WOMAN: - Sometimes, I used to have a shower at night
and get dressed for the next day...
..including my head covering, because I knew I was going to be
up in a few hours, anyway.
I can't remember sleeping more than four hours a night, ever.
I didn't know it was a thing.
Off to work again.
We'd use newspaper to start the fire.
It was our only insight into the outside world.
If something caught my eye, I'd just rip it out.
Once they figured out that the girls were doing that, they put somebody
on checking the newspaper, and they'd literally cut out anything
that they didn't want us to see.
It's just all about control.
- # When you come, I'll follow you
# We'll make it through
# When you come, I'll follow you
# I'll follow you. #
- So, this is the end of the road,
when it comes to leaving Gloriavale,
it's like leaving the property...
..that psychological thing - if you've left, you've left the church.
Cross this bridge and you've lost your soul, you're going to hell.
And that's the psychological prison
that is way more powerful
than a locked gate.
My dad was the founder of Gloriavale...
..so I have a duty
to do something about it.
It's just trying to help people
see through and break free.
See the buildings over there? It's quite dark at the moment,
lots of lights turned off. That's the main compound complex.
I'm just going to do a drive around and out.
If we see another vehicle approaching, or someone else,
just let the camera down.
I'm going to stop outside my family's...where they live,
just for a little bit.
This is my family's bedroom right there, right up in there,
those two windows there. There's two rooms joined together.
I have 11 children. It's my eldest boy's birthday today.
He'll be 29 today.
The youngest is...seven.
She was born after I left. It's the only one of my children's births
I wasn't able to be present at.
I cried a lot the first year.
Thinking is not encouraged in Gloriavale.
The leaders tell you how you should think.
So what we're doing is I'm dropping leaflets about the dangers of cults,
you know, where people don't challenge one another's thinking.
I'm going to put some up in the tool shed here, because one of my boys
works there. It's a bit closer to my heart, so that's one place
that I always stick stuff.
There you go. Flick the light switch a bit.
I'm just looking for a name on overalls.
It's sometimes helpful to know whose locker it is.
They put me out, in the end, as a heretic.
My wife said to me, "I'm not going to lose my soul."
I knew exactly what she meant. She meant,
"I'm not leaving. "I'm not going with you."
In a society where women are taught from a very young age
that they have no voice and have got to submit, and that's their lot,
she was like a puppet with strings attached.
My love for her was being used as a weapon against me,
being used to destroy me.
The leaders have painted me as a very evil, wicked person,
you know, full of the devil,
but doing nothing is not the answer.
If no-one does anything,
these people aren't ever going to get free.
MUSIC: Amazing Grace by Lindsay Wright
- # Amazing grace
# How sweet the sound
# That saved a wretch
# Like me... #
- My dad started the community and, like a king would,
wanted a kingdom. And he wanted lots of people in his kingdom,
and he decided he was going to farm all these people
that would worship him and love him.
- This picture has something very special about it. Well,
if we lived like the rest of society,
we would have two children per family.
They would never have been born
or been given life, so that THEY could have children,
if we lived like the rest of society.
- # 'Twas grace that taught... #
- And you wonder why we're different.
- # ..to fear
# And grace... #
- We have the biggest families in the world. In other words,
we've got the biggest population
of children per head of adults.
We're also the fastest-growing population in the world.
OK, one, two, three! Everybody smiling!
Put me amongst young people that'll keep me alive.
How women love to be women! And we've got the most wonderful
women in the world. They're so loving and kind.
Soft, gentle women. They are.
- The women are there to serve the men, work,
have babies.
The women should be in subjection to the men,
and wearing head covering proves that.
You have to have no skin showing, other than your hands and your face.
You're not to talk to the opposite sex.
We shouldn't ever be alone with one of them.
Hopeful talked all the time about, "You're showing off your ankles
"and you're tempting the men," and "Men get turned on by elbows."
Everything's become sexualised.
And it's a culture that has bred abusive behaviours.
Because we were born there, we knew nothing else.
- ALL: - # Oh, Sweet Jesus, we'll sing and pray... #
- Follow the Evans River up
and through that gap, that's where Gloriavale is. Yeah, so if you hike
through the bush maybe two-and-a-half hours,
from here, around the road, 20 minutes.
What a beautiful part of the country,
and yet, they've destroyed people just through that gap.
The very first time I drove up there,
it was like driving into
a wall of fear, of oppression.
You felt it, a very spiritual...
..heaviness.
I've never felt anything like it.
Look at the personality on that one. The face on it!
I don't think I ever started to think
I needed to help someone leave.
I just wanted to work with the ones
that were asking for help. And if they'd come knocking on my door...
..I need to help them.
I started to understand
they were living in a very controlling environment.
You could almost compare it to a communist regime.
You couldn't trust anybody.
Any questioning of the leaders
was very, very dangerous.
So if you're going to leave, you need this group of people,
an underground network, to catch you
and then patch up any wounds
you've got trying to escape.
- I actually have a really sick feeling inside.
- Are we actually going to...talk to him now? - Yeah.
So, we're going to try and visit someone in Gloriavale
who lives there that's made contact with me.
We have a network of people who will support people
in the process of moving out of Gloriavale.
Generally, we don't give out names of people who are on
that sort of list, because it's too sensitive an issue.
So the general rule for anyone attempting to leave Gloriavale
is you're not allowed to talk about their names.
It's just a much safer thing to just sort of keep it low-key.
It's a pretty brave thing when someone actually will reach out,
and that sort of means someone's relatively desperate, in a way.
I'm strictly off limits for anyone in Gloriavale to have
any sort of communication relationship with.
Right, I think he said he'd be round the side, so we'll have a look.
Oh, that might be him there.
I'm just going to pull up over here...
..just around behind the shed.
Gloriavale has been using fear
as the foundation for its religion.
Fear's a fundamental human, animal instinct,
and you can manipulate that in people pretty well.
- Get in, bro. So, I've got a package here.
- Oh, thanks, man. - It's got a phone.
Stay safe, and I'll talk to you later.
- In Gloriavale, sometimes, you have to just
jump off the edge of a cliff, so to speak,
if you're going to try and escape out of that prison.
WHISPERING
- Dear heavenly Father, you hear our conversations.
You are our God, our Father, our leader.
Boaz is trying to stand up for what is right,
stand up for his family.
Lord, I pray that you will give him wisdom.
Father, I just ask for this in Jesus' name. Amen.
- If they found out that I was talking to anybody with a camera...
..that would almost be the epitome of evil.
- THEY LAUGH Whoa!
- My name is Boaz Benjamin, and I'm 25 years old,
married with three kids, and my wife is pregnant with the fourth,
and we are concerned for our children's safety.
And so I cannot sit back and just go on with my head in the sand and say,
"Someone else will fix it."
- Hey, Boaz!
- I had sexually abusive things happen to me in times past.
To protect my children from that sort of thing happening to them,
the best and safest way to protect them would be to leave.
But it goes way deeper than just "get up and leave",
because I was born and raised there,
my wife was born and raised there.
You are taught every day, from the moment you can understand English,
that this is the place where you've got to be,
this is the place where God wants you. If you leave,
you're going against God's will. So if you're going against God's will,
then you are sinning. If you sin, you go to hell.
That is just pounded and pounded and pounded
for years and years and years, just ongoing,
and it's like it just builds something in your mind
that, "Here is something I cannot cross.
"I cannot cross that. Like, I just can't.
"There is no way to cross that line."
It's a psychological barrier.
You can't walk out that gate
and feel that you can still be a Christian.
- Boaz, the first time I met him, he sent me a message saying
that he wanted to come and see me, but not at the house.
So he snuck up to the back of my farm, so that there'd be
no chance of him being seen.
I don't know how, but they knew.
The next morning, he was called into a meeting and they destroyed him.
- You just walk into that room and...boom!
- Do you want to see - ANGRY SHOUTING
your family ever again?!
- They just changed into pack mode...
- Do you love your wife and do you love life?
- ..and they're going to attack you and rip you in half.
- Sit down!
Who are they?! - All they want to hear is,
"I'm sorry, I will do what you say."
- Say, "Yes, sir!"
- That's what you have to do, in a way, to survive.
- Whatever Jesus says to do, we're going to do it.
No questioning!
- I was told to inform on people,
and if I did that, I could stay.
If anybody spoke against them
or talked to people outside of the community,
I would come to them and tell them,
and then they would know that I was loyal.
If I want to stay here with my wife and kids, it's like I have to do it.
- SHOUTING
He said, "They broke me, to the extent that
"I do not remember the next 12 months."
I didn't see him for...
..18 months after that.
And he vowed and declared that he would love to leave,
but he wasn't going to leave until his wife was ready
to leave with him. She fears the outside world.
- Because the leaders there hold this control over the women,
if you control the wife, you control the husband.
If you control both of them, then you've got the whole family.
- So you're working through, "How do I make a stand for myself?"
And confident enough that Tabitha's going to follow you? - Yeah.
- Are you ready to go?
- If she said, "I'm happy just to go with you,"
I'd be packing up and walking out tomorrow.
- RINGING TONE
- Hello, Liz speaking. - Yeah, g'day, Liz. It's Marcus.
- Hey, g'day, Marcus. How's things? - Not too bad. Hey, Boaz.
- Yes. - Have you still got that house for them if they need it?
- Er, yes. There are two that have popped up that are available,
one that Pilgrim's looking at and another one that
he has said definitely... - OK, so it's still available.
- It is. I'll text you the name of the contact
to make it nice and easy. They're familiar with it,
so I'll text you two names.
- A GV van just drove past me.
- HE CHUCKLES - Oh, wow, OK!
- Did you duck? Dive into a bush?
- OK. If you can send me that contact for Boaz... - Yes.
All right, nice to chat. - OK. - See you. Bye-bye.
Cool. Now, the next one I got to take is inside Gloriavale.
- RINGING TONE
- Well, I prefer to call myself the devil! Well, that's the joke.
We sort of get called, you know, the devil and...
Look, I'm energetic. And, yeah, for some reason, this has gripped me.
I feel like this is what I've been called to do.
The Gloriavale Leavers' Support Trust aims to help those
who have left Gloriavale and those contemplating leaving.
- Oh, no, that's bullshit. They go up to...
- We've had connection and contact with at least 250 leavers
over the past ten years.
You know, their community hasn't been set up for the families
to look after and school their children.
They're tired. They're exhausted.
I'd say they would have been up really late. - It was only...
- And we have heard an awful lot.
The physical abuse, the psychological, sexual,
mental, the emotional, the spiritual abuse and the neglect.
And that leads to the driving force
of the work we're doing.
We are not going to go away
and pretend like this is all OK.
We actually see this as an embarrassment,
a blight on the government in New Zealand.
Hey, Marcus. How you doing?
Hey, look, we're just...
Really, a legal solution is probably
the only way through this.
This is the opportunity in history to get it right,
to get done what should have been done 45 years ago.
It shouldn't have been allowed to develop this far.
- REPORTER: A large number of the Gloriavale community will be in
the public gallery in Greymouth this week.
Six former Gloriavale women have taken action,
claiming to be employees in the Christian community, not volunteers.
- Six former Gloriavale members are claiming
they lived like slaves at the West Coast commune,
working under a regime where they had no control.
- If they refused to work, there was corporal punishment,
food was withheld, and they were threatened with eternal damnation.
- The main point is accountability.
The leaders have got away with treating people badly
for a long time, and it's time that
things change and they do things like
the rest of New Zealand has to, that the people in Gloriavale
have the same rights as every New Zealander.
All right, let's go. - Let's go.
- Unfortunately, now, court's the only way to sort it out
and, really, they've done it to themselves.
- Please state your name for the record. - Struge Stedfast.
