Pics

Commentary

Opening Titles

Guitar actuality

Guitar actuality

Opening tracking shot

Two years ago elders from this Church heard a shocking story. This young woman told them her father was sexually abusing her ... The elders called her a liar.

Alison Cousins Sync

Alison Cousins Sync

10.00.23

I said to them well what are you meant, meant to do then if he's doing something wrong and they said come to us and we'll deal with it and I said to them, well I've already spoken to you and you've told me I'm a liar.

Rest of tracking shot

The elders sent her home to her father. They didn't tell her that three years earlier he'd confessed to them that he was abusing her sister .

Tulsa convention: baptism

Tulsa Oklahoma - and a gathering of the Church that let this happen ... Over six thousand Jehovah's Witnesses are in town for their District Convention. Panorama is here too. We're looking for answers from the leaders of an organisation that's under fire, facing mounting allegations that it's shielding abusers, silencing victims and putting children at risk.

Bill Bowen Sync

Bill Bowen Sync

10.01.21

It's a world-wide problem that is of epidemic proportions within the organisation and no one knows about it unless your child was molested.

Title Shot

Suffer the Little Children

Top shot Stevenston

Outside with sister

Stevenston is on the Ayrshire coast in Scotland. It's a quiet holiday resort, a close knit town and home to a thriving community of Jehovah's Witnesses. Door to door service .

Set up Anon Sister

Bible studies and conventions were at the heart of family life for this young woman. But now she's left the Church which she says betrayed her and doesn't want to be recognised. She had a strict, religious upbringing - her parents wedded to the Biblical principle that the father is head of the household.

Anon Sister Sync

Anon Sister Sync

10.02.08

We'd pray together kind of thing, we'd pray before meals and we'd pray before going to bed and ask God for help and ask God for forgiveness for anything we've done wrong that day. He was very strict. I was scared of my Dad for years. I was really frightened of him.

Reconstruction/girls playing games

She and her sister spent hours playing alone. Their father taught them that outside influences were bad. He prohibited friendships outside the Church ... But from the age of 11 her make believe games hid a painful truth. Her father had started to abuse her.

Anon Sister Sync

Overlay girls playing

Anon Sister Sync

10.02.53

I was in my bed one night and that's when my Dad came through and he started touching me and feeling me. I just lay there hoping it would go away.

Anon sister Sync

Police statement

Statement at Saltcoats Police Office. Over the years since I was eleven until I was 15 my Dad had done things to me that he shouldn't have like rub my breasts, finger me and try to have sex with me.

Anon Sister Sync

Anon Sister Sync

I remember when we were in Perth we were staying in a tent and he started to touch me and he made me touch him and he made me put his penis in my mouth and things like that.

Were you scared?

Terrified. There was one time my Dad told me if I'd ever told anyone about this, he'd rip me apart.

Kingdom

For years she kept quiet but one Sunday, after a meeting at the Kingdom Hall, she asked to see Church elders. She needed their help.

Anon Sister Sync

10.04.07

Sis: I just told them everything that happened.

BP: Did they tell you that this was serious, that you should go to the police, or that they would go to the police for you?

Sis: No, they didn't tell me anything like that. They didn't make any mention of the police.

BP: They said they'd deal with it?

Sis: Aha. After that they called my father in and they had a very, very long chat with him, then eventually he came out and we went home and that was the end of it.

Driving shots/Ian Cousins

When confronted, Ian Cousins confessed he was abusing his daughter. He said he was sorry so the elders sent him home with his daughter. The abuse continued. Cousins was reproved or admonished publicly by the elders but Church policy meant that no one was told why, not even his youngest daughter.

Alison Cousins Sync

10.05.06

It was announced on, the, the platform that Ian Cousins has been reproved and after that I went to one of the elders and asked well why has he been reproved and he said its because of something he did wrong, but he wouldn't tell me what it was.

Even when her sister moved out, sick of the abuse, Alison still didn't know why. She missed her sister and was lonely ... With one daughter gone, Ian Cousins turned on the other. It all began with an innocent good night kiss.

