God, it’s just awful:
Serious allegations have emerged of the sexual abuse and sexual harassment of teenage girls at the Pentecostal-linked Esther Foundation. The new allegations have emerged in the wake of a weeks-long investigation by Crikey and raise questions about how much, if any, information was passed to police and child protection authorities at the time.
The Morrison government made a $4 million grant to the foundation before the 2019 election, with the prime minister making a personal visit to the Perth-based rehab facility. As a Crikey investigation has revealed, Esther has a history of using extreme religious practices as “treatment” for girls with addiction and mental health problems.
One former resident has given Crikey a first-person account of being serially abused and harassed between the ages of 13 and 15.
Her allegations include that a senior Esther employee shared alcoholic drinks with her before later coming into her room and removing her pants as she lay on her bed.
“He began kissing my stomach. That’s when I ran,” she said. She was 15 years old at the time, vulnerable and with no stable home to go to.
The same employee is also alleged to have confessed to a closed meeting of senior Esther workers that he had sexually abused another then-15-year-old resident.
Two former residents have told Crikey of being groped by the same employee. “Since leaving, I have heard many ex-residents give similar, if not much worse, testimonies of sexual assault by [the employee],” one woman wrote in a statement to Crikey.
Esther’s founder, Patricia Lavater, who ran the organisation for more than 20 years, has declined to comment on claims that she was aware of the alleged abuse but had failed to inform authorities or to remove the employee. The employee in question has failed for a full week to respond to Crikey’s requests for comment.
Crikey has passed on details of the new allegations to WA’s Minister for Community Services Simone McGurk, who two weeks ago issued a call for women who attended the Esther Foundation to put their concerns directly to her.
The minister acted after former residents of the Esther Foundation’s rehab facility spoke to Crikey of their past treatment and the trauma that continues to this day. In many cases the girls who attended the facility came from dysfunctional homes and had no one they could call on for help. As we’ve reported, the foundation had a practice of isolating young residents from the outside world by removing access to phones and heavily restricting family contacts.
At the same time, Lavater enforced a regime of prayer- and religious-based obedience. According to former residents who have contacted Crikey, they were only permitted to listen to a Christian radio station and were only allowed to read books by Christian authors. Other reading material (such as Harry Potter books) was classed as “worldly” and removed from the girls and dumped or burnt.
Here are the recollections of one inmate at the facility:
I first became a participant of Esther House when I was just 14 years old, after a family breakdown. Immediately I was told I was unable to contact any of my family, my friends or anyone in my support network. I had to immediately surrender my wallet and mobile phone. If I needed anything I’d have to wait for a “worker” on a designated shopping trip, who would stand with my wallet in a zip-lock bag and pay for me. Even if I needed something as simple as tampons.
Over the next two and half years, I would be completely stripped of anything that would have given me outer prospective and individuality from the program. I would be denied an education, despite the ages of 14 to 17 being some of the most important schooling years for a young person. Without that foundation it has really limited my career paths as a now almost 30-year-old adult. It’s something that still brings me a lot of shame, that my highest level of education is Year 9.
Immediately upon entering the program, the idea of a Christian God is thrust upon you, whether you’re a willing and open participant or not. If any answer you give during any type of “group therapy” is not centred around God, it’s not an appropriate answer. If you don’t accept the idea of a Christian God then you are labelled as rebellious, spiteful, angry and dangerous.
…We were denied medications that had been prescribed to us prior to Esther, claiming we had been “healed” by God. These medications were often for mental health, and yet there was no psychiatrist to oversee these stops in medication. In fact all the workers were either self-appointed “prophets” or ex-members of the program.
There were no trained counsellors, psychologists or psychiatrists to ensure these really vulnerable people were getting adequate care. In fact you only had one option to see a doctor. He was a doctor that visited the main house once a fortnight and would be there for a couple hours in the afternoon. If you didn’t get a spot to see him? Too bad. No options to seek your own private medical advice.
Remember, you paid for this behaviour courtesy of “Psycho” Morrison:
Crikey reported that Prime Minister Scott Morrison visited the Perth-based organisation in the weeks before the 2019 federal election to announce a $4 million federal grant to back the foundation’s work with teenage girls. Our investigation revealed a murky process behind the approval of the grant, with the trail leading directly to the prime minister’s office. The Esther Foundation is located in the marginal seat of Hasluck held by the Liberal Party’s Ken Wyatt.
…Morrison announced the grant in person during a visit to the foundation’s Perth facility two months before the 2019 election. He also took personal credit for the taxpayer-funded grant, telling staff and residents: “I don’t invest in things that don’t work.”
For me, there is no coincidence in the fact that the same behaviour then overtook our parliament, with a score of still unresolved sexual assault and harassment all against Morrison’s minions. These are his sleaze cult values in action, phony pious notions, hypocrisy and smut.
The Pentecostal insurgency is so destructive that the NSW Liberal Party has now opened its dirt file on Morrison’s cult lieutenant, Alex Hawke, to drive him from the party:
Immigration Minister Alex Hawke has been embroiled in another legal matter, including allegations the NSW Liberal Party needs to answer a “live question of criminality and motive for political gain”.
Centred around a Baulkham Hills Liberal branch meeting in October 2018, the letter has revived claims that 10 conservative members were prevented from joining the branch after minutes of the meeting were doctored.
In correspondence sent to NSW Liberal state director Chris Stone last Wednesday, legal representatives for state executive member Matt Camenzuli call on him to make a determination into the four-year-old dispute.
“The complaint alleges attempted fraud on the part of the then-branch officials. It is a serious complaint, and ought on any reasonable assessment warrant a professional response from Liberal HQ,” the letter said.
“There is a live question of criminality and motive for political gain.”
This freakshow has no place in our secular politics.
