Historical sexual abuse and the Jehovah’s Witnesses: A v Watchtower Bible and Tract Society

Law & Religion UK ^ | 06-22-2015 | Frank Cranme

[NRx]

Ms A, now 29, claimed damages for personal injury and loss arising from sexual assaults by Peter Stewart from 1989 to 1994, when she was between about 4 and 9. She claimed that the abuse had occurred at least once a week [22]. Stewart is now dead; and in A v Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (Trustees of) & Ors [2015] EWHC 1722 (QB) she sued the Jehovah’s Witnesses (“JWs”). The first defendants were the over-arching body of the JWs, while the second and third were the direct or indirect successors of the congregation originally known as the Loughborough Limehurst Jehovah’s Witness Congregation, which had subsequently split into two. A argued that that the defendants were vicariously liable for the sexual assaults committed by Stewart when he was or had been a Jehovah’s Witness ministerial servant (“the assault claim”).

The primary limitation period had expired on 4 September 2006 (three years after Ms A had attained the age of 18) but the action was not commenced until March 2013 and she sought an order for the disapplication of the limitation period under s 33 Limitation Act 1980 [6, 7 & 37]. Secondly, she claimed that the defendants were vicariously liable for the actions of the Limehurst Elders who, in 1990, had negligently failed to take reasonable steps to protect her from Stewart once they knew he had sexually assaulted another child in the congregation (“the safeguarding claim”). She also contended that the safeguarding claim had been brought within the primary limitation period pursuant to ss 11 and 14 of the Act because she had not had the requisite knowledge to sue until the defendants’ witness statements were received in March 2014.

Globe J described the disciplinary procedures of the JWs like this:

[NRx]

A v. Trustees of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, (EWHC, June 19, 2015), involves claims against a Jehovah's Witness congregation (actually its successors) and the Jehovah's Witness parent body by a 29-year old woman who between the ages of 4 and 9 was sexually abused by Peter Stewart, a Jehovah's Witness ministerial servant. A judge on England's High Court (Queen's Bench) held the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society vicariously liable for the failure of the Elders in the congregation to take reasonable steps to protect claimant from Peter Stewart after they became aware in 1990 that he had sexually assaulted another child in the congregation. The court also held defendants vicariously liable for the sexual assault itself.

[ansel12]

I doubt that we have any Jehovah’s Witnesses here.

[Paladin2]

See Louder with Crowder youtube Jihadi Witness video....

[Phinneous]

Their building is PRIME real estate.... right unde the Brooklyn Bridge.

I used to sermonize them when they came to Crown Heights to missionize... and I’m Jewish (cue evil laugh....bwa ha ha)

[SIRTRIS]

Door knockers proselytizing end-times fear mongering.