- My name is Blessing Hopeful.
- My name is Rapture Standtrue.
- My name is Lovely Stedfast.
I am a member of the Gloriavale Christian community.
I was five years old when I gave my heart to the Lord.
I then chose to live a life...that was to deny myself
and give my life for God in this church.
- Downtrodden. Subdued. Repressed.
Powerless. Oppressed. Brainwashed.
These words are not at all what I get treated like
and ever have felt as a woman living in Gloriavale.
- The Bible teaches for godly women to have meek and quiet spirits
and to be submitted to their husbands.
- All we want is to serve God to the best of our ability
and in peace.
- So could you tell Your Honour at what age you came
and how you came to being at the community?
- Mm. Um, well, I had been travelling round. I was 24.
I'd moved from Australia to New Zealand.
I'd been looking for work.
I was stuck in Christchurch with nothing, and then
two of the girls from the community walked up to me
and started telling me about
their community and about salvation.
- My dad was from Switzerland.
He was travelling the world as a young person with
a couple of his mates, and he had landed
in Christchurch with no plans, knew nobody,
couldn't speak English very well,
and a minister picked him up and he introduced Dad to the community.
- You don't join a cult.
You get recruited.
They were actively recruiting
younger people coming out on adventures.
And so a wandering backpacker
from Canada or America or Australia,
they get recruited into this group and become some of your, you know,
original members who set up the actual communal living.
Unfortunately, it had, very early on,
the indicators of an unhealthy, high-control group.
Original members from 50 years ago, when they were beginning,
never dreamed that when they joined,
it was going to look anything like it does now.
- Yep, that tent came over to New Zealand, and when I was a boy,
up until maybe I was 12 years old,
I helped put up that tent.
Goodness, that's Anne, Rosanna's mother.
- Mum was in university. That's where she met some of their members,
who invited her along to their church services,
and that got her involved.
My mum's a go-getter and there was a lot of growth to begin with.
You know, we're doing things for people, and energy,
and it was exciting.
- Have you got two houses?
Give to him that hath none!
The Bible says, "He that hath two coats, give to him that hath none."
So, it's easy to give two coats, but what about two cars?
- There was an attempt of some form of social justice
in the early stages of the community.
That's what attracted, I think, you know, the early people.
It was strongly socialist, sort of Christian socialist.
The idea is people should be all having the same access
to material things.
They didn't call the things they possessed their own,
but they used them for the good of everyone.
There was some noble ideas in
the utopian vision. There always is.
- Are you prepared today to give your whole life to Christ
and you believe that he's God's son?
- This is Australia. Definitely Australia.
My dad was born in 1926, in Queensland.
He had some sort of a...
If I was diagnosing it, he came to a mental crisis.
He was 22. He had, like,
an experience where he believed he met God
and God spoke to him.
God called him to be a minister.
- ..to find out that didn't work!
- He did have an attempt at setting up a commune in Australia.
He had his vision, and he couldn't find
other people who had the same vision as him.
So he moved to New Zealand
because it's where, you know,
he felt he could get this idea that he had off the ground.
- Thank you, Lord, for your mercy.
And I'd like to just give you praise and glory.
Thank you, Lord, that one day, you shall come again.
All the creation that you created in the beginning shall be destroyed.
And, Lord, you will make a new heaven and a new earth.
Thank you, Lord. I'm grateful.
Thank you, Lord.
I am 66 years old,
and I have lived in
the Gloriavale community
over 50 years,
and I'm still living there today.
I remember
the first time I met Neville Cooper.
I was 11.
He set up the Voice of Deliverance tent.
Sitting amongst the crowd is the first time I ever heard
someone preach like he preached! SHE CHUCKLES
- Every child that is born WILL sin,
because it's got a sinful nature that WILL sin.
We're slaves to it. We're shackled to it. We can't break it.
It won't be able to help itself...
- "Oh! He's talking about me!
"I've been born with a sinful nature and I didn't realise it."
It was like God was talking to me.
I joined the church
because of my salvation.
I needed to be with people who believed the same.
- # Well, we came here two by two
# And he called on me and you
# Loved me true
# You know not what you do... #
- In the beginning, they were happy days.
But he was recruiting people to row his ship.
He was the captain. And so in every marriage of a husband and a wife,
they were his recruits
to row his legacy, his ideals.
I was married
aged 17 years old.
I want to submit myself to you
and to obey you, to love you
and to satisfy your desires and your needs, and never to refuse you.
The woman submit, the woman be quiet. You don't speak,
you just do as you're told.
- Now, we all love God and keep his Commandments,
not as individuals, but together.
- When God joins you together, you become one flesh.
- It was a slow coercion, a slow change.
A little bit here, a little bit there.
You actually lost your identity of who you are...
..and it felt like you were giving it willingly.
- Let yourself listen.
Let yourselves be led to Christ.
- PILGRIM: - Over time, Dad started feeling more and more confident
about his connection with God.
- You need the living Christ to come into your heart and life.
Yield to Him and obey Him completely in all things.
- He definitely believed that he was God's advocate on Earth,
and so he changed his name to Hopeful Christian.
- ..are sanctified!
- As he got more power, it took him into the corruption
that power causes to people, so he ended up with a godlike status.
- THEY SING
- I can remember going from wearing the clothes Mum made us -
our "pretty dresses", as we called them -
to the uniform,
and not being too keen on it.
As a child, I can remember that it was about being modest
and about being in unity.
Unity is what they call it.
I'll go ahead and call it uniformity.
They expect everybody to just be the same, do the same,
dress the same, obviously.
And if anybody is individualistic
in any way, then they are breaking that unity.
- THEY ALL SING
- Being different in any way is just not acceptable.
To cause division, that is a huge sin in there.
But in hindsight, it's just all about control.
- You've got a real enemy...
..the very devil himself,
because he's after your soul.
- You've been told your whole life that if you leave Gloriavale,
you go to hell for eternity.
That's your consequence.
There'll be eternal damnation when you die.
And the more you've sinned,
the hotter the flames are,
the deeper in hell you are. You might have somebody
stabbing you as well as you're getting burnt alive,
but the burning never stops, because you're alive.
I was just always terrified.
- He acted upon it, and we knew him to be Christian.
Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time.
- If the end times have happened and you're still here,
if you haven't been taken off this earth when the Lord returns,
you are going to be persecuted
like nothing you've ever heard about before.
You're going to be murdered, or dipped in hot oil,
or burnt at the stake.
I just lived in constant fear of not making it.
Hopeful would be preaching about, "Are you ready? Are you ready?
"If the Lord returned right now, where would you be?
"Would you be in hell or heaven?"
And then he'd say, "Everybody just be quiet.
"Can you hear the trumpet?
"Can you hear it?
"Are you ready?
"What did you do today that's going to send you to hell?"
I'd be up, and my team-mate, who was meant to start with me,
hadn't showed up, and I'd think, "Oh, I'm left behind.
"I am the only person here."
So I would just be terrified.
I couldn't even move.
The other side to that is if you leave Gloriavale,
then you're most likely to be punished in this life as well...
..in this evil, wicked world.
My perception of the outside world was that it was a very dangerous...
..destitute...
..wicked, evil place.
Even if I could find any joy
in living in the outside world,
it would be the devil making me feel good.
We were told, "This is what we're protecting you from.
"You've got such a good life here. We've done this for you.
"We have taken you out of this evil, wicked world."
- BELL RINGS
- Good morning, Mrs Valor. - Good morning.
My name is Purity Valor. I am 48 years old.
I have lived in the church and community
in its varying forms my whole life.
- Purity, share with us what Christ means to you.
- When I was baptised, I just felt so free.
I was so happy.
- Praise God. Praise God.
Praise the Lord. - Everything changed.
And now I'm so happy that I'm free
and I can go to heaven.
- Amen. Amen.
- For me to stop believing that Gloriavale is the place
where God wants me to live, I would have to stop believing
a lot of other things that I believe now.
Everybody needs to have the same mind, speak the same things,
believe the same things
and live in common unity together.
It's very difficult for someone to live in that common unity
who doesn't believe the same things,
speak the same things or have the same mind.
- The expectation
of the community is that everybody will live in unity, isn't it?
- "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren
"to dwell together in unity." That's what the Bible says.
- Unity comes
from each member being surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ.
- How would you understand use of the word "submission"
in the outside community?
- I would automatically think of a power imbalance.
- The power structure in Gloriavale goes from the Overseeing Shepherd.
So the Overseeing Shepherd
has the final say in everything.
And then under him is the Shepherds,
and then under them is the Servants.
The idea was to have 12 leaders,
like in the Bible, the 12 disciples.
They'll watch everybody,
they'll chase up stuff.
They enforce what's going on.
And the men have authority
over the women. Then the women,
in general, kind of bottom of the heap.
- It states in the Word of God clearly
that women should not teach or preach or usurp authority over men.
- I submitted to my husband.
It's a choice that I make.
I submit myself to the men in authority as a choice that I make.
- Do you know how the leaders are chosen?
- With a lot of prayer.
- By whom? Who's doing the praying? - By the leaders. - So the leaders pray,
decide upon someone and announce it to the community. - Yep.
- I think a mistake is made when thinking about Gloriavale
that the leaders are skimming off money, living in fancy houses
and have yachts and cars.
No. Money's not the currency for them.
Power and control is their currency.
- For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.
- In Gloriavale, you've got Servants and Shepherds,
and Believers and people in there called them the SS.
And that's referring to the level
of power and control that this group of men had over people.
- The time to get right with God is now.
- We have an enemy.
Satan is against you.
Satan is against the church.
- For a while, we were resistant. This isn't a war.
We're, like, trying to help people. But Gloriavale framed it
in the terms of a war, so let's go with it.
There's hurt, there's tears, and it's not pretty,
but you've got to look to the peace in the future.
We can't be here, doing this, in 30 years.
- It's, like, in this shed.
It's a bit embarrassing, but there's a filing cabinet in here
which basically hasn't been opened since the mid-Nineties.
I'll just move these surfboards.
In here.
SHE LAUGHS Oh, my God!
Look at this. This was our filing system back in the Nineties!
Oh...
Here it is.
VOICEOVER: I was in my late twenties. I'd been reporting
for about four years, and I heard about
all these people being indoctrinated, about them being
almost, like, under a spell.
It was starting to all feel a bit sect-y.
And also, this was starting to look like,
"Have we got a cult in New Zealand?"
I discovered that half of
Neville Cooper's children
were outside of the community
and half were in.
And so I would spend quite a bit of time
trying to get my head around all of that.
And I spent quite a bit of time with them all outside of work hours.
They were troubled.
The Cooper family were troubled.
How can they be so damaged?
What the hell happens to people
for them to be so, so, so damaged?
When Phil Cooper reached his late
twenties, he started to seriously
doubt whether life in the community was right for him and his family.
A rift began to develop between Phil Cooper and his father,
and eventually, he left to live in the outside world,
while he thought things through.
At this point, Phil Cooper says the religious leaders
made it difficult for him
to maintain contact with his family.
Once you left, it was over.
You were out.
You were dead to them,
because you had betrayed them,
you had gone out into "the world".
You were nothing, you were gone,
and you were going to hell in a handbasket, like everybody else.
- We're going to go down into the water
and we're going to baptise these boys, bury them.
- Yeah, it looks like me. Surely it's me.
- Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
- I'm the fifteenth child
of 16 born to Mum and Dad.
Some of them, I hardly even know.
There's four out of 16
that are still in the community,
and the rest have left.
My dad believed that he had to sacrifice his children
to his God, his vision.
Who shouldn't you sacrifice
if you're going to have Heaven on Earth?
My mum, Gloria, was
a very interesting person, in that
I've never met anyone, ever,
who has ever said
that they've been hurt by my mum.
