Breaking! Judge Finds Hillsong Founder Brian Houston NOT GUILTY of Concealing Sex Abuse
Former Global Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church, Brian Houston, was found not guilty of covering up sexual abuses committed by his late father over 30 years ago, with Magistrate Gareth Christofi handing down the decision in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court early Thursday morning.
Houston, 69, was a child when his pedophile father, Pastor Frank Houston, molested Brett Sengstock in the 1970s. Houston found out about it in 1999, five years before his father’s death, but kept the matter under wraps instead of turning to the authorities or the police, citing the victim’s alleged wish for confidentiality. For his efforts, Houston was charged with concealing a serious indictable offense stemming from a years-long investigation by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Christofi said that Brian Houston had a “reasonable excuse” for not reporting the abuse to law enforcement and said he believed Houston’s silence was keeping in line with Sengstock’s wishes that it not be reported. Houston previously described his father’s multiple rapes and serial child sex abuse as “pretty serious mistakes.”
Brian Houston was forced to resign from the famed and frequently heretical Australian megachurch in March of 2022 after several instances of sexual impropriety came to light, compounded by multiple sexual abuse scandals in his American locations. Following his exit, Hillsong’s reputation imploded after thousands of pages of leaked financial information came to light, showing the church was engaged in scandalous and wasteful spending and that Houston and his wife Bobbie were some of the worst perpetrators, living like lavish devils for decades.
This is a developing story.
For more on Hillsong and Houston:
Hillsong Leader Expenses $40,086.05 in ONE MONTH (One Meal Was $6156.64)
Hillsong Church Gives T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer $150K for One Sermon
Internal Hillsong Memo Released Days Before Brian Houston’s Firing Claims He ‘Considered Himself Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries’
Countdown: Top 10 Weirdest Things Hillsong Leaders Expensed to the Church (Number 7 is $1467.28 for a Single Uber Ride)
Report: Hillsong Foundation Raised $21M For Charities, But only Gave Them 1% of the Money
Countdown: Top 10 Luxury Hotels Hillsong Leaders Expensed to the Church (Spoiler: The Cheapest is $8457.42)
What is ‘Hillsong Family’, and Why Do Some Churches Pay $100K a Year to Join It? Ft. Judah Smith
Hillsong’s Compassion Contract Details Revealed: What $1,000,000 Really Gets You
Hillsong Church Salaries, Royalties, Benefits Revealed. $1.9M, $ 1.7M, $1.5M, $876K, $540K
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Wasn’t ‘following the victim’s wishes’ in direct violation of the law ? Seems pretty clear cut to me …
Exonerated by man’s laws – he’ll ultimately answer to a higher power.