CHILDREN are not adequately protected from the risk of sexual abuse in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a royal commission has found.

The organisation relies on outdated policies and practices, including a 2000 -year-old two-witness rule, and its weak internal sanctions leave perpetrators at large, the child abuse royal commission said.

The commission found the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ general practice was not to report child sex abuse allegations to police or authorities unless required to do so by law, which demonstrated a serious failure to provide for the safety and protection of children in the organisation and the community.

“We do not consider the Jehovah’s Witness organisation to be an organisation which responds adequately to child sexual abuse,” the commission said in a report released on Monday.

The commission said the organisation relies on outdated policies and practices that are, by and large, wholly inappropriate and unsuitable in child sex abuse cases.

The two-witness rule that applies in all cases of complaints of wrongdoing had not been revised or improved since the organisation was founded in the late 19th century.

“The Jehovah’s Witness organisation relies on, and applies inflexibly even in the context of child sexual abuse, a rule which was devised more than 2000 years ago,” the commission said.

“A complainant of child sexual abuse whose allegation has not been corroborated by confession by their abuser or a second ‘credible’ eyewitness is necessarily disempowered and subjected to ongoing traumatisation.”

To place a victim in such a position is unacceptable and wrong, the commission said in calling for the application of the rule to be revised and modified.

It also found the Jehovah’s Witness organisation’s internal disciplinary system for addressing complaints of child sexual abuse was not focused on the child or survivor. Survivors are offered little or no choice in how their complaint is addressed, sanctions are weak with little regard to the risk of the perpetrator reoffending.

The commission said it had no evidence of the Jehovah’s Witnesses reporting to police a single one of the 1006 alleged perpetrators of child sex abuse recorded by the organisation in Australia since 1950.

The commission found the sanctions available within the organisation’s internal disciplinary system are weak and leave perpetrators of child sexual abuse at large in the organisation and the community.

In deciding what sanctions to impose or precautions to take over a known or suspected perpetrator, the organisation had little regard to the risk they might reoffend, it added.

CATHOLIC BROTHER WALKED FREE

The case of a Catholic brother who was acquitted despite a judge being satisfied he sexually abused a schoolboy is being examined by a child abuse royal commission.

Brother Christopher Rafferty faced a judge-alone trial in relation to six counts of sexual abuse against a victim known as FAB, who was a student at St Patrick’s College at Goulburn in the 1980s.

In his reasons for acquittal, the judge in the case said he was “well satisfied that the accused did sexually abuse the complainant at school” and rejected the brother’s blanket denial.

But he went on to say he could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the particular incidents that made up the charges, the Royal Commission into Insitutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.

“(FAB) has only given evidence of three of six counts,” the judge said.

“And as to others, the evidence is too imprecise and vague and inconsistent to accept beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal trial.”

FAB is expected to give evidence at the royal commission hearing, which is investigating issues raised by its consultation paper on criminal justice. Counsel assisting the commission Jeremy Kirk SC said it was expected that FAB would testify that it was traumatic to recall details 30 years after the alleged abuse.

Mr Kirk said the case raised a number of issues, including whether a persistent child sexual abuse offence might address difficulties giving details years after the fact and whether adult complainants might benefit from being able to pre- record their evidence.

“More fundamentally, this prosecution raises the issue of whether a criminal justice response can be said to be reasonably available to condemn and punish child sexual abuse,” he said.

Studies used by the royal commission indicates between eight to 15 per cent of all child sexual assault matters reported to police resulted in a conviction.

“It became clear to us early in our work that the criminal justice system’s response to institutional child sexual abuse to date has not been adequate,” Chair Peter McClellan said at the start of the hearing.