I mean, she may have been naive, in a way, as well,
because so much of life just didn't bother her.
You know, maybe you could say, well, there's something that
she had missing. Maybe true, but no-one sort of blames her
when she sort of did what my dad expected of her.
- What about this business of fleeing youthful lusts?
What are these lusts?
Does it mean childish?
It certainly doesn't mean manly, does it, manly desires?
- My dad, as he got more power,
it took him into
perverting and sexual ways.
He thought the Christian, strictly religious barriers around sex
were too tight and sex wasn't such this bad thing.
So he decided that married couples are going to get rid of
some of their inhibitions, and so they're going to enjoy
their sex lives better, etc, etc.
And that went quite a bit off-track.
- There's a statement from somebody.
It's a bit grim, reading this, actually.
I found out about some of this weird
sexual activity that was going on.
What became apparent was it was this kind of spiritual, sexual teaching,
where he would teach the boys to masturbate,
he would teach them how to masturbate women.
It all started to snowball about what was actually
really going on in there, under the kind of guise of
this kind of, you know, Kingdom of God.
- Neville first started to talk about,
"Man and his wife should be much closer."
And then he starts to preach that they had to be closer sexually.
And then he started to have demonstration sexual sessions
in front of the big open fires.
They all used to spread out
on the floor, covered with blankets,
and they would virtually all have sex together.
- You sleep with your parents when they have sex,
you sleep with your grandparents when they have sex.
- I've seen them videotape a young couple, you know, on their first
wedding night, making love for the first time, having sex.
I've seen them. - And then, of course, they built a spa pool.
First, Mum and Dad were encouraged to go naked into the spa pool,
but then the teenage girls and boys
were encouraged to go naked with Mum and Dad,
and then multiple families,
with Neville supposedly training
young girls of 13 and 14.
I just said to him, "You've lost it, mate.
"You haven't got a church here. You've got a glorified brothel."
- Round and round the floor I go!
Buy my treats!
- Before we were married, he would invite us over
and show us how sex was done,
by just...him and Mum having sex together.
- Then there was post-marital therapy.
- He would undress her, lay on the bed and proceed to massage her all over,
fondle her all over. - In front of you?
- Yeah. - In front of your mother? - Yep.
- So this went on for weeks,
months? - Oh, years.
- Did you have to have sex with your wife so your father could watch?
- Yeah. He would instruct
other couples over the years, too.
- HE SINGS LOUDLY
- My dad, with his sexual abuse that he was doing, under the guise of
teaching them how to have sex, being involved,
just live porn, really.
He was just getting sexual gratification out of...
He had that power to do it,
and he could justify it with
a religious good intention, that he's helping these people.
- # Round and round the cages I go! #
- HE ROARS
- Sadly, he took upon himself
to come right into my marriage situation.
He was right there in our space.
He was participating with his wife.
Everything that I was doing with my own husband,
he could hear it, he could see it.
He carried on...
..till I had...seven children.
I was just confused. I was frozen.
I was, "Oh, no, not this again.
"Oh... I'm a mother. Can't you see? Just let me be a mother.
"I'm not really your...toy."
They were very troublesome times for me.
I actually felt like I was a sinner before God
and that I'd lost my soul.
- # If I'd known... #
- It was just horror story after horror story.
How can this be happening?
How can nobody be doing anything?
So I came up with this plan that because they had a floating
herringbone cow shed - it was the only one on the South Island -
I rang the community and said that I was on my holidays
from Lincoln University and said that I wanted to come
and do work experience, in particular, with them
because of their floating herringbone cow shed.
I then went every day before work,
and I milked cows every day
at, like, four in the morning before I went to work,
so that when I went in there, I actually knew what I was doing.
I'm a pretty straight-up person,
but I really did bullshit
to get in there.
I had another name. Nelly.
OK, so I've got my name,
I can milk a cow,
I could do the Lord's Prayer,
I knew the Ten Commandments.
So now this was just like, "Right, I'm going in.
"I'm going undercover.
"I'm going to be able to explain exactly what the hell's
"happening here, because I'm going to go and live in there.
"You're meant to be a Christian. I'll show you."
MUSIC: House Of The Rising Sun by Lindsay Wright
- # Oh, mothers, tell your children
# Not to do what I have... #
- Husbands and fathers were taught to teach their children what sex was.
And fathers were taught that they should invite their kids
into the room and show them what sex between a husband and wife was.
We had to watch
my mum and dad have sex.
I would have only been eight, eight or nine.
I just tried to not think about what was happening.
I thought that every father was doing that to their children.
It just became normal to us.
- # When you come, I'll follow you
# I'll follow you. #
You have to be in the mountains in the New Zealand West Coast.
You have to see it to believe it.
# Rumours of the heavenly sea
# Sprawling forth amidst the seas
# In the bloom of her virginity
# Rose beyond belief... #
A dirt road, with all these trees, causing this darkness.
Black water.
Just no-one for bloody miles.
And there I was, undercover,
into this really isolated community.
Hopeful Christian says that the outfits worn by the women
in this community are designed to be submissive, sweet and feminine.
He believes that all the women should look the same, like this,
because it stops the evils of vanity and prevents
competitiveness amongst women.
Here we are, taking photos.
I can remember thinking, they're not going to believe this at work.
I'm now actually even wearing the frock.
I thought I looked terrible in it, too.
I sort of always had sort of oversized bosoms
from about the age of about 12.
And I sort of felt like one of the cows that I was milking,
and it was just like, "Oh, dear!
"What have I got myself into?"
To begin with, I worked in the dairy.
It was an unusual situation because farm work is strictly
a male domain.
So, I swapped the farming for the washing.
As a result, I became more accepted and learnt more about the lives of
the younger girls.
I was still being kept a pretty strong eye on by Neville.
- We know today that there are witnesses in Heaven...
..and they are witnessing to what is happening here today.
- He was their leader. Revered, loved,
and they hung on his every word.
- We're not a community. We're a church.
- He had this voice that boomed.
It felt like when he spoke to you,
he kind of spoke right at you, and it would kind of sit with you,
or it did with me, for the day.
I did understand what hell it would be if you tried to leave.
The world was evil, and here, it's protected.
We are the chosen ones.
We are the people of God, and the next best thing to God
was probably Neville Cooper.
THUNDERCLAP
If you look at where they live, to actually escape physically
feels impossible.
But to escape psychologically,
it actually is impossible.
NEWS PROGRAMME STING
- From New Zealand and around the world,
this is 20/20.
- Tonight, on 20/20, his people say he's the voice of God.
Some of his family say he thinks he is God.
- Neville is capable of doing a Jim Jones
or a Dave Koresh thing. - They say that they live in
this community because they have given themselves
totally and truly to God,
and that they love and adore their leader, Hopeful Christian.
I did three or four stories.
It had every single thing that you could imagine.
Sexual abuse,
indoctrination,
confusion about God. It was like being in your own bloody thriller.
- All my daughter wants to do
is see her mother and... - I'm not talking to you.
There's a proper way, and this is not the way.
You're not welcome here. - Well, fine.
- Some of the women told me in great detail about
having their hymen broken the night before their wedding.
- It looked very much like this.
It was about that much longer...
..and probably about that much in circumference.
And he said to me, "I'm going to use this to stretch your muscles,
"so that you don't have any pain."
Um...
I felt like I was being ripped in two.
- It was a very, very big story in New Zealand.
So while they were completely physically isolated,
people in this country now knew what was going on.
SIRENS WAIL
- Dozens of police raided two South Island Christian communities
shortly after dawn this morning.
They were acting on the complaints of former members. - A young woman
alleges she was sexually violated by Mr Cooper with a wooden object.
Another woman says she and her teenage sisters
were told by Mr Cooper to undress and then touch his private parts.
A young man alleges he and his teenage brothers were told
to undress and watch as Mr Cooper and his wife performed sexual acts.
- Police moved in fast. With them, a fire engine and an ambulance,
signs police had prepared for the worst.
- Do not allow them through the gates. Back you go! Right back.
- Somebody came running in the main door...
..and locked the doors.
We were taught that the police
just wanted to destroy us, that they'd split up our families,
and so I was petrified.
- All the children just scattered like rabbits, because
in their mind,
they're coming to take you away.
- I can remember peeking out
the curtains and being told off.
"Don't look out the curtains."
- When the raids were over, they'd arrested just one man,
Christian sect leader Neville Cooper,
who came originally from Australia.
- A jury has found Cooper guilty of ten of the 11 charges
of indecent assault.
- You've got the judgment.
Ah...
"You were the leader of a fundamentalist Christian community.
"All of the young complainants were members of your flock,
"conditioned to do your bidding.
"Yours was the pervasive influence
"on the lives of all these young people.
"I find the evidence was overwhelming.
"You used and abused your position of trust, power and dominion
"to sexually abuse the complainants, while professing to do these things
"to relieve their tensions and/or prepare them for life."
I think this judge, right then, could see,
he's using the words "conditioning", the "power", the "dominion".
It wasn't like you couldn't see back then
what the community had already become.
- If you want to fix yourself that way slightly.
No, other way... Yeah.
- The other problem
in the community has been
a raft of sexual offending, and the first that that issue
went into the public was when the Overseeing Shepherd
Hopeful Christian was arrested and charged, isn't it? - Yes.
- And what explanations were you given
in the community of what was going on?
- I knew the man very well, and I know his motives
were nothing but good, to help other people.
And from there,
I believe it got twisted to what the court judged.
- You have always known about Hopeful Christian's past, haven't you?
- I don't believe that it was
what they say it was.
- We got told that it was people who had left that were bitter
and angry and just wanted to destroy our faith,
and they wanted to persecute Hopeful for being a Christian,
and so that's why he had gone to jail.
- I'd sort of thought, when he went to prison...
..that it would come right.
But, oh, my God, how wrong I was!
- After serving 11 months of a six-year prison sentence
for sexual offending, Gloriavale leader Hopeful Christian
was released back into the community.
- The 69-year-old leader of Gloriavale
is now free to rejoin the Christian community.
- What a terrible time
we're living in, brethren,
right at the end...
This would be one of the worst ages for sin,
deception, evil,
to trick people away from the truth.
- I don't remember the day he came back...
..but I can remember him just being back.
The Lord had heard our prayers, and he had destroyed
the intentions of the wicked men
that had helped put Hopeful in prison. So, you know,
I can remember it being an exciting thing that he was back.
- It's astonishing that he did such a short term in prison.
He gets done for sexual abuse, and then he's released
back into the community where the sexual abuse has taken place,
where there's all those women,
when there's all those young boys.
And back as a hero,
because the world had tried to nail him, but he was back.
The big, bad world,
they'd tried to get him, but they couldn't.
He was too powerful.
- He saw the world as a place where
everyone else was against him.
It created a "them and us" type of attitude.
The outside world just hate us, they're just against us.
They're trying to destroy us.
In the community,
it was seen as he was being falsely accused...
..and that was a much nicer story,
and so that's the one I wanted to believe.
But at the same time,
something inside me
knew things weren't quite right.
Some people who are wanting to move away from Gloriavale contacted me,
wanting a house to rent,
and this one's available because the tenants are moving out.
A bit of a problem, it hasn't got a fence, and they've got little kids.
The couple texted me wanting to talk, and I've texted back saying,
you know, "Call me any time."
There was something suspicious about why she contacted me,
and then, all of a sudden, there's no contact.
So I'm just going to go up and check, call in,
see if they're OK.
It'll be a Gloriavale person.
But I wouldn't get too worried because if you drive around
like you own the place, no-one's going to even know.
This is a dairy farm that, um, Gloriavale owns,
but it's run remotely. It's been commonly used
for people who are being isolated,
or people with problems.
