Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston ...

By Janet Fife-Yeomans
Herald Sun
October 8, 2014

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/hillsong-church-founder-brian-houston-told-pastor-he-would-stand-down-his-father-after-abuse-allegations-arose/story-fnii5s3y-1227083780039

Hillsong founder Brain Houston allegedly told a pastor that his father Frank Houston would be stood down immediately after being told of abuse revelations.

Pastor Barbara Taylor gave evidence to the royal commission today.

Jockey Darren Beadman addresses congregation at Waterloo Christian Life Centre, watched by head minister Frank Houston.

Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston told Pastor he would stand down his father after abuse allegations arose

THE father of the founder of the Hillsong Church cried bucket loads of “crocodile tears” when he finally spoke to the man who he had sexually assaulted as a seven-year-old, the child sex abuse royal commission was told today.

Barbara Taylor, a minister of the Emmanuel Christian Family Church, said the victim had told her he had not believed Frank Houston’s tears were real.

The commission has also been told that a week after Brian Houston, founder of the Hillsong Church and former national president of the Pentecostal movement’s Australian Christian Churches, said he would sack his father in 1999, Frank Houston was allegedly still preaching on morning television and was on Hillsong brochures.

Pastor Taylor said she was told that Pastor Frank had still been preaching in Canberra.

She said that although Brian Houston was the head of the ACC and Hillsong, it had been difficult to tell him what had happened “because it was his father. He was loved by everybody and I only had one case to go on.”

She said that when she finally spoke to Brian Houston in November 1999 at a meeting at his house in Sydney’s Hills district with John McMartin, the state president of ACC, Brian said he and his family were in shock and his father would be stood down immediately.

“I just trusted him to do it correctly. They are very influential people. I was just a pastor at a small church in Mt Druitt,” Pastor Taylor said.

She said Brian Houston had said his father had confessed to a “one-off incident” that had involved the seven-year-old boy walking through a room without his clothes on.

The royal commission has heard the boy was one of at least seven boys allegedly sexually assaulted for years by Frank Houston in the 1960s and 1970s.

Pastor Taylor said she had approached Pastor McMartin in November 1998 as soon as she was told about the abuse but a year later, Frank Houston was still preaching.

“I felt the church should discipline Frank Houston and stand him down immediately. I felt the church had a responsibility to clean up its own house,” she said.

Australian Christian Churches is the umbrella organisation of around 1000 Pentecostal churches in Australia, including Hillsong and Emmanuel Christian Family Church.

Frank Houston, who died in 2004, founded the Sydney Christian Life Centre in 1977 and in 1999, it merged with Brian Houston’s Hills Christian Life Centre and was named Hillsong in 2001.

The commission continues in Sydney.