church leader who was advising The Family to modify their
stance regarding sexual freedoms in order to become more
acceptable to the system. The letters are "Why Do Ye Stone
Us?", "We can't Recant the Truth", and "There's No Way Out
but Up," collected in GN 554 and published in July 1993. The
general tone of these letters is a strident re-affirmation
of policy, a stark challenge to the system and a depressing
call to the membership to:

"help us fight. God will support you! You want to be a
winner and die for Jesus? Join us. It's gonna be thrilling!"

It makes the most depressing reading especially if I am to
take the following as the true position of the leadership
today:-

"So what else can we expect from the law, man's laws, but to
be contrary to the laws of God! What else can we expect but
persecution, incarceration and some day even death. So
there's no reconciliation, it's impossible! Some of our
friends have even suggested that we modify our scriptural
belief in the freedom granted to us under the Law of Love,
to come out and deny it or change it or admit that it was
wrong. But how are we going to do that?"

The letter concluded with a chilling passage:-

"What else can we do?....All we can do is stand up, and go
up! There's no way out but up! Death is our only hope..."

The words are chilling because the Jonestown suicides, the
Waco Siege and the even more recent cult killings in
Switzerland and Canada and the poison gas attacks in Japan
are all vivid reminders of the terrifying power certain
religious leaders have to lead their members to death. I
wish, however, to record the clear finding, from which I
will not shrink, that there was no evidence that this mother
or anyone close to her at the Ward's home are likely to join
in any mass suicide, even if, which I also find unlikely,
World Services called on The Family to die. I dismiss those
fears.

The Family held a summit meeting sometime towards the end of
1992 though I think in the literature it is called the
"Summit 1993" meeting. It was led by Peter Amsterdam and
Gary and attended by the CRO teamworks. I have been provided
with Part I of the summary of Summit '93 (GN539) which
refers to the intention to address the Law of Love in a
summary of "Summit '93 Part II." I have not seen that
document. This letter "Our Beliefs Concerning the Lord's Law
of Love" GN558 (July 93) may be the document referred to. It
was realised by The Family that the adults and young people
needed clarification about the leadership's stance
concerning the Law of Love and the leadership needed also to
come to a decision concerning "how to explain to the public
or a Court of law our beliefs in the Law of Love and the
experience some have had in the past as a result." I assume
that the presentation to the Court is contained in the
History compiled in November 1993, some 110 pages of which
are set out in answer to the Official Solicitor's
Interrogatories. As mentioned, I also have GN555 "Our
beliefs concerning the Lords law of Love", published in July
1993 for The Family's consumption. It is therefore, an
important document. The letter sets out an analysis of the
principles of the Law of Love and concludes "it was good and
overall it bore good fruit." The letter does, however, make
some acknowledgement that because some were not as mature
and loving and yielding to the Lord as they should have
been, there were some problems and some mistakes. They
acknowledged:-

"We realise that there were some instances in which some
individuals did not always strictly follow the principles
and guidelines of the Law of Love and in some cases some of
these liberties unfortunately were used as an occasion of
the flesh. If any of you were personally guilty of any
unloving acts, we trust you have sincerely asked the Lord to
forgive you....If you haven't already, we're sure you'd also
want to ask anyone you have offended to forgive you,
providing they are in your home or nearly in your area and
you are able to verbally apologize to them. We do not
recommend that you write to others about things of this
nature. We are truly sorry if any of our members were hurt
or offended in any way by someone who misapplied or in some
way strayed from the strict guidelines of the Law of Love".

This is again an acknowledgement of the existence of the
child abuse problem and I am quite certain that The Family
know more about it than they have been prepared to reveal.
That was why nothing should be put in writing.

Maria commented:

"I'd just hate to have our Family members acting as though
Dad was wrong when we know that is not the case. If there
was anything wrong it was that some Family members may have
gotten into some excesses and taken things to the extreme in
some cases, using such liberties as an occasion for the
flesh".

For Maria the problem was that:-

"If we sit back and let Dad take all the "blame" for all our
controversial Biblical doctrines that the system doesn't
like and criticise like our sexual openness and our sexual
freedom among ourselves...and many other radical doctrines
that have made us what we are, then aren't we in a sense
both denying Dad and the Word itself".

The tenor of the letter is not to compromise, and not to
blame Berg, not to blame the Law of Love for the
acknowledged excesses of the flesh. I find that attitude
extremely worrying. It is neither an acceptable nor a
responsible position to take.

CONCLUSIONS

1. I am totally satisfied that there was widespread
sexual abuse of young children and teenagers by adult
members of The Family, and that this abuse occurred to a
significantly greater extent within The Family than occurred
in society outside it.