This is the house here. Just, um, hide the camera now.
We really don't want any attention.
- Here he comes, here he comes.
- So, my suspicions were pretty true.
They didn't see me.
I'm just going to move out of here
and we'll...we'll come up with
a different time to contact and a different strategy.
One of the leaders is in there, talking to the husband,
and is obviously aware that they're wanting to leave.
And he's one of the worst bullies
in Gloriavale for, like,
psychologically putting pressure on people.
Hopefully, they'll still talk to me now.
That's probably the thing that I'm really worried about,
is they then start cutting off some healthy communication
that they've been having with the outside world.
All this sort of stuff is fairly close to home.
I've lived through heaps of
religious manipulating pressure...
..so you're seeing a little bit
of that rattling.
When there's someone the leaders don't like, they turn against you.
You know, they start turning your family
against you, because you're this evil person.
You're turning against the church.
You become socially isolated because people know you're bad,
they become scared of you.
So even while you're in there,
you can become very, very lonely and isolated,
and it's really, really not nice to have people you love
actually feel hatred from them.
- So across these waters
and nestled beneath the mountains, that's Gloriavale.
In spite of the leadership
wanting Sharon and I to be gone from the community,
we still live there.
So here's the balcony,
and our room is at the far end.
And it's a strange way to end
a 45-odd year involvement
with the community.
We are not allowed within 100m of the main community buildings...
..so we've made a home about 200m
down from the main community.
- That's where the birds live. It's where the mice live.
- We are uninvited guests,
living here in rather awkward circumstances.
- I want to stay where I am
because I believe that's actually God's will
for me to stay right where I am.
That is something I prayed about for a long time.
I have a young 14-year-old daughter
buried in the graveyard.
Mummy loves you very much.
Yeah.
And two sons,
three daughters
and around 35 grandchildren
still living in Gloriavale.
And so I'm hanging in there
so my grandchildren and my children
can come and talk to me, if they have a serious need.
- Angel Benjamin, could you please
continue your brief of evidence?
- Both my parents, Clem and Sharon Ready,
joined the community as youths
and were married and raised a family of 13 children.
There was a lot of turmoil in the family that I grew up,
and this is my voice here.
They might have a different opinion on it.
- One, two, three!
That's great. Thank you.
- Hello, Mummy. - Hello.
I've been busy. - And me.
Hello, Priya. - Hi.
- You missed it, Mum.
I am a committed member of the Gloriavale Christian community
and pray to be this way until Jesus comes and finds me in peace,
faithfully living his Commandments.
My prayer for those still in the battle
is to make peace before that day.
- I was not upset with what she was testifying in the court
because that is what I believed.
I brought her up to believe in the church,
to believe in the...what we believe.
Every church has a dogma
and this is the GV interpretation
of the Scripture.
It's not just about giving your life to Christ.
You have to sign over
complete control
of your own life as a mother,
complete control over your children
and your future generations.
# At the time of creation... #
THEY CONTINUE SINGING
- I believe that Jesus is the Son of God
and he died to take away my sin.
And when I go under these waters,
I'm going to come up a new creature.
- Amen. In the name of Jesus Christ, we bury you.
Hallelujah!
- When you're in Gloriavale and you're a child,
you're told that you owe your life to Gloriavale.
Are you driving? - No. I'm driving.
- Since I've left, I'm still finding myself and who I am. 33 years old,
and I'm thinking,
I can figure this out, and I am figuring it out.
Are you a bit scared? - Yeah.
- A bit scared.
After I started having kids, you realise, I don't actually
have any control of these kids' lives.
I'm their mother, but they're the community's kids.
- And there was a wishbone.
- Good manners. I love that, you're so cute!
- Yeah...
- I didn't want to bring up a girl to live my life, what I had lived.
- A former resident of Gloriavale
has given a damning assessment
of life in the commune.
- A former Gloriavale member says
residents are brainwashed
from a young age, with women
expected to cook, clean and sew
for long hours, without taking breaks.
- The allegations were made at an employment court hearing,
where it's being argued women there are employees,
not volunteers, as the leadership has claimed.
- Now, before you have got a written brief, would you please
read your brief to Her Honour?
- I am one of the plaintiffs.
I was born into the Gloriavale community.
I left high school at the age of 15.
One day, Hopeful Christian just walked into the classroom and said,
"Right, we need more workers."
The whole grade finished school that day.
Our lives have been chosen from birth,
and that's a big thing to deconstruct when you leave.
- Did you feel like a slave in there?
- I wouldn't have said that when I was in there, but looking back,
knowing what I know,
yes, we were slaves.
- Hopeful knew he had young, fit, able people at his disposal,
and that's what set the scene for the child labour.
So the median age at Gloriavale is 12,
and so you're looking at a very skewed population.
If those young people weren't there, you wouldn't have
all the asset growth and the base of Gloriavale
and the wealth they are sitting on.
I'm not saying they're sitting on it in their bank account.
I'm saying they're sitting on an assets upwards of 60 million.
Without young labour,
their business model would have collapsed decades ago.
- My job is to make sure the freezers are organised, clean and tidy.
I agree it is not always an easy job,
it can be tiring and strenuous,
but there is a joy of giving and fulfilling, and exactly the place
I am needed and where I believe God wants me.
- At one stage, I did become dissatisfied with life
because I could not feel the satisfaction and joy that I saw
in the lives of my parents and the leaders.
But I decided to read my Bible and follow it.
- I did have questions about the whys of Gloriavale life.
It wasn't easy and I didn't love
the life I had. As I read the Bible and what we believe,
I came to a greater understanding of the fundamental principle
that this community life was based on.
- Being happy isn't really their goal in life.
Their goal is to suffer for Christ.
I'm going to deny myself anything that looks like sort of pleasure.
I need to be giving and serving all the time,
and so to even enjoy yourself
is seen as sinful
because our reward is in Heaven.
- So, you are looking for a reward in Heaven, that's your evidence?
- Well, the Lord's promised me one.
- I suggest to you that you were happy working at Gloriavale, and it's only
subsequently, after you have left Gloriavale,
that you are now recasting what your views were.
- I disagree.
Um, being happy in Gloriavale...
..is a facade.
It's a coping mechanism. On the contrary...
..how I actually felt
and how I could not tell anybody that I felt...
..I was going to commit suicide, because I thought that
it'd be better to burn in hell than leave Gloriavale.
- Distressing testimony came from Gloriavale leavers,
whose treatment left them feeling enslaved and trapped and suicidal.
Yet a procession of Gloriavale women denied working under the whip
of its leaders, accusing the plaintiffs of making misleading,
distorted and exaggerated claims about life at the commune.
They weren't brainwashed, downtrodden, subjugated
or worked off their feet
and weren't forced to do anything against their will, the women said.
So-called slave labour was simply a labour of love...
- Hey, Dave. How's it going, boy?
Hey. Aw! How's it going, mate?
G'day. - Is it eggs and lemons? - Yeah, yeah.
All right?
- Obviously, Tabitha went back to the court case again to observe.
- Yeah, she was there for two days, too. - Yeah.
Did that unsettle her more?
- Yeah, I think she's actually sort of like seeing that
people in Gloriavale, I think, and the ex-members
are showing it all from one side,
so it's like they feel like they have to counteract it
by going right to the other end of the scale
to try and pull it back their way.
- So, with that, is it making her think, is it time to pack up
and leave, or is she still holding out for a breakthrough somewhere,
a total change in leadership?
- Um, I would say that would kind of probably come first.
Yeah, she'd be like, probably more,
"I'd be hoping it would change, so that we didn't have to."
- If she sees you actually starting to put things in place
and you've got a plan, she will have way more confidence than even
allowing her thoughts to go down
the track of... - Yeah, true. - ..OK, what happens if we leave?
But if you're in limbo and you're just hanging around,
then she needs to, by default, fall onto where her security is.
- Yeah, true. - I mean, she's 20, 21 weeks pregnant, so she needs it,
security, massively.
- You guys don't have a direct, upfront conversation.
Everything is done in sort of code... - Yeah. - ..because you wouldn't
trust her with personal stuff, because she might tell the leaders.
So this game play that's been going on in your whole married life...
- Yeah. - ..you've got to change that now.
- It's like, you know, you're married, but there's always...
It's like, you know, you're standing there, but the leaders are still
in-between you. You can see each other, but they're still there.
- The leaders are the ultimate authority in your marriage.
In the marriage vow,
the wife states on the wedding day,
"I promise to love and obey you...
"..as long as...
"..you obey the leaders."
After many conversations, I started to become aware that
you control the men through the wife,
and the wives through their children, through salvation.
When you get born into Gloriavale,
you don't have a choice.
You're taught never to question.
And so that complete authority
leads to a very controlling,
very damaging environment.
- You start wearing a headscarf at the age of five.
- We had to keep our heads covered
to show that we were submissive
and meek and quiet, and for showing
that we weren't trying to seduce men.
- So there's, like, a few things that I brought out with me,
like, when I left. I managed to sneak my scarf,
which has still got my old name on it, Honey Faithful.
Well, Honey F. So everyone's clothes gets labelled like this.
It's probably one of the first things you learn to sew.
You start sewing at, like. nine, maybe.
What else have I got?
These are some of the photos
that I grabbed out of our family photo album.
I really like this one,
mainly because I'm on a tractor, and girls
weren't allowed to do boys' things, so I always like that
SHE LAUGHS I was on a tractor.
CHILDREN YELLING AND PLAYING
Boys and girls are kept very separate.
When you leave school at 15, you're not allowed to talk to
the young men or, like,
have anything to do with them.
Like, I got pulled into a meeting
because I was talking to my cousin,
and they thought we were having a relationship.
- You're passing the same people every day.
You're living in the same hostels with them,
you're eating at the same table as them,
but you're not to talk to them.
So you know them from just observing, really.
And I guess you know your sisters,
and so you hear stuff, but you shouldn't ever be alone together.
But the other side to that was there was a lot of sexual talk
just in the normal daily happenings at Gloriavale.
- Colin, you have to tell us what happened. - Ah...
- It was a bit weird, like, some people were quite out in the open
about their sex life,
and certain people in there
would have quite radical views around sex and talk freely about it.
- ANIMATED CHATTER
It was hard to tell what...
- It's not really breakfast material,
but, yeah, talking about different types of sex and...
Yeah, positions and everything, and I'm eight and nine and I'm...
That's what you're exposed to.
And in a really close community like Gloriavale,
you just can't escape it.
- If you did it all day... - Oh!
- I suppose growing up in there, you don't really know
what is acceptable behaviour, but...
..I was always glad I wasn't a girl
because the sex culture was terrible.
- Hopeful talked all the time about, you know, men get turned on
by elbows, so don't pull your sleeves up.
So, the girls are responsible for tempting the men,
and they actually tell the guys that, too.
You can't help yourselves. You girls, you can say no.
You can stop it happening. Guys, once it's on,
once you've tempted them, they can't stop it.
And so you've got boys growing up thinking that
they can do whatever they like.
And then you've got girls growing up thinking,
if something happens to me, it's my fault.
And so then, not going and getting help because effectively,
they're telling someone how bad they are.
The leaders quite often would flick your bra strap, undo your belt...
LAUGHTER
..or wrap their arms around your waist.
Or if you're standing at the table serving them,
they'll pull you in and rub your legs up and down.
Hopeful was definitely the worst.
Howard Temple was bad as well.
And Howard and Hopeful doing that,
that's saying to the other guys, this is OK, and they do it, too.
- I never remember Hopeful or Howard
giving me inappropriate cuddles, etc.
I felt loved and cared for in an acceptable way.
Rosanna never told me, or even hinted that she hated the affection
shown to her. I always thought that
she loved the well-meant attention.
