SYDNEY, NSW — Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston was ruled not guilty of an Australian charge of concealing his father's child sex crimes on Thursday.
Houston, 69, was the Sydney-based church's senior global pastor when police charged him two years ago with concealing a serious indictable offense. He resigned from his church roles months later. At the time, the megachurch said an internal probe into allegations of inappropriate behavior revealed that Houston "breached the Hillsong Pastor's Code of Conduct."
Sydney Magistrate Gareth Christofi ruled Brian Houston had a reasonable excuse for not reporting Frank Houston's offenses to police. Christofi accepted that Houston believed the victim, Brett Sengstock, did not want the abuse in the 1970s reported to police.
Sengstock testified in the trial that began in December that he never told Houston not to report the abuse.
Sengstock told reporters outside court that the verdict blamed him for the church's failure to report the elder Houston to police.
"Frank Houston was no pioneer for Christianity. His legacy remains a faded memory of a pedophile," Sengstock told reporters.
"Regardless of today's outcome, I have received a life sentence. Blaming the victim is as repulsive as the assaults themselves," Sengstock added.
The magistrate said that regardless of what Sengstock told Houston, Houston had been told of Sengstock's attitude by others.
"Victims of sexual abuse ought to feel safe to confide in others without being concerned they are exposing those others to a criminal offense," Christofi said.
Houston appeared teary-eyed when he spoke to media outside court.
"I want to express my sadness to Brett Sengstock, genuine sadness about what my father did to him and all his victims. He was obviously a serial pedophile. We probably will never know the extent of his pedophilia," Houston told reporters.
"A lot of people's lives have been tragically hurt and for that I'll always be very sad. But I'm not my father," he added.
Hillsong is a global church with 30 locations around the world. On its website, Hillsong says it averages about 150,000 attendees weekly.
Hillsong acknowledged the ruling in a statement from the church.
"Our prayer is that those impacted deeply and irrevocably by the actions of Frank Houston will find peace and healing, and that our former senior pastor Brian Houston and his family can look to the future and continue to fulfill God's purpose for their lives," it said.
Houston became aware in 1999 of his father's abuse of the then-7-year-old Sengstock. His father confessed and was defrocked as an Assemblies of God pastor. Frank Houston died in 2004 at age 82 without being charged.
Brian Houston shared information about his father's crimes with church leaders but not with police.
Prosecutor Dareth Harrison said Houston had found a convenient excuse to avoid reporting the allegation to authorities to protect both the church and his father.
Christofi said proving that motivation beyond reasonable doubt was a "tall order indeed."
Prosecutors also submitted that Brian Houston had used vague language when he spoke publicly about his father's abuse and removal as a minister.
Christofi found that while Brian Houston might have used euphemisms in public, his meaning was obvious and speaking "widely and freely" about his father's abuse indicated Houston wanted people to know, the magistrate said.
"That is the very opposite of a cover-up," Christofi said.
The charge followed the findings of an Australian government inquiry published in 2015 into institutional responses to allegations of child sex abuse.
The inquiry found Frank Houston had been allowed to retire quietly in response to his crimes. Brian Houston had faced a potential 5-year prison sentence if convicted.
The allegations of inappropriate behavior that were investigated by an internal probe were two instances over 10 years, CBS News has previously reported. In one complaint, Houston was accused of sending "inappropriate text messages" to a member of the church's staff. Hillsong said Houston was dependent on sleeping pills and under the influence at the time, and that Houston "immediately" apologized. The staff member later resigned.
The second complaint alleged that Houston had knocked on the door "of a hotel room that was not his" at a Hillsong conference, entered the room, and spent time with the "female occupant." Hillsong said the pastor "became disoriented" before the incident due to consuming a higher-than-prescribed dose of anti-anxiety medication and alcohol. Details of the incident were unable to be sustained, the church said, but "the conduct was of serious concern."
Houston was reportedly agreed to carry out a series of measures after the probe, but by late 2021, the church said it had to take "further measures."
Houston did not mention these misconduct claims when he announced his departure from the church in January 2022, only saying he was leaving to focus on the charges brought against him by the Australian court.
In recent years, Hillsong has been the subject of documentaries on networks that include Hulu and TLC.
