Father of Hillsong founder given ‘retirement package’ after child abuse

By Dan Box
Australian
October 09, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/father-of-hillsong-founder-given-retirement-package-after-child-abuse/story-fngburq5-1227084272989

THE father of Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston was ­allowed to resign and offered a ­financial “retirement package” by a meeting of church elders, ­despite admitting he sexually abused young boys, a royal commission has heard.

Confidential documents tendered to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse show church officials within the Pentecostal movement were aware in 2000 that William Francis “Frank” Houston abused seven boys.

Frank Houston admitted the offences and was initially suspended by his son after the first claims came to light in 1999, the commission heard. Brian Houston took over his father’s Sydney Christian Life Centre the same year, merging it with his own Hills Christian Life Centre in the city’s northwest to form the Hillsong Church.

Frank Houston’s resignation letter to the City Hillsong Church in November 2000 makes no mention of the allegations. “I hereby wish to tender my resignation ... as I feel it is time for (his wife) Hazel and I to enter ­retirement,” says the letter.

Minutes of a “special elders meeting” held “in the boardroom of Hillsong Church” show Brian Houston was present when his ­father’s resignation letter was ­tabled five days later.