Alison Cousins Sync

Alison Cousins Sync

10.05.43

I gave him a kiss like a peck on the lips and then I tried to get up to walk away and he pulled me down and he forced his tongue through my teeth .my clenched teeth and. and he tried to put, blame it on me and said do you really think you should be doing that?

BP: He blamed you.

AC: Aha.

Walking on the beach shots

It wasn't long before the abuse got worse. One day her father was accused of assaulting one of Alison's friends. She had to do something but had nowhere to turn, nowhere except the Kingdom Hall. She asked to see a Church elder.

Alison Cousins Sync

Alison Cousins Sync

10.06.31

I told him everything that had happened and what my dad had done to me and he said that he didn't believe me at all and he said that I was a liar and that my dad would never do such a thing, and that my dad was such a nice man.

Beach + wide Stevenston

Like her sister, she was sent home. Her father, the 'nice' man, was free to continue abusing her. So she gave the elders an ultimatum. Either they did something or she'd go to the police. They did nothing.

Alison Cousins Sync

Alison Cousins Sync

Statement at Saltcoats police office. I have told the police about my Dad because I am concerned that he has contact with other young girls through the Church.

Wallace Burgess Sync

Wallace Burgess Sync (Strathclyde Police)

10.17.20

Some of these people gave good statements and very, very positive in their attitude and support of Alison and her sister. Other people felt that they didn't want to be involved and gave a negative statement and some people refused to speak to us altogether.

BP: Why?

WB: I've no idea why. They just refused to speak to the police.

BP: Were they Jehovah's Witnesses?

WB: I believe they were.

BP: But they wouldn't help?

WB: They wouldn't give a statement to us, no.

Walking on the beach

Only during the police investigation did the whole story become clear to Alison Cousins. Only now did she discover her sister had been abused too. Only now did she find out that her father confessed to the elders 3 years earlier. Yet no one had warned her, his next victim.

Alison Cousins Sync

Alison Cousins Sync

10.08.10

Nobody told me anything. They all basically kept it all under wraps and told nobody what had happened.

Sea +

Data Protection Letter half mixed

What they did was keep a record of her father's name and confession on a Church database, a register of suspected and convicted paedophiles to be monitored. We asked Alison Cousins to obtain a copy of her records using the Data Protection Act ... There in black and white was proof that the Jehovah's Witnesses had known for three years that her father was a self confessed paedophile. Yet far from monitoring him, the elders twice turned a blind eye to his abuse of his daughters ... When he confessed to Church elders, Cousins got a mild rebuke. When he confessed in court, he got five years in jail.

Wallace Burgess Sync

Wallace Burgess Sync

10.08.59

I believe we were the last to know. They had told several people before coming to the police and these people had not reported it either to the police or the social services. We have a duty to protect and if we're not told, we're unable to protect.

New York

New York - the capital of big business and a fitting home for one of the richest religious organisations in the world. From here the Jehovah's Witnesses control over six million members. From here the World Wide Headquarters in Brooklyn Heights every policy, every guideline is dictated.

Tour of Bethel

Visitors are welcome and one message is clear: in this organisation you adhere to God's word. Every month fifty thousand Bibles come off the press ready to be sold world wide. But this too is where they keep records of suspected and convicted paedophiles in their ranks.

Bill Bowen Tracking shot

Bill Bowen, a respected elder for twenty years has just resigned ... He says the men at the top are protecting the Church, not children.

Bill B Sync

Bill Bowen Sync

10.10.24

They do not want people to know that they have this problem. And by covering it up they just hurt one person. By letting it out, then they hurt the image of the Church.

Headquarters

Elders must report abuse to the Church's legal desk. Only if the law demands it must they contact the police. If it doesn't they may be told they have a moral duty to call them, but often it seems to stop here. It seems to go no further than the Church's own secret database.

Bill Bowen Sync

Bill Bowen Sync

10.10.52

Every detail is written down about what happened, when it happened, where it happened, how it happened.

Bill Bowen Sync

Bill Bowen Sync

BP: So you're saying the organisation has its own sexual offenders register if you like.

BB: That's exactly right .

