Brian Houston has described his father's acts as "repulsive". Photo / Hillsong TV
Brian Houston has described his father's acts as "repulsive". Photo / Hillsong TV
The New Zealander who heads Australia's Hillsong Church will front a child sex abuse royal commission in Australia to give testimony about his father, a former well-known Pentecostal preacher who allegedly raped at least one child while running a church.
Frank Houston, whose Christian Life Centre merged with a grouprun by his New Zealand-born son Brian to form the mega-church Hillsong, allegedly abused the boy while staying at his family's home on visits to Australia from New Zealand.
The witness, known as AHA, told the royal commission on Tuesday that Houston snr sexually molested him between the ages of 7 and 10 in the 1960s and 1970s. Frank Houston died in 2004 aged 82.
AHA also said Brian Houston accused him of tempting his father into abusing him.
The commission heard that Frank Houston offered to pay AHA A$10,000 ($11,200) compensation at a 2000 meeting in a McDonald's outlet in Thornleigh, Sydney.
But when the money hadn't appeared after two months, AHA called Brian Houston to inquire.
"Yes, okay, I'll get the money for you. There's no problem. You know it's your fault all of this happened. You tempted my father," AHA said he was told by Brian Houston on the phone.
The hearing continues with Brian Houston fronting the inquiry today.
Frank Houston was a Salvation Army officer in his native New Zealand.
He founded his first Assemblies of God ministry at Lower Hutt, north of Wellington, in 1960 and later became superintendent of the New Zealand Assemblies of God before moving to Sydney in 1977.
