Name suppression bid by Two by Two sect member facing sex charges adjourned
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A name suppression hearing for a Northland man who is linked to a secretive sect known as the Two by Twos and is facing sex offence charges has been adjourned.
The 81 year old faces 12 charges of indecent assault, two of performing an indecent act, and one each of sodomy and bestiality.
He is due to stand trial next year.
The four complainants were boys aged between 12 and 16 when the alleged crimes occurred in the 1970s and 80s.
He appeared in Whangārei District Court on Wednesday before Judge John McDonald who adjourned the hearing till next week, in order to first consider an application to have the bestiality charge heard separately.
Judge McDonald said he would deliver his decision on the man’s application for continued interim name suppression next week.
The man’s lawyer Wayne McKeen told the court naming him would bring extreme hardship to his family.
He said the man’s family run a business that would likely suffer financial losses if the charges against him became publicly known.
Crown prosecutor Ben Bosomworth opposed continued interim name suppression and said hardship and stigma were natural consequences of such charges, for both the accused and those associated with them.
He said the evidence submitted by the defence did not meet the bar of extreme hardship.
McKeen also told the court the man was a longstanding and senior member of the church by virtue of his age and that it was not a cult.
“Ninety-nine percent of the people in New Zealand that are members of the church are good law abiding reasonable people.”
The Christian sect has about 2500 members and 60 ministers in New Zealand, is not registered as a charity and has no official name nor church buildings.
A hallmark of the group is that its itinerant ministers travel in pairs and stay in members’ homes.
The charges follow the conviction of Kerikeri man Bill Easton, who [Https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/528929/sect-minister-who-has-admitted-child-sex-abuse-was-allowed-to-continue-home-meetings pleaded guilty to sexual offending against boys] that spanned three decades when he was part of the sect.
Easton, a former minister of the sect, was sentenced to 13 years in prison last December.
Police confirmed 29 New Zealand-based people were identified as potential complainants through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe and offenders had been convicted in two of those cases.
They would not say whether the alleged abuse was recent or historic, or where in New Zealand it was said to have happened.
This month, police said the investigation remained ongoing, and there were no further updates.
Content retrieved from: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/571230/name-suppression-bid-by-two-by-two-sect-member-facing-sex-charges-adjourned.