BP: That it's keeping to itself and not showing others.

BB: Exactly right. These men remain anonymous to anyone outside the organisation and anyone really inside the organisation unless you are personally reporting the matter.

Stevenston - into doorstep

So was this the policy back in Stevenston that let Ian Cousins continue to abuse his daughters? The elders have stepped down and refused to talk to us. So we asked the man sent here to sort things out.

Doorstep

Doorstep Jonathan Briggs

10.11.31

BP: Hello Mr Briggs, we're from BBC Panorama as you know. We just want to ask you a few questions about the Ian Cousins case.

JB: I know. It's reasonable to really, actually consider the brothers and sisters in the congregations that have had to undergo all this pressure and so I would just leave it at that. That is all I have to say on the matter.

BP: The database Mr Briggs. Why should the Jehovah's Witnesses keep a database of men who have confessed to being paedophiles but the police aren't told. Do you think that's reasonable behaviour Mr Briggs?

Briggs into KH/JB out of court

The latest name to be added to the list should be that of James Barratt. Three days ago, clutching his Bible, this elder from Rugby was convicted of indecently assaulting two boys and sentenced to two years in prison. The Church was told of the allegations 5 years ago but Barratt denied them and was allowed to remain an elder.

New York

So how many names are on the secret database? We asked the headquarters in New York. They refused to tell us. 'Focusing on numbers isn't meaningful' they said. After a lifetime in the Church, Bill Bowen tells a different story.

Bill Bowen Sync

Bill Bowen Sync

10.12.50

BP: How many names do you suspect are on that list?

BB: 23,720.

BP: How do you know that?

BB: I was contacted by sources within the Church. I was given a figure of over 20,000. Two different sources came back to me and said that number is actually more specific and gave me a figure of 23,720. They told me that they had accessed the internal database and that figure was based on child molesters in the USA, Canada and Europe and that's the figure that they were given.

Candlelit Vigil

Over twenty thousand names on a secret database. That's why these people say the Church has to listen ... With Bill Bowen they're calling for the Jehovah's Witnesses to come clean about their record on child abuse ... His campaign, Silent Lambs, has already heard from five thousand victims. This candlelit vigil is for them.

Bill Bowen actuality

Bill Bowen actuality

. or is what they're doing, once it's found out, causing their own members to be deeply disturbed?

People holding candles

Heather Berry and her step sister Holly Brewer have flown here from New Hampshire. The man who abused them has been jailed for a minimum of fifty six years. He was Heather's father. Now Heather and Holly are breaking new ground. They're taking the Jehovah's Witnesses to court.

Heather Actuality

Heather Actuality

I don't want to tell my story but I've heard the word victim too many times today and all of us are standing out here today, we're standing tall and proud and saying this happened and that it can't happen and we're survivors and we're fighting and we're not victims.

Rows and rows of candles

They're the first of those survivors to take their fight to court. They're claiming that not only did the Church do nothing when they were abused. It ostracised and punished the family when they called the police.

Heather/Holly Sync

Heather/Holly Sync

10.14.50

I'm very glad I came. Like I said I'd do it again and again and again and as many times as it takes to get a change in the policies and the things that they hide constantly.

I'm really glad that the policy was talked about today, the actual policy. Its not just a few elders that want to hide things .it's a world wide policy, yeah.

New York

We asked the Church for an interview to discuss the claims that they're putting thousands of children at risk. They offered us instead some videotapes.

Piece to Camera

BP Piece to Camera

10.15.27

Here we have it. A boxful of tapes in fact. Jehovah's Witnesses Response, Progressive Understanding of Paedophilia, Education through Publications and one marked Policies and I'm told that's where we should get some answers.

Viewing tapes

That night we watched the tapes looking for those answers. In long letters the organisation had told us the welfare of children is of paramount concern to them, that they have a forceful child protection policy. We wanted to see it spelled out.

J R Brown Sync

J R Brown Sync

10.16.01

We've heard the suggestion that our policies may not be adequate to cover the problem of child molestation. But that's not the case at all.

Video head

The policy couldn't be simpler. The elders should deal with all allegations of abuse.

