Investigation into Gloriavale allegations, OT involved

Police are investigating allegations about offences at the Gloriavale community on the West Coast.

The allegations are of sexual offending by a teenage male against multiple boys in the isolated Christian community, Stuff reports.

Police confirmed that they “have visited the property in recent days to make initial inquiries into a report received”.

Gloriavale Leavers’ Trust spokeswoman Liz Gregory said she understood police and Oranga Tamariki were investigating serious allegations involving multiple complainants.

Stuff quoted an unnamed former member of the community saying that people in the community had been talking about the allegations for at least eight months.

“The leaders knew about it and had not gone to police,” he said.

“As soon as [leader] Howard [Temple] found out a complaint was made to police, he got in his car and drove to Greymouth to tell the police about it. At the same time as he was driving there, police were driving to Gloriavale,” he said.

“It’s part of the Gloriavale belief system that everything is dealt with inside and the police are not involved. There has been a lot of pressure in recent years to change that and the leaders have made some token gestures.”

Oranga Tamariki deputy chief executive for south children and families services Alison Mcdonald told the Herald staff had been on site at Gloriavale “over recent days”.