Former Hillsong leader Brian Houston has been found not guilty after being charged in 2021, after it emerged he failed to report his father's sexual abuse crimes to the police.
Brian Houston has been cleared of concealing alleged child sex offences by his father Frank Houston in the 1970s.Magistrate Gareth Christofi concluded Brian Houston had a "reasonable excuse" for not reporting the matter.
The former leader of the international Pentecostal mega-church dismissed allegations against him as a "targeted attack" as he was acquitted in court of concealing his father Frank's abuse."If I wasn't Brian Houston from Hillsong, this charge would never have happened," he said on Thursday. Sengstock, said outside court he had received a life sentence of trauma for the abuse he experienced as a boy.
Word of the elder Houston's confession eventually reached Sengstock, but he could not remember who told him, telling the court "it was gossip everywhere." Magistrate Gareth Christofi found Houston not guilty on Thursday in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court."Victims of sexual abuse ought to feel safe to confide in others without being concerned they are exposing those others to a criminal offence," Christofi said.
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