Woman Sync

Woman talking head

10.16.15

I think that's a very good policy that elders essentially would take charge of the situation of reporting the abuse to the authorities.

But the authorities they're told to contact aren't the police - it's their own legal desk.

Video head

J.R. Brown Sync

10.16.31

The fact of the matter is we have a very aggressive policy to handle child molestation in the congregations and it is primarily designed to protect our children.

WT

So how aggressive is it in practice? Just over a year ago Bill Bowen rang the legal desk in New York asking how he should handle an allegation of abuse in his congregation. The advice he was given has little to do with protecting the victim. He was told to go back to the man accused.

Phone call Sync

Phone Call Sync

10.17.05

.

You just ask him again, 'Now is there anything to this?' If he says 'no', then I would walk away from it.

BB: Yep.

HQ: Leave it for Jehovah. He'll bring it out.

BB: Yep.

HQ: But don't get yourself in a jam.

Candles

Leave it to Jehovah - that, according to thousands of victims, is the Jehovah's Witness Child Protection Policy laid bare.

Set ups Sara Poisson

No one knows more about that than Sara Poisson. Holly Brewer and Heather Berry's mother knows her loyalty to the Church cost her daughters dearly. Paul Berry, her husband, beat them. She suspected worse - that Heather was being sexually abused - and went to the elders.

Sara Poisson Sync

Sara Poisson Sync

10.17.52

SP: I could tell from their looks on their faces that I'd done a bad thing, that I had spoken against my husband, which is a bad thing. And so their solution was that I should be a better wife and I should pray more. That was their solution, that's how I could stop him from battering us. I assumed they were right they had to be right; because they know everything; because they're God's representatives on earth.

Walking through the woods

She couldn't convince them - but she was convinced that Paul Berry was sexually abusing their daughter, Heather.

Heather Sync

Heather Sync

10.18.32

HB: When I was about three years old I started displaying behaviour that no three year old in their right mind would display. I was throwing stools out of two storey windows and I was, well, I went to Boston Children's Medical Hospital in the psychiatric ward when I was 3 because she found me stabbing myself with a screwdriver in the arm in the kitchen

Heather Berry Sync

Heather Berry Sync

He came to me in the blackened night

Hands outstretched, there was no fight

The masked man slowly became familiar with my shape,

Gently rubbing his hands on me, every nook, cranny and gape.

My child, you are so sweet,

So perfect and ripe,,

Then I knew nothing but defeat.

Heather Berry Sync

HB: I tried not to think about the abuse as much as possible. I mean there is the physical abuse, there is the verbal abuse and there is the sexual abuse and when none of it was happening, that was ideal and that's what I tried to focus on the most.

BP: And all the while you were going to the Kingdom Hall every Sunday, going to meetings every week?

HB: We were going out on door to door service.

Reconstruction

Time and again the girls were told to wait outside while their mother begged local elders for help. Time and again they saw her sent home to pray harder and be a better wife.

Holly Brewer Photo

10.19.57

Holly too had her own story to tell - a story she'd kept secret from her mother, a story she knew by now the elders wouldn't want to hear. Her instinct was to tell the local policeman but after years in the Church, she just couldn't.

Jack Zeller Sync

Jack Zeller Sync

10.20.11

Holly was very angry about some things. Holly would actually tell me that she was very angry about some things at home and she did on more than several occasions tell me that some day Sergeant Zeller, I'm going to tell you something that happened to me and I always told Holly when you are ready, I'll be there. You know where I am.

Dramatisation

Her mother saw the elders more than a dozen times. But remarkably it never struck Sara Poisson to look for help outside the Church.

Sara Poisson Sync

Sara Poisson Sync

10.22.44

BP: You can say that your children's lives were in danger and in the same breath you say you couldn't possibly go to the police. How can that be?

SP: Because God would not want that. It would never have occurred to me. And even if it had I would not have done it. He's a man, he's a baptised male and he's a Ministerial Servant and I was a woman and they're kids. And that's even worse than being a woman. These things need to stay in this room, I heard that many, many times. You need to pray about it more. I can show you my Bible. I still have it. It's all worn out.

