BRIAN HOUSTON, a co-founder of the Sydney-based church Hillsong, and the former leader of the movement, has appeared in a court in Sydney on a charge of failing to report his father’s child sexual abuse to police. Mr Houston stepped down from his global leadership position in January to contest the charge (News, 4 February; 24 March).

Mr Houston’s father, Frank Houston, was a Pentecostal preacher who died in 2004. The court heard that Frank Houston repeatedly raped and assaulted a young church member, beginning in 1970, when the boy was seven years old. The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which ran from 2013 to 2017, found that Brian Houston failed to report the abuse to the police after his father disclosed it in 1999. The disclosure led to his father’s resignation from the church with a pension.

The man abuse survivor told the court that he was pressured by the church not to report it, and was told that he would be abandoned by the church if he did. Brian Houston said that he did not report the matter to police because the man expressly said that he did not want it reported.

The prosecution has argued, however, that Mr Houston failed to report the crime out of self-interest, to protect his father and the church.

The trial continues.