Secondly it should be rather easy to prove that not all the information in the elder’s book is available elsewhere. Has anyone gone to the trouble of specifically identifying what information is not accessible for non-elders?
Lloyd tried (additional statement, paragraph 11)
Yet the document at no point discusses the fact that children can go on the ministry with adults who are not their parents
Gillies addressed this and similar issues in his additional statement (paragraphs 8-14). I don't know whether his arguments are legally correct but they don't seem persuasive.
These numbers appear to be relatively low compared with the numbers uncovered by the Australian Royal Commission, where around 1000 historic accusations were recorded and not reported to the authorities, from a smaller population. Is there a reason based in definition or in practice that would explain why these numbers appear to be of a different order of magnitude?
Yes, it's about definition: these numbers refer only to "institutional" abusers, i.e. elders, ministerial servants and "persons accused of committing child sexual abuse in an institutional context (e.g. alleged abuse at a place of worship by a congregant or a non-Witness)" (paragraph 82).
Throughout the document the author is at pains to stress that Watch Tower charities do no set policies and it attempts to shield them from legal culpability. Are these credible manoeuvres or futile gestures?
Their position, as I understand, is that since 2011, the CCJW (which apparently operates the Legal and Service departments) is the only branch entity responsible for safeguarding (see also this ruling, paragraphs 6 and 7). I don't think they have great chances to prevail on this issue; by the way, the KHT has explicitly accepted responsibility for child safeguarding.
I'm also surprised by the claim that the local congregation charities' sole function is to "administer property and financial matters". In my opinion, no court will ever accept this.