BP: But even after you had told them that her father was sexually abusing Heather, nothing changed?

SP: No, no. Well yes, things changed. They got a lot worse for me.

Stills of Heather, Holly and Sara

In the end the decision was taken out of her hands. In school bruises were noticed on her children. Social workers were told. They gave her a stark choice: leave your husband or we take your children ... But if she left him, she knew the Church would cut her dead.

Sara Poisson Sync

Sara Poisson Sync

10.21.57

At that point I had to make a decision between God and my kids, and I knew, well at that time I knew that if I chose my kids I didn't have a prayer. But I didn't care anymore. So we lost everything in one day.

Tracking shot + still of Sara

Sara Poisson had no life outside the Kingdom Hall. When the congregation cast her out, she had no choice but to move away. She didn't just lose every friend she had. Overnight she was homeless, penniless, scraping a living to bring up her children. The friends they'd had openly shunned them .

But with the family now free of the Church, Holly could finally tell her mother the truth. Her stepfather had abused her too. When he tried to gain access to her youngest sister, Holly finally did what the elders hadn't. She walked into the local police station.

Jack Zeller Sync

Jack Zeller Sync

10.23.07

It was clear to me that it was a life's crossing, a road to cross. Never any doubt in my mind that Holly could do it, it was a tremendous effort on her part, and it smacked of . of raw courage from beginning to end.

Holly's house

Actuality guitar music

The Holly Brewer who walked into his office that day was a very changed, a very defiant young woman.

Holly Brewer Sync

Holly Brewer Sync

My earliest memory is like about 3 years old. My latest memory is ten years old. He gradually worked into being interested in me to full blown sex, intercourse, over those years.

Set up police footage

It was a harrowing time. The police took Holly back to the house where the abuse had started.

Holly Brewer Sync + Police Video Footage

Holly Brewer Sync

10.24.33

He had a room that he'd found in our very, very old house that was underneath the barn. You'd crawl through a hole to get to and once you were in there you'd be really isolated from the entire house and from everything that's where everything would go down.

Police Video Sync

Police 'Scene of crime' Video footage

Police Officer: Would he kneel down on you, next to you or over you?

HB: He'd like sit and I'd sit and I'd like, lean over.

PO: Did he tell you what he wanted you to do?

HB: I knew after a while.

Video footage

She told police exactly what Berry had wanted, of the brutal sexual assaults she'd suffered throughout her childhood.

Holly Brewer Sync

Holly Brewer Sync

10.25.23

I had no vision of me growing up and being sixteen. I thought eventually he was going to kill me and you know then I'd be free and that's the way I looked at it.

Police Video

Actuality Police Video

HB: It's crazy

PO: It's really hard to come back here, I know that.

HB: I know .

Holly Brewer Sync

Holly Brewer Sync

He'd say things like thank you for obeying me and he'd thank me for obeying him and reminding me of that word, of that obey word .that was a big thing.

Police Video

Paul Berry was confident Holly would never go to the elders. Apart from anything else, the Jehovah's Witnesses have a clear rule on sin. They need two witnesses or a confession before they'll take action. As Holly told her story, it seemed to police that this rule in a strict religious community would have let the abuse continue.

Jack Zeller Sync

Jack Zeller Sync

10.26.17

JZ: Sexual abuse of children is not to be tolerated and I don't care what their reasoning was, it was faulted reasoning, they were wrong, and as far as I'm concerned they were criminally negligent. That's my take on it.

BP: Even with just the child's word? With one witness? With just the mother's word, without the two witnesses their Bible tells them they need.

JZ: Well unfortunately most kids don't have several witnesses observing them get raped; it's an unfortunate part of it.

It took nearly four years for the case to come to court. Paul Berry faced 17 charges of aggravated sexual assault.

Sara Poisson Sync

Sara Poisson Sync

10.27.01

I was holding Holly's hand and she had a lot of pointy rings on, and she was squeezing my hand really tightly, and it took them a long time to get through the verdict, because there were so many indictments, and when it was over my hand was all blood and I didn't even feel it. And it was so powerful to be believed.

