We were made to watch our parents have sex & abused from 7 in cult run by ‘shepherds’ who performed sick marriage ‘prep’

Published February 17, 2025 By admin with Comments 0

Ushered into her parents’ bedroom with her eight brothers and sisters, the eight-year-old girl felt bewildered.

“Protected” from the “wicked outside world” by a strict religious community, she had been brought up to accept the teachings of the sect – but nothing in her young life had prepared her for what was to happen next.

“We had to watch my mum and dad have sex,” she recalled.

“I just tried not to think about what was happening. I thought that every father was doing this to their children because in the community they were told to invite their children into their room and show them what sex was like between a husband and wife. It became normal to us.”

This is just one of many harrowing stories from those who managed to escape from Gloriavale, set up 50 years ago by Australian preacher Neville Cooper, to find like-minded people who shared his vision of creating Heaven on Earth.

But it was founded on sex, coercion, fear and abuse – with kids as young as five being targeted by leaders and terrified virgins suffering horrific sexual assault to “prepare them” for their wedding night.

A three-part BBC documentary called Escaping Utopia exposes the dark secrets that lurk behind this cult-like sect, with unprecedented access to both former and current members.

It includes Neville’s son, Christian, who saw the evil of Gloriavale and managed to escape. Now, he is part of an underground network that helps others to flee the oppressive confines.

“My dad started the community and, like a king would, wanted a kingdom,” says Christian, who left behind his wife and 11 children in Gloriavale.

“When I told my wife I wanted to leave, she replied, ‘I’m not going to lose my soul.’ I knew exactly what she meant. She meant, ‘I’m not leaving.’

“In a society where women are taught from a very young age that they have no voice and have got to submit, she was like a puppet.

“The leaders there have painted me as a very evil, wicked person who follows the devil. But doing nothing is not the answer. That would just mean these people are never going to get free.”

Cooper, a fire and brimstone-like preacher, changed his name to Hopeful Christian and his 600 plus community share similar such names as Lovely, Angel and Temperance.

“My dad was born in 1926 in Queensland. He came to a sort of mental crisis when he was 22 and had an experience where he believed he had met God who called to him to be a minister,” says Christian.

“He had an attempt at setting up a commune in Australia, which failed, then he moved to New Zealand in 1967 to try to get this weird idea he had off the ground.

“He believed that he was God’s advocate on earth and as he got more power he became more corrupt and he ended up with a God-like status and he took to converting people in sexual ways.

“He thought the Christian, strictly religious barriers around sex were too tight and that sex wasn’t such a bad thing. So, he decided that married couples were going to get rid of some of their inhibitions and enjoy their sex lives better. And that went quite a bit off track.”

In the strict hierarchy, he was the supreme ‘Overseeing Shepherd’ with his team of all-male leaders, the next rank down, known as ‘Shepherds’.

These were followed by the rest of the men of the community with the women – required to wear long blue, body-covering dresses with head scarves – at the bottom.

And it was the women who did the bulk of the chores, spending long days cooking, serving meals, making cheese, sewing and doing the laundry… as well as having as many babies as possible.

“The women are there to serve the men, to work and have babies,” says ex-Gloriavale member, Rosanna Overcomer, who was sexually abused when she was 14 by another member of the community.

“You are not to talk to the opposite sex before marriage. We were told all the time that if you show off your ankles you are tempting the men and Hopeful would say that men even get turned on by elbows and so we were not to pull our sleeves up.

Content retrieved from: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/33367318/gloriavale-sick-cult-child-abuse-parents-sex/.