She did not act like it was a problem.
- I have not felt sexually threatened by any of the leaders.
On the contrary, I would feel
safest with those men of God, who give their lives to
the people of the church and community. - Miss Steadfast,
you just inserted a word there.
- Sorry. - No, no, don't apologise, because it may be that
you want to insert that word.
So you said, "I've not..." In your brief, you say,
"I have not felt threatened by any of the leaders."
And when you spoke, I think you inserted the word "sexually".
- Um, my brief says "sexually".
I think I wrote that.
- And it's your evidence, so that's absolutely fine. Thank you.
- I don't think there's any family in Gloriavale that hasn't either
been the victim or an offender.
I was seven when I was first abused.
I was, by one of my own family members,
sexually abused from quite a young age.
Probably around seven or eight.
No-one had any idea.
- I had sexually abusive things happen to me.
I couldn't tell anyone because I couldn't trust anybody.
It really changed me.
I just encased myself with anger,
with being tough,
to try and hide,
yeah, like, the pain.
I came out one night to Marcus's place and he said,
"Look, you need to get help."
And I was like, "And what's that? What is help?"
I didn't know what help was...
..because I'd never been given it my whole life.
- So, these are the cases that have been through the courts.
- Oh...
The charge was indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl
and sentenced to six months community detention.
Sexual Offending Youth Court. Finished through the courts,
and free of conditions.
38 charges, including rape, sexual violation and indecent assault.
Seven counts against young people... Five counts, 14 counts.
If you actually count up the number of people,
there's bloody heaps of them.
All this abuse, there's just so much of it, it makes me feel sick.
- Sin and lust are everywhere.
So, yes, in our ignorance,
in our desire to be merciful, loving and forgiving,
there have been perverts among us.
But I have never heard it, heard sexual immorality
encouraged, condoned or taught.
- Young men and young women develop sexually, physically,
when, say, they're 13, 14,
but yet, in society, they didn't get married well into their 20s.
Society says, "Oh, well, we'll let the young people fornicate."
And we say, "No, they should be married."
- That super-strict
morality is often just a cover
for something darker.
My dad believed that premarital sex
was such a sin and such a shame,
and he didn't teach men to control themselves.
So, he had, um,
the young people married off.
- # There ain't no rules I'll disobey
# Except the one that says I'm free to go my way... #
- When the girls were clearing the tables one day after breakfast,
we saw this sheet of paper at Hopeful's place, at the table.
It had all the boys' names
and all the girls' names on the other side.
- # Tomorrow, I will take the vow... #
- I can remember actually being quite shocked that Hopeful
had down to two-year-olds matched up.
But he did used to say all the time too that it was his responsibility,
as the leader, to make sure the bloodlines weren't mixed up.
- There's me. I'm here.
- THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER
- Hey!
- Some of us didn't get to see, but I knew that I was on the list,
and I was terrified,
but I knew that I'd have to say yes, like I knew that I'd have no choice.
- Getting married in Gloriavale,
it is an arranged marriage.
I went and approached Hopeful and said that I'd like to get married,
and he was like, "Yep, OK.
"So what do you think about marrying Tabitha?"
I was just like...
I don't even know what to say.
It's like she didn't even exist up until this point.
So we talked a bit about, you know, just doing God's will and that
and being happy with things, you know,
and that they had to consider bloodlines
and all that sort of thing.
And I'm like, "Uh... Yeah.
"OK."
- This one is Tabitha's wedding,
wedding day.
We look quite similar, and we would get mixed up as being twins,
but our personalities are quite different.
I'm very, like, strong-willed, and she'll just, like, do whatever.
Even though I wanted to have kids,
I didn't want to be married to any of the men in Gloriavale,
and I didn't want to be told who I had to marry.
- I actually thought that they'd make me marry this guy,
and I actually couldn't stand him.
And I knew that both him and Elijah had gone to ask Hopeful
if they could get married. Just the whispers,
the rumours go around. And I just remember praying one night to God
and actually saying, "Please don't make me marry this guy.
"I can't stand him. I want to marry Elijah."
I loved how he treated
his mum and his sisters.
Yeah, and I just thought he was cool.
- SHE LAUGHS He had a cool walk.
- A week later, Elijah asked
my dad if he could marry me,
and the relief, the utter relief I felt.
- When God created Adam,
he was alone.
He said, it's not good for man to be alone...
..so he created...
- Amen.
- I was really happy to marry Rosie.
But apart from being attractive
and an all-round good girl,
I didn't really know her that well.
- I know that you're a servant of God
and you obey His word,
so I can easily submit myself to you and trust
the decisions you make.
And I'll love all your children,
and gladly give myself as a Christian mother
to raise them. I love you,
and I promise to make a union.
- # In this world of sin and sorrow
# When men's hearts fell for fear
# We have hope and blessed assurance... #
- We, as men, have been given authority,
we've been given leadership.
We want strong women,
but women who will get behind their husbands.
Strong Rosie,
use that strength to get behind him.
- Amen.
- Once you're married, you're expected to have children straight away.
A lot of the woman's value is in, yeah, how many kids she has
and how well she has them.
If you're getting pregnant and having kids fast,
then God's blessing you.
And if you're not, then what are you doing wrong?
You can... You can say hello to Kim. You look better than Mum.
- Hey, sis.
- My kids came pretty soon afterwards.
My first five are actually
within five years, and three months, and none of them are twins.
- Yeah... Yeah.
- Honey, be gentle.
- Yeah.
- The first turning point for us was actually when I had Honour.
- Oh, here we go!
Beauty. - Love you, too. - Mm.
Look at that beautiful face right up close.
Big smile.
And there goes the loudmouth.
BABY CRIES
- Yum-yum-yum!
I remember looking at her
in the cot and thinking,
"She's not safe here."
On my husband's part, as a dad, he's thinking about his kids
and, you know, is this the place I want my kids to grow up in?
But we still thought that it was the only place we could raise them.
So then we thought, "Well, we've got to, you know,
"start making some changes and make this place safe."
- I still believed in Gloriavale.
But then I talked to one of Hopeful's sons,
who'd been kicked out,
and he told me that his dad
was put in prison for sexual abuse
on young girls, and that was it,
like, I just had seen enough.
I knew there had to be something a lot better than Gloriavale,
because the way they operated wasn't right.
It was a rainy day. It was lunchtime.
I walked up to Hopeful.
I was very nervous, and I said,
"Hopeful, there's a few questions that I'd like to ask you.
"They're quite serious questions. Could we go somewhere private?"
So we jumped in the car.
I said to him, "Why are you our leader? Why are you our
"representative when you've got criminal convictions?",
and he just got angry at me.
- I will not listen to you!
- He didn't deny anything.
He never answered whether it was true or not.
He didn't want to listen, or talk, or explain anything.
- Hopeful came bursting in and said, "Your husband's made a big mess
"and he's brought the law,
"and the police is here to take your kids off you.
"You need to go and tell him to go away
"and we can calm this situation down."
I was so scared. I was so scared that
they were going to take my kids off me. I didn't know why.
- ANGRY SHOUTING
- I couldn't see any police,
and the whole community was out the front.
- ANGRY SHOUTING
- Get out! You are not welcome here! Be gone!
- Elijah was wild. I'd never seen him like that before.
- Sinner, you don't have a family any more!
I put the devil in you!
- I'm running around screaming.
I don't want this to be the last time I ever see my wife and kids.
- Get out! The devil is in you!
- We ran to each other and Hopeful walked straight up to us
and pulled us apart. He was like,
"You don't love each other.
"This man's an evil man
"and you are not bound to be with him ever again."
- They ended up just picking me up and carrying me out.
The next thing I knew, they'd flown her out of there.
I didn't see my family for six weeks after that.
- I can't really remember thinking much until I realised
that we'd been flying up the coast, that I'd seen the coastline
for ages, and I couldn't see Gloriavale.
And I said to the pilot, "Where are we going?"
He said, "Don't worry about it. You don't... You don't need to be
"bothered with these things. We'll look after you.
"We care about you, even though your husband doesn't."
They said Elijah had been caught in an affair with an outside woman,
that one of the Gloriavale men had found him.
I was just extremely confused. Um...
I loved him a lot, and I couldn't...
I couldn't see living without him, like, as an option.
- It was six weeks. - BABY CRIES
Yeah, we were just, we're in hiding.
We had to get new clothes.
We had to change our names.
What does it say?
I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to go.
I didn't know I could call the police.
And so, I just decided that God would have to work a miracle
because I didn't know what to do.
- MOBILE PHONE RINGS
- I still remember hearing the phone ring in Dad's bag.
I got the phone, I said "Hi,"
and the voice on the other end of the phone said, "I've got you."
He told me that Hopeful went to jail...
..for sexual abuse.
As soon as he told me that,
I felt like it was the truth.
It felt like it connected all the last dots for me.
I actually remember thinking, "If the leaders are lying to me
"about this stuff, what else is a lie?"
Like, "How much more of my life is a lie?"
So pretty!
It's even got my name on it. See?
There we go.
My old life, in all its glory!
Oh, wow!
These are all letters from after we left Gloriavale,
and this is probably only half of them.
The rest of them went straight in the fire before they were read.
Here we go. "Elijah and Rosanna,
"I will attempt to explain to you why I have made a stand against you.
"Pride has been the sin that has done the damage.
"You've been covetous.
"How much do you love the things of this world?
"You're boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
"unthankful, false accusers,
"despisers of those that are good,
"traitors.
"I believe that the devil came along
"and sowed doubts and fears in your minds,
"and has robbed you of your faith.
"Your children's lives will be affected.
"Their spirits will become lean
"and, eventually, they will die.
"When will you wake up?"
Now, I can see through them.
At the time, when we were getting them,
really hard to read. And a lot, I couldn't read them,
or I'd cry or get angry.
- All right. Come on, Steve,
Come on, Muscles.
Ah! - Awesome, Steve! - Here, here!
Let's get Mum out. SHE LAUGHS
- Get Mum out!
Oh, no!
- Out.
THEY LAUGH
- Hopeful Christian, founder of the Gloriavale commune
and convicted sex offender, has died of cancer at the age of 92.
- He built Gloriavale
on a foundation of privacy.
The commune won't even confirm his death.
- I was aware that my dad was quite sick and that he was likely to die.
I realised that there was no way
I was probably going to get to say goodbye to him in any,
you know, nice fashion.
I felt sad.
I felt sad that, you know, um...
Uh, yeah, I mean, I felt sad and relieved, OK?
One moment, I'd be angry.
The next moment, I was relieved.
The next moment, I was crying.
Yeah.
- Hallelujah!
- It would have been really nice that,
you know, we could have parted,
you know, him realising that I wasn't his enemy,
that I actually cared about him.
Yeah, it wasn't to be.
- And you believe that it's God's Son
that died on the cross for your sins...
- Um, it would be, "Look, Dad, even though you didn't think so,
"I did my best to love you."
Mm.
Now you're bringing back, um, emotions into the picture.
I haven't had that emotion over Dad for a long time.
So, you know, memories bring back those sort of things to you.
- A closed community closing ranks even further on what's believed
to be the day of their leader's funeral,
just one day after 92-year-old Hopeful Christian
is reported to have died.
- The funeral was had, like, the very next day.
And when I rang up about it,
it was definitely done in such a way
to make sure none of his rejected children turned up at his funeral.
# The altar lays bare bloodstained shrines
# Once glistening groves full of disquiet
# We forge the frontier
# Spring thought our sighs
# Man, we bought the love psyche
# Nothing imaginable was missing
# The outcome was unordained
# The voices you hear
# Are your handmaids performing unseen for you...
# Sailing
# Sailing under bright stars
# Who are we?
# Who are we, in this light? #
- We went down to the graveyard.