Lists of names

But not everyone did believe them ... Even after he was convicted by a jury on all seventeen indictments, two dozen members of the Kingdom Hall turned up at the sentencing hearing. They all appeared to give character statements for Paul Berry.

Jack Zeller Sync

Jack Zeller Sync

10.28.00

He had already been found guilty, and they ... they found room in their hearts to stand in front of that child and say "We don't believe any of it", and what they were saying was they didn't believe the child, they didn't believe in the system of justice, they didn't believe the judge, they didn't believe the jury, they didn't believe anyone except themselves.

Holly Brewer Sync

Holly Brewer Sync

Everything they were saying was 'he's such a fine worker. I've worked with him secularly and you know, he always shows up for work on time and he's such a good worker. Everybody said that and also the second half everybody said 'he's babysat our kids hundreds of times, I'd let him baby sit our kids every time and he's such a good worker.' And I was just sitting there thinking he's not on trial for being a negligent worker.

Jack Zeller Sync

Jack Zeller Sync

And I can't imagine how badly she must have felt not to have been believed by elders in her own close knit community. What a horrible blow to a child this must have been. Shame, shame on them.

Driving Shots

But another serious accusation is levelled against Jehovah's Witnesses. In their efforts to cover up abuse, they may even try to frustrate police investigations. In Birmingham West Midlands police were told of a sexual assault by a Jehovah's Witness on a young boy. They asked local elders for help.

Steve Colley Sync

Steve Colley sync

10.29.23

They were very reluctant to give up any information to me; it was an uphill battle as far as the Church was concerned, with me, at every turn. They actually said to me unless I could provide two Jehovah's Witnesses who'd actually seen the offence then as far as they were concerned the offence hadn't taken place.

Tracking shot

The boy was Simon Brady. He was just nine when he was abused by a member of this Kingdom Hall. He felt he could tell no one.

Simon Brady Sync

Simon Brady Sync

10.29.56

We're taught about you know, if you go to the elders or things like that, you're taught you know if you want to be believed or if you have a complaint about someone, then there has to be more than one of you. There has to be two people. There has to be more than one witness basically. What can I say? There weren't more than one witness you know. How would I have gone to them? They wouldn't have believed me.

Simon Brady Sync

Simon Brady Sync

Statement of Simon Andrew Brady. Age 18. I recall that one of the brothers at the congregation, a man known to me as Jaswant Patti, began to take an interest in me. I would have been 8 or 9 years old at the time.

Photo Simon/Patti

Simon Brady's parents were divorced. Jaswant Patti offered to help out sometimes, take him off his mother's hands.

Simon Brady Sync

Reconstruction

Simon Brady

10.30.38

He'd take me for drives after the meetings, he'd take me home from the congregation, you know give me a lift home.

Simon sync

Simon Brady

I can remember one occasion he took me to his sister's flat basically, while she was away on holiday. He said we'd go in and check , check his sisters flat and there he severely sexually abused me basically

BP: What did he do?

SB: Its quite severe to be honest, it' s quite severe, so even now to think about it . it now to talk about it to be honest with you. I've done that once already and I find it very hard to talk about it basically.

Simon Brady Sync

Simon Brady Police Statement Sync

He dropped me off at home. I remember going to the bathroom and scrubbing with Dettol because I felt dirty at what had happened.

Simon photo

For years he said nothing - afraid the elders wouldn't believe him. When he finally did speak out, his instinct as a nine year old proved right.

Simon synch

Simon Brady Sync

10.31.42

It's not so much did they believe me, did they want to believe me. I think they turned up at my house you know, I think they weren't open minded, I think they'd already made their mind up before they got to my house, you know.

Driving lessons

The police did believe him and they tracked down a second boy who'd been abused by Patti. But what happened next caused the police serious concern. An elder confronted the victim's father calling the man's son a liar. The father complained to the police who warned the elder to stay away from the victims' families. His excuse was that as an elder he had every right to investigate the case for himself.

