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From Schwartz Media I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

The founder of Hillsong Church, Brian Houston is on trial.

He faces charges of concealing historic child sexual abuse by his father, Frank Houston – who was also a pentecostal pastor.

Brian Houston has returned to Australia and is fighting the charges in a Sydney court, with his defence team arguing that he didn’t conceal the crime from police.

Today, author and contributor to The Saturday Paper Elle Hardy, on Brian Houston’s long-awaited day in court.

It’s Wednesday, December 14.

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RUBY:

Elle, last week, the trial of Hillsong founder Brian Houston got underway in Sydney. And you were there as it began down at the Downing Centre Court in the Sydney CBD. Can you tell me about what that first day was like?

ELLE:

It was a bit of a circus. There was a lot of TV cameras outside trying to get a glimpse of Houston. And he's certainly played the role. You know, he arrived in a black car with tinted windows straight out the front. Refused to talk to media.

Archival tape -- 9 News:

“Do you have anything to say to the victims of your father?”

Archival tape -- 9 News:

“How are you feeling?”

ELLE:

And then inside the court, he was greeted by a small group of supporters. He strode up to them and said, well, well, what a group of people we have here. Supporters included his brother Graham and some other family members we believe. There was also a woman who was pacing up and down praying, who took some time to speak to Bobbie, who's Brian's wife.
But it was a real Brian Houston performance. He took the time as everyone was waiting around for the court to open it, to walk along and sort of eyeball all the journalists and a couple of activists who were there as well. And it really just is vintage Brian Houston.

He’s an alpha kind of guy. And he still wanted to show people that he wasn't scared. He's not backing down. This is the fight of his life and he's going to fight.

RUBY:

And when you say the fight of his life, Brian Houston, he's facing a charge of concealing a serious offence. And and that offence is the sexual abuse of a boy by Brian's father, by Frank Houston. So tell me about Frank, and that allegation of sexual abuse?

ELLE:

So Frank Houston was a very influential Pentecostal preacher. He came over to Australia and used to preach regularly before moving over here full time and he was really revered. He was considered a father of the faith, as one witness called him.

And so in 1970, he was over in Australia staying with a family called the Sengstocks in Coogee. They were a very, very devout Pentecostal family and they had a seven year old son, Brett. He was abused by Frank Houston the night before his birthday for the very first time.

And Frank signed a Bible on his birthday the day after it first happened and dropped some one and two cent coins into his hands.

And Brett's now 60. He's waived his right to anonymity and as he testified very powerfully and emotionally, he was anally raped by Frank Houston from the ages of 7 till 12.

And He's still deeply traumatised by it. And he was confronted with his late mother's diaries. Initially, when he told his mother she believed him, that she was a very pious woman, and she said that she didn't want people to go to hell because they might be turned away from the church because of Brett's revelations. So it was quite a you know, it's a very difficult testimony for him to give.

And he's still very much scarred to this day.

RUBY:

So that’s the crime that Brian Houston is accused of concealing. So what have we heard about what Brian knew of it?

ELLE:

In 2014, Brian Houston spoke into hearings at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. There was an enquiry specifically brought into the allegations against his father from Brett Sengstock.

Brian Houston was eventually charged. Coming out of that hearing. So in August 2021, he was issued with a warrant to attend the court.

So Brian Houston has been charged with concealing a serious indictable offence.

And the prosecutors are saying that, Brian Houston could have reported his father's offending. And this is from 1999 when it was first revealed. And Brian Houston is said to have found out until Frank Houston's death, which was in November 2004.

And there are four key elements that the prosecution and the defence agree that the case will hinge on.

The first is Frank Houston abused Brett Sengstock and the defence has already indicated that they will not contest this. They believe that Brett was a victim of abuse, so they're not going to be contesting that in any way.

The second was whether Brian Houston knew that he was supposed to report the offence and this is something that he will be contesting quite strongly.

The defence case as to why Houston didn't report it is that he says that Brett Sengstock said to him that he didn't want him to go to police, that if anyone was going to go to the police that Brett Sengstock would and Brett Sengstock has denied that. But that is a very key part of contention.

The third element was that Brian Houston knew he had material that could assist in the prosecution. Again, they won't be contesting this. They agree that he had the material.

And the fourth of those elements is whether Brian Houston had a reasonable excuse not to report Frank Houston's abuse.