There's lots of people around crying that he had died.
But I don't think I really actually felt anything.
I think a lot of that has to do with all that pain and hurt.
Like, it's like I taught myself to feel nothing.
- Growing up, you just thought he was always going to be alive.
Like, everyone thought he was invincible and that God would
come back before he would die, so it was like a weird feeling.
It was like, what was going to happen?
- It even came out in the news,
you know, who's going to be the new leader?
- The Gloriavale Christian community
could be at a significant crossroads.
- Big questions remain about who will take over from Hopeful Christian,
who will be the next to lead Gloriavale, and whether, indeed,
it can survive without their charismatic
spiritual, but flawed, leader.
- # There ain't no rules I'll disobey
# Except the one that says
# I'm free to go my own way
# Tomorrow, I will take the vow
# Tonight, my heart begins
# To howl... #
Probably from the age of 14,
I knew that I wasn't going to live there forever.
I could never imagine myself being married to someone
I didn't choose to marry.
Women are, like, the men's objects for sex.
That was always something in the back of my head
I was really, like, scared of.
LAUGHTER
When I was 18, the pressure came.
They gave me an ultimatum:
sign the commitment and get married or leave.
I said no, and so straight away they sent me to my room.
I had to change out of the Gloriavale dress.
I knew once I left
I never was going to see my family again.
And my mum said to me, "You're going to hell."
I'd never been on a bus or anything like that.
I didn't even know what a bus stop was.
I knew that the outside existed,
but I didn't know the extent of the outside.
- # When you come, I'll follow you
# I'll follow you. #
- REPORTER: - Hopeful Christian, founder of the Gloriavale commune
and convicted sex offender, has died of cancer at the age of 92.
- The group, now numbering 600,
are without their Overseeing Shepherd for the first time.
- But will their leader's death bring about the demise
of the community he built?
- Hopeful's died?
We thought he was going to live forever.
He always, like, made out that he was.
He was probably a father figure to a lot of people.
Rightly or wrongly.
Just a lot of sadness and uncertainty
of where the community would go or what was happening.
- That was a really bad time.
It was really like someone had ripped the engine off the boat
and thrown it over,
and the boat was just drifting here and there.
You know, there was a bit of unrest there for a point of time.
- Before he died, my dad had trained up
a real loyal pack.
I mean, I can only liken it to, like,
a really loyal pack of dogs.
- You're not welcome here.
Men, I want you all to gather around.
- Please leave.
You are trespassing.
- Gather round, men. Gather round. Gather round.
- Howard has been one of my dad's disciples right from the start.
He was extremely loyal to him.
He was the one who learned the tricks
of the trade the best.
So he became the most qualified, in my dad's opinion,
to take over.
- Howard Temple, the frail 82-year-old leader of Gloriavale,
arriving at the employment court to give evidence.
- Thank you. My name is Howard Temple.
I became an Overseeing Shepherd in May, 2018.
I took up this role on the passing of Hopeful Christian.
I am an American citizen by birth.
I volunteered into the United States Navy
at 19 years old.
I married a New Zealand girl,
and when my time was expired with the navy,
I was discharged in New Zealand.
- At what stage did you join the community with your wife?
- 1970.
- And so you would have been about 30 years old?
- 30 years old.
- Howard Temple's a nice, genuine sort of a guy
that got caught up in the wrong thing
and trained by the wrong leader, and is now in a position
believing things to be right that aren't.
And, er...
And trying to lead people how he's seen it modelled for him.
- The wife is joined to the man by the law
so long as the man liveth.
- You have a very charismatic leader, a very powerful leader,
and he passes on and the next person has got to fill the shoes.
And so he has to be very regulated and very rule-focussed
to try and keep that order.
- What a wonderful God that we have.
- Amen. - Amen.
- Howard is really good at playing the nice guy
and letting other people do his dirty work.
He's also very, very manipulative.
He's a snake.
It's the best way I can say it.
- What comes across from the briefs of the plaintiffs
is that they felt trapped for a period of time
before they left the community.
Would you agree that, for a lot of young people,
particularly young women... - Yes.
- ..the costs of leaving Gloriavale,
if they'd lived there all their lives,
were simply too high to take that step?
- Yes.
We're working now to make...
- INDISTINCT SPEECH
- But my main priority would be to keep them
rather than let them go.
But to keep them back here.
There are spiritual reasons for that.
But, er...
And then...
..they're my people.
- When I left Gloriavale,
they had booked me flights to Auckland.
I knew it was a city, but I didn't know anything about it.
I just knew Auckland must have been somewhere in New Zealand.
Because my mum grew up there,
she had a school friend that she managed to get in contact,
and they said they would pick me up.
I remember them saying to me,
"Oh, how long are you staying for?"
And I was like, "Er, I can't go back."
But they had thought I was just coming to stay with them
for a week or something -
like I was going on holiday.
So I had to explain to them that my family
had cut me off and I couldn't go back.
And, so, luckily they did say I could, like,
live with them.
And they helped me navigate everything.
- Dad, thank you for buying hot chocolate.
- Oh, I didn't get it.
Someone snuck it in the trolley.
- No, I told you to get it.
- You can adapt practically pretty quickly,
but mentally and spiritually,
that's a long, long journey.
The hardest thing was probably how I fitted in out here,
because it was a whole new world.
Basically, it's like learning to read and write again,
to understand a new language
and how the social life works out here,
or what's expected and what's not
and what's normal to eat for dinner or...
There's just so much.
- I was continuously, like, second-guessing myself.
I was 18. Like, I was supposed to be a teenager.
But I didn't feel like a teenager.
And so, like, conversation-wise,
I was like, "I don't know what to talk about."
Like, I know how to make cheese,
but I don't know who Taylor Swift is.
- Which one do you want to get? Which green...?
- Jelly babies!
Jelly beans!
- Shall we keep moving?
- Come on, guys. Hey, you have to keep up with Mum.
Don't get lost.
- If you actually think about the logistics
of somebody leaving, you realise how difficult it is.
You don't have a licence. You don't have a car.
You don't have a phone.
Like, you don't even know the value of money.
Like, if someone gave a Gloriavale person $20,
they would think, "Wow, awesome. I'm rich."
Yeah, just wait.
Like, Esther's going to do it that you can help her.
You can pass her things, OK?
They tell you when you're living there
that people leave and then they want to go back,
but the devil traps them.
That's not true.
People find themselves,
they find who they are,
and they find out who God really is.
And who would ever choose to go back to prison?
- OK, what I want to do, can we do leavers' updates?
- Yes.
A young person has left recently.
She didn't have anything.
She didn't have an original birth certificate.
She didn't have photo ID.
She didn't even have a bank account.
So she's had to start from scratch. She's 20...
- I am the secretary on the trust.
But my role would be to do my best at representing
the Gloriavale women and what their general needs are.
- No-one else on the trust board has lived there,
so that's our role, is to actually just...
We've lived it.
We know what it's like.
Like, I can just go, all right, reverse 15 years,
I'm in that headspace,
I can understand how I was thinking then.
But if you've never lived there, it's really difficult.
You can come at it from a theoretical perspective,
but you don't know the emotions
and everything that you actually go through.
- It's even just having people that understand biblical lingo. - Yeah.
- And that not everything's black and white.
- LAUGHTER Like, there's grey stuff.
- Because in Gloriavale, everything is black and white. - Yeah.
- There's a huge amount of change from when we left.
We took a tent when we left
because we didn't know where we'd be staying.
And now, most people,
someone on the trust gets some information
before they actually leave,
and we can have something set up for them -
whether that's a house or somewhere for them to live
when they do leave.
That's a massive change in ten years from when we left.
- Is the vacuum cleaner going in as well?
- Er, yes.
- Let's leave boxes down here.
These are people coming out like refugees.
Let's do the smallest house, which is house two.
Let's just get that sorted out of the side,
and then we'll know everything else is house one.
You're helping them set up from scratch,
so you're talking entire house-loads.
You're talking jobs, house rental, vehicles.
You've got to think about everything that someone might need
if they've just stepped off from, you know, another world
and landed on your doorstep.
Just like that. - Yeah, that's going to be good like that.
- At the moment, things are pretty rocky inside Gloriavale,
and there are people sort of heading out to the edges or leaving.
Our aim is to always have one whole house-load
ready to go at any moment.
Give us four hours' notice,
we will load up a trailer and we will deliver
a house-load of furniture to whoever needs it.
- # So much doubt out here in the wasteland
# Like we're sinners come undone
# Ain't no water to chastise me
# No shade under Christ's apple tree
# I'm weary with the toil
# All you guys better open your eyes
# Get us out of this goddamned mess
# And fight for... #
- Hi, Boaz. - Hello.
- How are you doing? - Yeah, doing all right.
Doing all right. - Do you want a hug?
- Yeah, OK. Yeah, why not? - Nice.
Nice to see you.
- How are you? - Lovely.
- Yeah.
- Your wife needs you.
- OK. Righto.
- Then we'll unload this.
- My wife said to me,
"If you do go, I'm not going to stay here without you."
But now I think it's actually starting to dawn on me
the consequences of my actions.
Just thinking about what's actually happened,
because it's all in a rush.
It's actually finally hitting me that,
yeah, I have moved.
Gloriavale's all I've ever known.
And a million questions going through your mind.
Just how do I live out in society?
You all right? You hurt your legs?
Cuddle.
We're heading out for the first time with three kids,
nearly four, it's kind of like...
It's massive.
Thank you! - OK, thank you.
- Me and my wife are just scared. I mean, really scared.
I mean, just everything -
organising rent, kids going to school or sports.
It's something you've never done before.
You never had to do it before
because our life that we've lived at Gloriavale
caters for a lot of those things.
But now you've got to think of everything.
And there's a baby coming in seven weeks, so...
I mean, even...
Everything else, that on top is just another...
How do I do it? Again, how...?
How do I cope?
How do I even do this?
Go to Mummy? OK.
The biggest thing of all is I want to make sure that my kids
have the support from their mother and father.
Finding out years later,
when I've even got kids of my own,
the stuff that he did,
it was just so hard to even understand that
and just try and even live with the knowledge of that.
That's why I put so much emphasis on family,
and especially my family.
Because...
..I don't want those sort of things happening to my kids.
Basically, my one goal in life is, one, to serve God,
and to also make sure my family has someone that they can look up to.
- The expectation is that the members would have children
who would become baptised members of the community?
- That's what would be expected, yes.
- But you've got them sitting up on the base of the mountain range
dividing New Zealand,
and they have no access...
..to the outside world except what you approve.
That's right? - That is right.
- Separation is the main reason and the main policy
to keep the children in the community, isn't it?
- Yes, I suppose if you took it on further to that degree, yes.
It is to keep them out of some of the influences
outside of the community
that would prevent them coming to a faith in God.
- Coming to a faith in God... - Yes.
- ..that you are teaching
and wanting to impose on them through ignorance?
Do you agree?
- Not through ignorance, no.
I want to impose it on them, but not through ignorance.
- But they're totally ignorant of the world
and worldliness, aren't they?
- No, they're not.
- You keep them separated because they just might enjoy the life - correct?
- They just might do that, yes.
- When I left, I had to navigate getting a job
and what I wanted to do with my life.
I didn't know what I could dream growing up,
but I always was, like, jealous that men in Gloriavale
could study things.
So I decided to go to university
and get a degree in occupational therapy.
Hi, JJ.
Does JJ have any toys?
Oh, watch.
JJ, hi.
I'm just going to...
My life wasn't just for having kids,
but it has been a roller-coaster of a ride.
Like, it's a journey.
And I'm still on that journey of, like, finding myself
and having a voice and knowing that women can have a voice
and I can be heard and have my own career as a woman.