Steve Colley sync

Steve Colley sync

10.32.23

It was his duty to test the evidence prior to the court case. I advised him that if that sort of behaviour continued I would have to investigate that particular person for offences to pervert the course of justice and in fact witness intimidation. I made sure and sent out the signal that I was prepared to protect them and take drastic steps i.e. arresting people if they breached that

Birmingham wide.

In Birmingham as in New Hampshire, the elders supported the accused. Even after Patti was convicted and sentenced to five years in jail, they didn't waver. At the next meeting in the Kingdom Hall the elders made sure the congregation knew where they stood.

Simon Brady Sync

Simon Brady Sync

10.33.14

There was an announcement given, saying as a body of elders, that's including every elder in Rubery, we feel as a body of elders basically this man is innocent, we believe he's innocent and the Bethel have informed us that they will do everything in their power to help this man.

Steve Colley Sync

Steve Colley Sync

I then made it my duty to actually speak to the Legal Services team of the Bethel in London and voice my disquiet about the lack of co-operation I'd had from start to finish from this inquiry.

Millhill

Under police pressure the elders did apologise and were demoted, though not sacked ... The London Headquarters, the Bethel, refused to discuss any specific case. They said this was because the elders had to respect the confidentiality of the victims.

Set ups Paul Gillies phone call

But the victims wanted answers. We again asked for an interview with their spokesman, Paul Gillies. When he refused, we phoned him, told him we were recording and asked a simple question: are elders told to report allegations of abuse to the police or not?

Paul Gillies + BP conversation

Phone conversation

10.34.18

PG: The elders' guideline is: if you get any single allegation of child abuse come to your attention, phone this office.

BP: Why phone this office? Why not phone your local police station?

PG: Well you see the first thing is we have to make sure for the protection of the child.

BP: Is it the protection of the child or is it fair to ask you, isn't it the protection of the Church that comes straight to mind there?

PG: It is the protection of the child. We have a child protection policy.

Phone shot outside Kingdom Hall

It was a long conversation. We asked if he'd be prepared to answer the same questions on camera. He refused.

Convention

So it was back to America and back to a Jehovah's Witness convention in Tulsa. We'd been told we'd find a member of the Governing Body here. Ted Jaracz is one of the men responsible for the Church's Child Protection Policy. For more than two months we've been asking them for an interview. We want answers to some simple questions - why do they keep their database of suspected paedophiles secret, why don't they report all allegations of abuse to the police, why do they send children back to the arms of their abusers? They'd refused to talk to us but here at last we had our chance.

Doorstep Sync

Doorstep Sync

BP: We're from the BBC Panorama programme.

BP: Tell me about the database. How do you justify keeping a list of paedophiles, men in some cases who have confessed to paedophilia but you have not reported them to an authority. What justification is there for you to keep that?

TJ: You know, you are from Britain. You have privacy law. A directive from the European Union. You observe that don't you?

BP: So if allegations are made of child abuse, it's alright to keep them private?

TJ: I think that question has been answered to your satisfaction.

BP: Could you just answer it now?

TJ: I'm not going to repeat, I'm just going to tell you, you can see it all in writing. You know the Bible says do not go beyond the things that are written. We do not go beyond the things that are written.

Shoving + Jaracz walking away

10.36.25

And that was that. No doubt, no second thoughts. Just a simple belief that Jehovah will sort it out; a belief for which others, younger and more vulnerable may continue to pay a price.

Bill Bowen Sync

10.36.44

Rather than admit there is a problem, they will just let children go on and continue to be molested and not do anything about it.

Titles

End Titles

If you want to comment on tonight's programme you can E-mail us via our website. Panorama returns in the Autumn with a major investigation into corruption in horse racing which has led to us being banned from almost every racecourse in the country. If you've got stories you'd like Panorama to investigate, contact us via our website. (57)

If you want to comment on the issues raised in this programme you can e mail our website or join us there for an online discussion tomorrow at 3.00pm.

Or, I will be taking calls on Radio 5 live in a few minutes.

Panorama returns in the Autumn with a major investigation into corruption in horse racing - which has led to us being banned from almost every racecourse in the country.

If you have something you think we should investigate you can contact us through our website. (88

End of programme

10.37.33