AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Senior Jehovah’s Witness Geoffrey Jackson says church might offer compensation to alleged abuse victims
August 14, 2015
Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter
One of the most senior members of the Jehovah’s Witness Church worldwide said compensation could be made to people allegedly sexually abused within its ranks if there was a Biblical basis for a redress scheme.
Geoffrey Jackson is one of seven men on the church’s New York-based Governing Body, which oversees decisions regarding the organisation’s 8.2 million members internationally.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse issued a summons for Mr Jackson, who was in Queensland visiting his sick father.
Appearing via video link from Toowoomba on Friday, Mr Jackson told the royal commission that the church would join a co-ordinated redress schemes for victims of institutional sexual abuse, provided “that nothing was scripturally against us doing that”.
In evidence, Mr Jackson said an apology to alleged sex abuse victims was “perceivable”.
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