A key element of the defence's case is not only was Brian Houston aware of these charges but tens of thousands of people were aware.

RUBY:

Right. Okay. So a key part of Brian Houston's defence is that there were potentially tens of thousands of people who knew about the allegations of child sexual abuse against Frank. But no one reported it.

ELLE:

That's correct. Brian made some sermons during this time, admitting to what he knew about his father. There were media interviews and even the deputy commissioner of New South Wales Police who sometimes attended Hillsong and actually attended Frank Houston's funeral. This is Andrew Scipione. He may have even heard the charges himself at the time.
The defence of Brian Houston has already brought up a sermon that he delivered at a Hillsong event in 2002, I believe, where he spoke about his father's allegations. And, these events, you know, were often stadium events. They were filled with people.

And so the defence's case is that a lot of people knew this and no one reported it. And quite potentially, if we're talking of tens of thousands of people, not simply the former police commissioner, but but other police officers may have heard other people who perhaps knew of their legal obligations or were in some position of power or authority, could quite conceivably have heard this as well and chose not to report it.

RUBY:

We’ll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Elle, Brian Houston’s defence team is arguing that potentially tens of thousands of people could have known about the allegations about Frank Houston’s behaviour. But I suppose those people, they weren’t necessarily in positions of leadership at the church so what have we heard about what the leaders of the pentecostal churches knew about this and when they knew it?

ELLE:

Well, several former high ranking members of the Assemblies of God have been called up as witnesses, and the Assemblies of God was the umbrella organisation for Pentecostal churches in Australia. They're now called Australian Christian Churches.

But a number of the senior Assemblies of God figures who testified have said that Frank Houston admitted to Brian Houston that he had behaved inappropriately and Brian took steps to suspend him and his credentials, although it has been been shown that Frank did continue to do some preaching after he was suspended by the organisation. But certainly he had confessed to some of his sins. But we haven't heard Brian Houston's full version of events yet.

RUBY:

Right and what about what Sengstock has said about his interactions with Brian Houston?

ELLE:

There was a meeting between Brett Sengstock and Frank Houston at a McDonald's and Brett was going to be paid for his silence. He's been very open. He said that he never went to the police because he felt he was paid for his silence. At that meeting, he was supposed to be given $10,000 and the cheque never came. And a few weeks later he called up Brian Houston. The two had known each other when they were young kids. Brian would sometimes accompany his father on these trips over and stay with the Sengstock's. And Brett confronted Brian by phone. There were some pretty heated words. There was a lot of anger. And there is quite a contentious moment, which Brian Houston has denied in the past. And Brett, said on the witness stand happened, where Sengstock told the court in this phone call that Brian Houston said to him, "You know, this is all your fault. You tempted my father". I was there in the courtroom the day when that happened. And it's something that Brian Houston's always denied. And he visibly moved and almost made a noise. And he and his wife sort of held each other and looked at each other.

The two have quite a divergence on what actually was said during this phone call. Brett eventually got a check in the mail with no note attached and has had little contact with the church ever since.

RUBY:

Right so Elle, how much longer is there to go in the trial and does it seem likely that we might actually hear from Brian Houston himself?

ELLE:

It's going to be quite a long and drawn out affair. It's a pretty long one for a local court, and I think that speaks to the fact that Brian Houston has hired a very, very well known senior counsel who's pretty top of his game and is calling a lot of witnesses. And a lot of the witnesses who are being called have also got their own lawyers.

There's still at this very moment in time, cross-examining some of the other board members of the Assemblies of God. So a lot of the people who were involved in meetings and and trying to work out what they were going to do about the allegations from 1999 onwards are being called and I have an idea of some of the other witnesses that might be coming up, but we don't know if Brian Houston will be for sure you know giving his version of events.

RUBY:

Elle Thank you so much for your time.

ELLE:

Okay. Thank you very much.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

More details have emerged about a deadly shooting in rural Queensland that left six people dead.

On Monday, two officers attended a property to search for a man who had been reported missing – the officers were ambushed and shot.

A neighbour was also killed, before a tactical police operation killed the three people inside the house; two men, who were brothers, and a woman.

It's been reported that at least one of the men on the property was part of an online conspiracy forum, while the other man was a former primary school principal.

And the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has been arrested.

Sam Bankman-Fried was taken into custody in the Bahamas after prosecutors in the US filed criminal charges. The exchange he founded was once valued at 32 billion US dollars.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.

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