by Kenneson 21 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
Sheldon Longsworth maintains that he doesn't recall telling Vicki Boer to confront her abusive father. Yet he told her to tell her father to go to the local elders. Wonder how she was to do that without confronting him?
Article entitled: "Never insisted alleged victim 'confront' abusive father, says witness elder."
http://www.canoe.ca/NationalTicker/CANOE-wire.Jehovah-Lawsuit.html
Longworth said he consulted several other Witness elders, who advised him that Biblical teachings required Boer to try and sort out her dispute with her father in a face-to-face meeting.
Bet big bucks these other Witness elders happened to be the WT Soc legal dept. ... too bad the lawyer for the plaintif didn't ask! This Longworth has been coached as usual and doesn't realise the WT is covering it's legal a$$!
Thanks sir.
The man came off looking pretty bad in court yesterday. Event the Judge at one point asked him to explain what Matt. 18 was and the 3 step process for the confrontation.
BTW - the children's Aid notification did not happen until after the confrontation had occurred. The Act requires a person with knowledge of alleged abuse to forthwith report the abuse.
hawk
Like Wheelwithinwheel, this is the line that stood out...
Biblical teachings required Boer to try and sort out her dispute with her father in a face-to-face meeting.
That shows a gross lack of understanding of just what sexual abuse is!!! It's not like, if you have something against your brother, settle accounts first with him. My God, this is dangerous advice...ie. the accused might perceive this confrontation as a threat, hence immediate retaliation or physical injury is possible. Definitely the potential for emotional punishment might undoubtedly convince the victim to keep quiet.
The other point that screams out: Not all people who are suicidal talk about it, show signs. My siblings and I were and we couldn't even tell that each of us had those feelings. Again, the fact that he is surpised that a victim might be suicidal shows no insight whatsoever!
makes me want to PUKE,,,,,
So, Brother Longworth is a practitioner of ``Theocratic War Strategy.'' A pity the prosecutor is not likely to be as compliant and gullible as the brain-dead dubs who swallow this bovine excrement with nary a gulp.
Typical Watchtower lies thru distortion of words.
Clinton didn't call oral sex "relations" or perhaps adultery.
You go to your father and accuse him of molesting - and tell him he should
go the elders (and possibly be df'd). Exactly how is this not confrontation?
metatron
forthwith (frth-wĭ TH ', -wĭth', fōrth-)
adv.
At once; immediately.
[Middle English, from forth with , along with, at the same time as.]
Just to let peole know there are a number of elders and other Witnesses who WILL dispute a lot of the evidence.
I still can't believe 3 elders went into a girls room and closed the door.
At trial today - Lawyers are arguing whether Penton can testify. I can't see why he can't. WTS lawyer is trying to say that Penton has know dircet knowledge. But Vicki's lawyer is saying that he does have direct knowledge of the over all policy which is just as important.
Also Frank Mott Trill will be on the stand again. Former elder and rhodes scholar is now df'd. Frank has had a major dispute for sometime with the WTS and carries serious baggage such as being disbarred thanks to the WTS's legal team. But in this case he did the right thing - forcing the bastards to report the incident to the policy and stopped the cover up.
There is lots more happening today too.
hawk
September 11, 2002 Never insisted alleged victim 'confront' abusive father, says Witness elder TORONTO (CP) -- The first church elder to hear Vicky Boer's allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of her father told court Wednesday he never insisted that the former Jehovah's Witness confront her abuser.
Sheldon Longworth, 72, was a Witness elder with a Toronto congregation in 1989 when a 19-year-old Boer told him she had been molested by her father for several years, beginning when she was 11 or 12. Longworth said he consulted several other Witness elders, who advised him that Biblical teachings required Boer to try and sort out her dispute with her father in a face-to-face meeting. But all Longworth asked Boer to do was ask her father to consult with elders in his congregation in Shelburne, Ont., 100 kilometres north of Toronto, he testified during cross-examination. "What I asked Vicki to do was to go to her father and tell him to go to the elders in their congregation," Longworth said. When asked by Colin Stevenson, the lawyer for the defendants, whether he ever insisted Boer "confront him with her allegations of sexual abuse," Longworth replied, "I don't recall doing that." He also seemed surprised by the suggestion Boer was distraught and suicidal at the time, and was taken aback when Stevenson told him of Boer's claims that she felt treated badly by several elders, including Longworth. "That would blow me over," he said. "I tried very, very hard to be as kind, compassionate and helpful as I possibly could be." Longworth is not among the defendants named in Boer's lawsuit, which include three church elders and the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Canada, the governing body of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The suit alleges the defendants failed to allow Boer adequate treatment for the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father; failed to properly report the abuse to the Children's Aid Society; and forced her to meet with her father to give him a chance to repent his alleged "sins." Longworth said he and two of the elders named in the suit visited the local Children's Aid Society office after the meeting took place. They were told it was a mistake to put a victim and an abuser together, he said.
They were also told that as clergymen, Ontario law "obligates us to report to the authorities" and that their religious status "does not give us immunity." While victims of sexual abuse normally aren't identified in public, Boer has agreed to allow her name to be publicized as part of her effort to promote abuse she alleges within the confines of the church's congregations. As part of their beliefs in a strict interpretation of Bible teachings, Jehovah's Witnesses reject anything political or "worldly" that distracts from their focus on Christ and the second coming, which they consider imminent. (bold, yellow, etc., added) End of article Longworth said he and two of the elders named in the suit visited the local Children's Aid Society office after the meeting took place. They were told it was a mistake to put a victim and an abuser together, he said.
They were also told that as clergymen, Ontario law "obligates us to report to the authorities" and that their religious status "does not give us immunity." ................................didn't they just admit their guilt?