2. Berg was well aware when he propounded his Law of Love
that there was a high risk that many who followed it were
not mature enough wisely and responsibly to use the freedom
(that "dangerous toy") conferred on them in a way which did
not cause harm. Harm to children was readily foreseeable as
soon as he had schooled The Family to accept that even young
children were sexual beings. By endowing children with the
same sexual responses as were enjoyed by adults, he made
them objects of sex. He placed them within the scope of the
Law of Love. That law depends upon full free and informed
consent being given to the contemplated activity. Children's
consent to sexual activity can never be the product of a
free will both because they do not have the maturity to
understand the emotional consequences of any sexual
engagement, but also because, due to the imbalance of power
between adult and child, any decision of the child is made
under influence and pressure. Apparent consent is thereby
vitiated. The overwhelming body of psychiatric opinion
across the world is dismissive of the apologia propounded in
Good Thots and is firmly of the view that exposure to early
sexuality is harmful to children. There is even enough
acknowledgement in the documents that The Family now
recognise that the teenagers involved in sexual
relationships with adults suffered emotional upheaval which
interfered with the Lord's work. It is not a difficult step
also to acknowledge that in fact these children have
suffered emotional harm.

3. It is, therefore, quite unacceptable for The Family to
cast the blame upon the immature or weak members and not to
face up to what is a harsh truth unpalatable to them that
Berg bears responsibility for propagating the doctrine which
so grievously misled his flock and injured the children
within it.

4. This is a condign judgment on Berg , on those in
authority who failed to curb these wild excesses and on The
Family as a whole. It was a deplorable period of their
history. They have been rightly vilified by the media and
pilloried by the press for it. It was, however, a period of
their history. I am now totally satisfied that The Family, I
would think largely at Maria's prompting, has since 1986
made determined and sustained efforts to stamp out child
sexual abuse and to prevent any inappropriate contact
between adults and children whether young children or
teenage children. I have no evidence that child sex abuse is
presently prevalent any more within The Family than outside
it.

INCEST

The Literature

In "The Devil Hates Sex" May 1980 Maria asks, "Well, what
about incest? That's a big big question in The Family right
now." Little evidence has been disclosed to me of The
Family's concerns about incest and I do not know why it had
become such a big question. There was a letter from Seek and
Secundus published in Family News in about 1981 where they
asked how much flesh brothers and sisters can share when
they are older. That could only be an example, one
presumably of many, of the questions then being raised with
W. S. by the ordinary members. I can also only assume that
if there was a debate, it was a debate which had a
foundation of fact to justify the differences of practice
under discussion.

Berg's response was that the subject of incest was so
dangerous that he hardly even dared talk about it in the
privacy of their bedroom because "the system practically
goes berserk when you talk about incest". Maria replied:

"We'll just have to tell the kids that it's not prohibited
by God but you'd better watch out because its dangerous".

In Berg's view:-

"There is nothing in the world at all wrong with sex as long
as it's practised in love, whatever it is, or whoever it's
with, no matter who or what age or what relative" "or what
manner and you don't even dare say these words in private.
If the law ever got a hold of this, they would try to string
me up, they'd probably lynch me before I got to jail...There
are NO RELATIONSHIP RESTRICTIONS or age limitations in his
law of love. But system law has made it all against the law,
and if I'd tell you what I think I'd probably break the law
publishing it." (My emphasis.)

As I read those passages there is nothing which makes incest
inconsistent with the Law of Love. Maria irresponsibly
proffered the advice:-

"At least not let'em find out if you do it".

In November 1982 Berg wrote "Sex with Grandma". He described
how at the age of 19 or 20 he had perforce to share a bed
with his middle-aged mother. It was cold and in the middle
of the night she snuggled up to him "real right". He wrote:-

"And perhaps if I had not been so conservative and extremely
narrow -minded in my theology and religion at that time and
so absolutely frightened by my mother's seeming abandon at
the moment, I might have reacted a little more responsively
and perhaps have satisfied both of us and our mutual
tremendous sexual needs, and it could have developed into a
beautiful sexual relationship".

He then recounted a dream he had of falling into the garden
of love and there making love to his mother. He described
waking up and making love to Maria who became his mother at
the moment of orgasm. It was an extraordinary document to
publish and it was mischievous to do so.

In "Heaven's Children" there was another extraordinary
passage of Techi, Maria's daughter, dreaming of "her Grandpa
lover". He wrote:-

"Of course as there are no longer any such things as man's
legalistic laws against incest in this loving kingdom of
God, everyone loves everyone and is completely free in
his/her encompassing love. So I make wonderful sweet
precious love to my now beautiful teenage Techi...afterwards
they (Techi and Maria) both awake excitedly...to discover
that both of them...dreamt they had made love with me right
here in the bed together."

This passage is one which is used as an example of attacking
The Family and in the document "Contending for the Faith"
The Family's response is given to it. I regret that once
again I see no justification for the publication of this
story and again I am driven to conclude that it was
irresponsible to permit it to appear at all and
reprehensible to include it in material which it was known
would be placed before children.

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