Certainly the "two witnesses rule" was understood in my day as the last post said. I recall discussing it at elders school up to the mid nineties in relation to smoking cigarettes . If congregation received two separate reports then it could act. I have a note scribbled in my photo copied pages of my old "Shepherding the Flock " book " Only one witness to each offence OK "page 111 Unit 5b says
" The testimony of youths may be considered, it is up to the elders to determine if the testimony has the ring of truth"
" If there are two or three witnesses to the same kind of wrongdoing but each one is witness to a separate incident. their testimony can be considered. Such evidence may be used to establish guilt but it is preferable to have two witnesses to the same occurrence of wrongdoing"
My personal take on all of this know? I do not use it as an argument against the WTS. They can refute by saying that they do have a policy to d/f known abusers , the problem is catching the so and so's.
I agree with posters above who say that untrained elders should never interview a victim child . They should always report such crimes immediately to the authorities. We know that authorities do not always get it right either, but at least it is off the hands of the congo.
There is a deep distrust of "Satans world" that permeates tis org. Many believe that Courts will thow an innocent man into prison on the word of a spiteful or deluded child or an adult suffering "flasbacks" of memory that are not real .
When i was an elder I recall being asked to submit the names of any sex offenders to the Society so they could make up the infamous private sex offenders list . That seemed ok at the time. I wonder if the Data Protection laws have since changed all that?
