AN Australian Christian Churches national executive and former Hunter pastor could give evidence in the NSW Supreme Court in April as the church group contests a compensation claim by victims of a Hunter child sex offender.
The expected seven day hearing is one of the few institutional child sexual abuse cases to be argued in a public court. A final decision will be "significant in terms of the responsibility of churches for abuse perpetrated by one of their own", a lawyer for the Hunter victims said.
ACC national vice president and former Charlestown pastor Alun Davies could give evidence about Christopher Laban Bridge's time as a youth worker at his church in the mid 1970s, after Bridge moved to the Newcastle area from Dubbo.
In December, 2017 Bridge was sentenced to three years' jail for crimes against four boys at Dubbo and in the Hunter in the 1970s and 1980s, including a boy he met at the Charlestown church.
Bridge was sentenced two days before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse strongly criticised Australian Christian Churches for its "inadequate" responses to child sex allegations, in part because of the church group's "concern for reputation and avoidance of scandal".
It followed a royal commission hearing into the ACC's then flagship Hillsong Church and its founder Brian Houston's failure to report child sex allegations about his father Frank to police or other authorities, despite accepting the allegations were true. The royal commission found the ACC and Hillsong also failed to report the allegations to authorities.
Lawyer Michelle Martin of North Star Law said Australian Christian Churches strongly denied any responsibility for abuse by Bridge. This is despite District Court Judge Michael Bozic in 2017 finding a Dubbo victim's parents in 1975 reported Bridge's abuse to the then Dubbo Pastor Jack Allsopp, who was also NSW superintendent of Assemblies of God, which became Australian Christian Churches in 2007.
The state superintendent's position gave its holder a seat on the church group's national body. Bridge moved to the Newcastle area after the abuse was disclosed to the late Pastor Allsopp, and began attending a Hamilton Assemblies of God church while working at a Charlestown Assemblies of God church as a youth pastor.
Church documents show Bridge and Alun Davies attended the Assemblies of God Commonwealth Bible College in Brisbane together, where they had roles in producing the college annual magazine in 1971.
Bridge ran a Lake Macquarie youth refuge in the 1970s and entered guilty pleas in 2017 to sexually abusing a "vulnerable" teenage boy who sought refuge.
Bridge worked with the Assemblies of God-run Teen Challenge for troubled teenagers in the 1980s, before moving to Orange to run a motel, and later returning to the Hunter where he ran franchise food outlets. In 2015 Bridge was living in the Philippines.
In 2019 Australian Christian Churches gave notice it would attempt to strike out the victims' compensation claim but an expected two-day hearing in November did not go ahead, and an April 20 starting date for the full hearing was set.
Ms Martin said the case is one of the few to reach a court because most institutional child sex claims are generally settled between the parties.
"The judge's findings will be significant in terms of the responsibility of churches for abuse perpetrated by one of their own," Ms Martin said.
"Despite the findings of the royal commission, the ACC continues to take no responsibility for the welfare of survivors of child sexual abuse in their churches. The findings in this case will also be very important for other, later victims of pastor Christopher Bridge".
The ACC denied Bridge was a pastor, but in an agreed statement of facts in 2017 after Bridge entered guilty pleas to sexually abusing four boys in the 1970s, he did not dispute that he "held the position of youth pastor with the Assemblies of God Church in Macquarie Street Dubbo".
The ACC has argued the first it knew of allegations against Bridge was in 2014.
The ACC declined to comment.
The church group indicated it would try to strike out the Bridge victims' claims in October, 2019, a year after rejecting Swansea man Brett Sengstock's claim on a technicality, and as Scott Morrison refused to confirm attempts to have Brian Houston attend a White House state dinner with President Donald Trump.
Mr Sengstock, who was sexually abused by Mr Houston's father Frank Houston, said Mr Morrison's support for Brian Houston, who is the subject of an on-going NSW Police investigation over his handling of complaints about his father, "beggars belief".
Last week Mr Morrison did not deny the White House invitation attempts, while noting Hillsong was a "very large, very well attended, well supported" church in Australia that was "very well known" in America.