- Today, a bombshell in court.
Details emerging that before his death, Hopeful Christian
had already started a second Gloriavale community
in southern India.
- Five New Zealand women have been living in the Indian community
for over a decade.
- Married off to Indian men to replicate
the New Zealand Gloriavale in India.
- You also mentioned a number of times during the course of your evidence
that you had been travelling to India.
Do you recall those references?
- Yes, we went there.
There's a community over there
operating on the same principles that we operate on.
- And are you the Overseeing Shepherd of that community in India?
- I would be, yes.
- Gloriavale in New Zealand
supports Gloriavale in India - is that right?
- Yes.
- Hopeful deciding to set up a community in India
is pretty up there with one of the most shocking things
he would've thought of doing.
They found some farmland in South India
and purchased it.
He sold it to us as expanding our Christian faith.
And India was a third world country and they needed a lot of help,
so that would be a good place to convert some people.
- I think my dad liked the idea
of going to somewhere like India and building another kingdom.
They might've hoped to be able to, you know,
have another place they could go to, I suppose,
if they were getting in trouble -
a sort of a haven to escape persecution, possibly.
- I'm Willing.
- I'm Ready.
- I'm Faithful.
- Faithful would've been 10 or 11 when they brought him
to New Zealand, and he went to school with us.
He was actually the only boy that was allowed
to take cooking classes with the girls,
so Hopeful was training him to be able to do everything
so that he could start the community in India.
- Beauty and the beast!
- Dad got a young boy of about 16 or 17
and made him into a leader.
He was a puppet, really.
- He just worshipped Hopeful and, like, did whatever he wanted.
And I think that's sort of what he's carried on over there.
- It became a good way to get rid of a whole lot of girls,
because in Gloriavale there was an imbalance of girls to boys
and, in India, the opposite way.
So they sent the girls over there.
- One other thing is there's definitely been
abuse victims sent there.
You know, that...
And that gets them away.
Get them married off -
you know, out of your hair.
They are, you know, given Gloriavale choice -
you know, which is obey the leaders or go to hell.
Yeah, so it's free choice.
- Around the time when I was 14 or 15, Hopeful called, like,
all the single girls into a meeting.
He put it to them like,
"We want some women to put their hand up to go."
My sister put her hand up.
But you do things like that
because you want to look good in the leader's eyes,
and you want to be putting your trust in God.
But I think she wanted to get away
from the home environment that we had.
We experienced a lot of trauma just in our own little family,
from watching my parents' whole situation
and watching my dad beat my mum till she saw stars.
We all felt helpless, so that was like an escape for her.
Precious' wedding was supposed to be an example to the Indians
that you had to forsake your family.
And so her wedding had to be in India,
and none of our family were allowed to go to the wedding.
She was chosen to marry a man with polio.
He can't walk without crutches.
He can't stand on his feet upright.
He's not ever going to have the ability
to be a New Zealand citizen,
or even survive in India because of his condition.
And so how could there be a future for their whole family
outside of the community?
It's like they've almost set them up so that they are trapped.
KEYPAD BEEPS
- The number you have called is invalid.
Please check the number and dial again.
- Nine, three...
Let's try this.
PHONE RINGS
Hello, hi.
Is this the community in India?
Er, Theo. I'm Precious' sister.
Yes. Yeah, I'm Honey.
Theo.
Can I talk to Precious?
Could I talk to my sister?
Hello? Can you hear me?
It's Theo.
How have you been? It's been so long since I've chatted to you.
I haven't been able to get through.
Yeah, I'm still in New Zealand. I'm still alive.
LAUGHTER
- Ha. Yeah.
- I'm still your sister.
PRECIOUS SIGHS
Oh, wow. What number is that?
Far out. Time's gone fast.
Is it just...? You'll just stay there forever?
Well, they always have said that the Lord's coming back.
Yeah. Well, hopefully...
Hopefully we can connect and reunite
before the Lord comes back.
- Ha.
- Maybe I'll come to India one day and visit you.
The kids can meet their auntie.
- Mm.
- Well, I miss you lots.
I haven't seen you since I was 15.
CHILD CRIES
All right, I'll let you go. - All right.
- Love you.
Bye.
Er, very intense, but good.
It's probably the longest conversation
I've had with her.
I think that whole thing of, like, the Lord's going to come back
is like her coping mechanism to know that it's going to end.
Like, she's not going to be living like that forever,
which is sort of sad.
Like, life is more than just surviving, isn't it?
She would probably freak out if I turned up in India.
I don't think she believed me that I would come.
I've talked to media and I've talked to lawyers.
I've talked to the Human Rights Commission.
And everybody says the same thing, that they want to help
but they think it's too hard,
and nobody's actually been there to see if they're OK.
So my conclusion is that I have to be the one that goes
to India to see, in reality, how she's actually living
on an everyday basis.
- So this is the laundry and the sewing room.
- Together? - Yep.
We went and found fabric that was the same colour.
- In India? - In India.
But it was thinner and it was a slightly...
See how that's like a dusty blue? - Yeah.
- Elijah and I were sent there about 14 years ago
to help set up the community.
Elijah went to do a lot of fencing on the farm.
I went to set up the kitchen and teach the girls how to sew.
So they obviously made them wear our uniforms
and they have to eat our food as well.
I felt really sorry for them,
because they loved their curries, they loved their food.
It's their culture.
And you're just taking that all off them and saying
that they can't have it because it's not Christian,
and it's just not true.
- So we fly in Kerala,
in Thiruvananthapuram.
- Yeah, that's the one.
Does anybody know the address? - LAUGHTER
- Are you just going to wing it?
Oh, we're getting closer!
Oh, there's the canal.
The road comes in here.
- That's the road there, isn't it? - Yeah.
- And here. This is the gate in. - Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, that's it.
It's important that we go and check on them.
Like, who's going to see them
and make sure that those girls are actually OK?
- We could open the children's mind up to... - Mm.
- Like, they don't even know who I am.
- The thing is, you might not see the result of what you do
when you're there. - No.
- But ten years later, there'll be stories
that lead back to that point. - Yeah. - Mm.
- When are you guys going?
- In two weeks. - Oh, yeah.
- I want to, like, put my head under, but it might get knocked off.
- LAUGHTER - Yeah.
- It's very real now.
I haven't been sleeping great.
I've been a bit anxious.
But then I just keep remembering what the focus is.
Theo hasn't seen her sister for ten years,
and I've come as a support to her.
And I've been here before.
And we're here to make sure those girls are OK, and their kids.
- I think the fear is of the rejection,
of, like, her not wanting to see me
but knowing she would want to see me if she wasn't part of the cult.
- Someone did just beep their horn. It's the vehicle we're in.
That's how you drive here. You just beep your horn at people.
No, it's a big van. It's like a party bus, actually.
You kids would have a great party in here.
- I love you, too. - HORN BEEPS
- LAUGHTER
- I've tried to dress conservatively
because it can be quite a roadblock.
Try and remove as many roadblocks as possible.
- I'll put a bit up here now.
- I've grown into a woman that they probably don't know.
And I'm not controlled by men any more,
which I was when they last knew me.
- My sister - she's sort of come to terms with, "This is my life.
"I'm never going to ever live in New Zealand again.
"That's not even an option."
I want to tell her that that is an option.
And then also to see her living situation
and her access to money,
whether she has a phone.
And the kids' schooling as well.
I really want to find out whether they have access
to their passports or their birth certificates,
because we never did in Gloriavale.
I want to find out if there's any way out.
What would she do if she wanted to ask for help?
- I remember this, and I remember that pond there.
- INDISTINCT SPEECH
- We've come a long way.
It's a huge expense and a lot of logistics.
We're going to try and just rock up.
Just going from Gloriavale experience,
if you call ahead, they get really frightened
and they have time to prepare - or maybe hide Precious even.
I feel like the element of surprise is probably the best way
to actually get to see them.
We're here to check on those girls
and make sure that they've got a way out.
Because even if they don't feel like they want to leave now,
that time might come,
could come for their children.
Remember those kids and go and do the right thing.
- Same.
- It's recording.
- Right.
- Yeah. - See you.
- I wonder if it's who you think it is.
Is it him?
- He does look familiar.
Hello. - Hi.
- Are you good?
- Hello. - Hello.
- I'm scared.
- Hey, what's the worst they can do to us? Be mean?
We're tough. We've got thick skin.
Hey, kids.
Where are the...? Where are the grown-ups?
Down this way?
- Oh, shit!
- Hey, girls.
What are your names?
Angel? And...?
- Prudence. - Prudence.
This is Theo.
She's Precious' sister.
- Precious is up there.
- Should we just keep walking? - Yeah.
- OK, cool.
Thank you.
- Hello.
How's it going?
Yes.
Rosanna came with me.
- The unexpected.
- The unexpected!
Very! Hello.
Nice to see you.
- What's...? Is this...?
Hello, Overcomer.
I'm Auntie Theo.
I'm Mum's sister.
Came from New Zealand.
It is hot.
We're doing some travelling and thought we'd pop in and say hi.
- Hello, what's your name?
Oh, my gosh! You're Faithful!
Sorry!
I didn't rec...! You've gone...
You've grown up, I guess.
Sorry. - I've been sick.
- Oh, my... Oh, that's not good.
What are your names?
- Bernice. - Bernice and Benevolence.
How many altogether, then?
- Nine. - Nice.
32 children born here? - Yeah.
- In five families?
Yeah, so you've got a very young population.
- Yeah.
Pretty much.
- Hello.
I'm Theo, Precious' sister.
- My name is Truth. - Yeah, nice to meet you. Finally.
You probably remember me as Honey, yeah. - Yeah.
- You must have been surprised to see me.
When do you think you'll come to New Zealand?
- LAUGHTER - Oh, I don't know.
Do you still have an up-to-date passport?
Do you just keep it in your room?
Oh, how come you...? Is it so they don't get lost?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Have the kids even got passports?
Oh, true.
She was quite different from what I remember.
She used to be quite confident
and, like, people used to mock her for being really bossy growing up.
She was just really quiet.
Instead of replying, she would just do this nervous laugh.
She looked lifeless,
like she was just surviving.
- How is that choice made about girls who go over to India
to marry Indian men?
- The announcement is made.
You know, that there's a young man there,
he would like to get married.
Would there they be any girls here who want to go
and marry the man and live in India?
- So, Mr Temple, when you say it's up to them,
the Gloriavale leadership would make the announcement
and wait to hear from a young woman
saying she was interested in that option?
Or would it be something that was discussed
with the young woman,
the possibility that she might take up that option?
- I can only know of one happening...
..where it was put to a girl, would she like to go?
- And so, for all except for one,
they asked the leadership to let them go to India
to marry a young Indian man?
- Yes, ask her if she would like to.
- And for one person, it was a discussion
and it was suggested that might be something that person
would want to do? - Yes, yeah.
- ROSANNA: - Precious isn't the Precious I remember.
- She's not. Not at all.
I was a bit, like, a bit shocked. - Yeah.
Yeah. - Just a bit concerned. - Interesting.
Some of the women, more than others, seemed quite downtrodden
and lacking in confidence to even speak or to be around us.
They didn't show a lot of emotion.
It's hard to leave Gloriavale in New Zealand
simply because you know nothing about life on the outside.
And how much harder is that here in India?
They're isolated by location.
It's a million times harder for them to leave.
I guess it could be like a prison for them,
because, I mean, they are stuck there and they barely go out.
- In terms of physically,
the conditions of the place was very rundown.
The fact that she didn't have a door on their bathroom.
Like, that's a basic thing to have in a toilet.
She said, "Oh, lucky I was awake the other night at 11 o'clock.
"There was a snake in our room and it was poisonous."
