Child allegedly ‘bribed for sex acts’

"They lifted the carpet up and swept me under it and forgot it ever happened." Alleged victim

A man allegedly raped repeatedly by his Exclusive Brethren father from a young age says his dad bribed him with chocolate in exchange for sex acts.

In a video interview with police, played in the Palmerston North District Court on Tuesday, the son gave descriptions of places where he said his father had sexually and physically abused him.

Via video link, he said his father sexually assaulted him many times, including in the toilets at church, at his father’s work, in a family member’s garage and in sand dunes at a beach. The son was also sometimes forced to perform sex acts on his father.

The alleged offending began in the 1990s.

In the interview with police, recorded in 2015, the son said his father used to sexually assault him while he was in the bath.

‘‘He would say: ‘If I do this and that’ he would give me the chocolate.’’

The culture in the Exclusive Brethren church and anger towards it are expected to be key themes of the trial, with the defence arguing the man never touched his son in a sexual way.

The son also said he was very scared of his father, and was sometimes beaten. The beatings would be worse if he tried to escape. His father would corner him and hold his mouth to stop him screaming, and would wait till no other adults were about before the assaults.

He did not begin to understand the sexual and physical abuse was not normal until he stayed with other families as he got older, he said.

Judge Jim Large called for breaks a number of times throughout the day, as the son struggled with emotion while recounting the details and the effect the alleged assaults had on him.

At the time the son said the incidents happened, his father was a member of the secretive Exclusive Brethren church and Crown prosecutor Michael Blaschke told the jury the church’s culture helped frame the background of the alleged offending.

The father, who cannot be named without identifying his family, had since been excluded from the church. He faces 10 sexual violation charges, and a charge each of indecent assault and assault with a weapon.

The son said on one occasion his grandfather interrupted them, but it was not discussed – something the son blamed on the church’s culture.

‘‘He’s the type of person who will never say anything about it. He will support his son the whole way because I’m the outcast.’’

The son said his mother, himself and his siblings were no longer Exclusive Brethren members.

‘‘They lifted the carpet up and swept me under it and forgot it ever happened.’’

Previous convictions are usually withheld when someone is on trial, but in this case the jury was told the father had pleaded guilty and was jailed for raping his wife.

His son’s knowledge of the convictions and his wife’s hatred for him, and hatred of the Exclusive Brethren church, would be key themes of the trial, defence lawyer Fergus Steedman said.

Cross-examination by the defence began yesterday. The son agreed that when his father was sent to jail for rape, he wanted to see him rot in prison.

He had been struggling with mental health issues and was trying to recover from heavy drug and alcohol use in the month he contacted police with the allegations.

Steedman asked questions about why he sent letters to his father and phoned him, both after his father went to prison, and later after he was released. The son said some were dictated to him to copy down by a woman he was staying with, and some he wrote when he was ‘‘in a bad place’’, and had been wishing for a ‘‘real father’’.

The trial continues. .