NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald
08.08.05
By Angela Gregory
A Tokelau church pastor who admitted raping his stepdaughter but was never charged is now under scrutiny after intervention from New Zealand.
Pastor Iosua Faamoni sexually abused the 12-year-old while she was living with him on the Atafu atoll in the Tokelau group in 1992.
The girl spoke out about the offence six years later, although she never made a formal complaint, and Faamoni fled to Australia.
But he has since returned to Atafu and shocked some of the small community of about 500 when he resumed preaching and started asking for girls to be sent to live with him.
A New Zealand doctor who had worked in Tokelau, Peter Adam, told the Herald he was horrified when he returned last September to discover Faamoni back on the atoll.
Dr Adam said he knew the pastor's history of sexual abuse as the victim, who now lives in Australia, had first complained to the wife of a friend of his.