The fact that little babies are in that environment,
it's pretty horrific.
I asked my nieces and nephew, the six-year-old,
"Oh, can you write your name with me?"
And he didn't even know how to spell it,
let alone write it.
And that nine-year-old couldn't read.
Even for Gloriavale standards,
school here was, like, on a whole other level of, like,
"What the hell?"
- All grassland. All this is for grazing for cows.
- How do you plant it, though?
By hand? - Yeah.
- I was really concerned at how my sister would react
and how the leader, Faithful, would interfere
with me actually being able to have some time with her.
I don't trust him because he's part of the Gloriavale system.
When you talk to him, it's like the same sentences
and the same things that the leaders in Gloriavale use.
It's just like another mimic.
But the thing is, he's following Hopeful's dream.
It's not his dream.
It's what Hopeful wanted.
Oh, you should protect them.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Part of coming here for me was to know that what happened to me
as a child doesn't happen to my nieces and nephews,
and nothing happens to my sister in terms of
any form of sexual abuse.
INDISTINCT SPEECH
He was really concerned that we were going to go back to New Zealand
and put him at risk and the community there at risk.
I think they're already at risk.
I have a responsibility of seeing what I've seen,
and their normal isn't normal.
That's my youngest niece.
She's almost two.
And Mummy's going to have another baby.
- Your auntie came a long way to meet you.
There was a real feeling of sadness there.
And I can't actually shake that still.
I felt guilty walking away...
..without my friends and...
It was really hard for me to see them
in that position and just...
And even to think myself...
Like, I've had three babies with no support
from my family just because I left Gloriavale.
Yeah, they've...
One of them's had nine. One's had six.
And they're stuck in India away from any friends and family.
They have each other and that's all.
And there's five of them.
And, yeah, it breaks my heart to see them like that.
And I'd just love to stay there and help them.
I'm not sure that they'll have me back.
But I definitely want to go home and think about it
and see what I can do.
I just really want to see those kids have a good life...
..and understand that God's will for them isn't to suffer.
- Precious and her husband didn't choose to marry each other.
I think she holds on to the fact that the Lord's
going to come back.
There's not a lot of hope or a future in terms of...
What do they look forward to?
There's nothing.
I did some, like, drawing with the kids.
The two boys drew me two separate pictures of, like, flowers.
I'm going to get a tattoo on my arm of, like,
the two pictures together.
It did really confirm to me how lucky I am
to actually have choices and to be independent,
and to have gotten the education that I've now gotten.
And to have control over my life
and what I eat every day and what clothes I wear
and who I am as a person.
And to have my own individual values.
I've got to use the knowledge I've gotten
from not living in Gloriavale
to actually help my sister
and the other women there and their kids to actually get help.
- A court has heard Gloriavale women were entrapped, enslaved
and lived in servitude at the Christian community -
on the final day of a long-running case.
- The six women who've brought the case
say they worked long, hard hours on Gloriavale's domestic teams
and were exposed to workplace sexual harassment.
Brian Henry says the community's leaders were too scared
to stand up to their dictatorial founder
and convicted sex offender Hopeful Christian.
Chief Judge Christina Inglis says, in reserving her decision,
she promised to think hard about the issues
and to deliver a judgment as soon as she...
- I've got some interesting stuff here for you both.
This is clips of your grandfather
fighting for your freedom before you were born.
- Hmm.
- The church stopped... - Looks a bit like you.
- ..in spite of himself, he'll be blazing fire
and there'll be carpets all over the floor
and sheepskins spread out.
And maybe anything up to 10, 12 married couples.
Never would teach on marriage.
And then finally...he started to teach on sex.
And was involved in that
multiple sexual contact between married couples.
And was involved in the nudity...
- For nine years, he has not seen or heard from his wife,
his son and two daughters still living in the community.
- And I have 19 grandchildren.
I only know seven of them.
- You know seven of your 19 grandchildren?
- I've never seen the other ones.
- He had this jar.
And in the jar was this wooden object.
And it looked very much like this.
And he said to me,
"I'm going to use this to stretch your muscles."
I felt like I was being ripped in two.
- I-I-I just honestly can't believe
how they can call themselves Christians.
I just don't think I can see him in any other light
than in just a perverted cult.
Listening to my grandfather say that, back then,
10 or 12 couples, which would be...
Lots of those leaders would've been in that circle doing that,
and yet they can say they didn't know that it was going on.
They are just lying.
Because they themselves have been so damaged by Neville
that they will actually back him up in his evil and perversion.
The whole underlying foundation of what Gloriavale is based on
is based on that.
But the thing is, is that I grew up in that culture.
- A little chip off the grandfather's block.
- LAUGHTER
I've never seen a photo of him before.
But to even know what he was doing, even before I was even born,
I mean, that's just incredible to watch that.
PHONE RINGS
Hello, this is Boaz.
- Hi, Boaz. How are you?
- Oh, I'm doing all right.
- How long have you been out?
- Er, it's coming up six months now.
- Not easy, is it?
- Er, no, it is not easy.
- You know that I spent quite a bit of time with your grandpa,
and also your auntie?
- Yeah. - And have you seen the footage of that?
- Er, actually I have.
I happened to watch it last night.
Well, the thing that actually struck me the hardest
was actually the things that he was talking about
and the things that he was foreseeing
that were going to happen have actually happened,
and some of them have even happened to me.
- He made a very public stand going on air with us
and doing those interviews,
and so did your Auntie Yvette.
- I think my first thought on hearing what my auntie was talking about,
I was just like, "I don't know why I didn't get out of there sooner."
- You've got good lineage, you have.
- Yeah, yeah.
Up until last night, I thought I was at the bottom of the tree.
But, er, yeah, I think after watching that,
I feel like I'm a few pegs higher.
- You should feel like that.
You should feel...
Absolutely you should. Because...
As a very brave and very strong person
to come out and speak like your grandfather did.
- I think what I can do to honour his memory
is to actually carry on that fight
to stop the wrong that's happening.
I owe it to even the people that I grew up with,
and all the people there that have been hurt and damaged -
and I owe it to them to fight against the wrong.
Not fight against people, but fight against the wrong that's happening.
You've got to go down fighting.
You can't just give up because it might seem hard.
Boy.
- She was explained, you go to India for the rest of your life
to build a church.
- Obviously my sister will be trapped here?
- Yeah. - We'll look after them.
We've looked after them all these years, right?
I believe all those five sisters are in my hands.
I really believe that.
I'm responsible for each one of them.
- He referred to them as "my sisters". - Yeah.
- It's almost like he's possessive over them and he owns them.
- Yeah.
- What is rape?
Raping is... It happens from one side. - Yeah.
- Indian men are very forceful around women.
It's part of the culture.
And a lot of Indian men will force themselves onto a lot of women.
- It was interesting that he just, out of the blue,
said, "What is rape?
We intended to go there, but he brought that up.
What is rape?
- Why would she not be able to come back to New Zealand again?
- The k... The children don't have passports
and there's no money to go back.
- And some of her kids don't have birth certificates either.
- Yeah.
- So they've been living there undocumented?
- Yeah.
- I mean, there is growing concern internationally
in terms of human rights,
particularly of women and children who are being moved
across borders. - Yeah.
- And sort of first principles, I'd say,
some very searching questions need to be asked. - Yeah.
- Can you consent when you're born into Gloriavale?
- Yeah, exactly. - And so we've got people who've been moved out
of New Zealand and you have welfare concerns.
And so we need to sort of set about thinking about
what is the solution to that problem.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, it's a very unique situation.
- She's my sister and she is a person.
And she deserves the right to live a full and happy life
and choose to be her and to be heard.
And my goal is that I will not let her be forgotten.
- A landmark ruling from the employment court has found
six former Gloriavale women were employees
and not volunteers.
- The judge said, in a typical week, the female workforce
in the kitchen produced more than 11,000 meals,
and in the laundry they washed 17,000 items.
- Judge Christina Inglis said she was left with no doubt
they worked extremely hard and under punishing conditions.
- You've actually put a real stake in the ground
in this judgment about the role of women
and the expectations that women do things for free.
She's also found that you were taught to be happy
doing the grind, and the impact, once you finally get out,
you haven't been equipped in any way to deal with it.
The Overseeing Shepherd is in control,
and he was actually quite unusual as a witness
because he just seemed eager to tell us how powerful he was.
And he actually came up and apologised
to Dennis and me because he thought he had totally destroyed our case.
- That's how much they believe in themselves.
- Yeah. - They've totally trapped themselves
in the culture they created.
- Yeah, they have. But the thing is, they totally believe it now.
Standing up to people that have ruled your life
since you were born?
Pretty courageous.
- I haven't been allowed to speak or have an opinion my whole life.
Just being able to speak and tell my story -
and then for it to be believed - was just so incredible.
- We've been successful.
Smells like slavery, sounds like slavery,
in my opinion is slavery.
But this is the nature of the organisation,
and they are built on child labour.
The evidence from Gloriavale is this will end their way of life.
We'll see.
- I can say something. - Yes, go on.
- OK, Pearl.
- Gloriavale feels like they're victims in this case.
And they are victims, but not of this case.
They're victims of the culture they've created,
and that's what we want to see changed.
We want to see the culture changed.
- Woohoo!
- # Don't you know who I am?
# Don't you know who I am?
# It's God's will to stamp what's mine
# It's God's word that bites your tongue and marks me divine
# The moment we lay our hands on the world, she's disfigured
# Hell, we can touch her up... #
- Here you go.
That'll do, won't it?
You can one-armband it.
- # Don't you know who I am? #
- Often we don't want to tell our whole story.
But it's a service we have to humanity
sometimes to tell our story.
- # Don't you know who I am? #
- Hey. - How are you? - Hiya, mate.
- Yeah. - Haven't seen you for years and years.
- To say, "To right the wrongs,"
that'd be a pretty high calling.
I don't think that's something I'd be capable of.
But I try to live life by making every encounter
with every person, to try and be genuine, kind and honest.
- It's really you that I've come over here to see.
Well, when I say you, that's you and, and, and, and.
- # Don't you know who I am? #
- The discussion went something like this.
- Haven't seen you for ages!
How are you? - Yeah, I'm OK.
Admitting to the faults and failings of the past
and trying to move on from them.
- # Don't you know who I am? #
CHILDREN: - Fireworks!
Fireworks!
- CHEERING
- It's going to be really nice to bring my kids over
and for them to meet...
- Yeah. - To meet all the other kids.
- Catch up with their friends that they had. - That's right.
Because some of them they haven't seen for years.
- The best thing about life on the outside
is our family being a family.
And I know that we could lose everything we've acquired
over the past nine to ten years,
and material things can come and go,
friends can come and go,
but our family would still be a family.
And that's all that matters.
- Like, you're actually almost just...
- LAUGHTER What the heck is this?
- It's my hair, Mum! - Wow!
It's beautiful.
- Oh, I tell you what!
- Enjoy it!
- Gloriavale's Overseeing Shepherd, Howard Temple,
can tonight be revealed as the man accused of indecent assault
against ten young girls.
- It's alleged he offended over two decades
involving Gloriavale residents, some as young as nine.
- Howard, do you have any comment to make about the allegations?
- Not at this time.
- They want to destroy every good thing in your life.
But I won't let them.
The day will come...
..when people will be able to...
..make their own decisions...
..and to have a time of sorting out...
..all the years that have gone past.
Yeah.
That day will come.
- # Before the dark
# When, all the candles, they were lit to form a pyre
# Till the cool air She was a liar
# And in the heat I sang your name and my desire
# Ooh
# We burned the night
# I was the earth beneath your feet and you the light
# And I can see me in your eyes
# Close enough to catch a glimpse ahead what lies. #