Court hears of sexual culture at Gloriavale where women, girls blamed and punished

Gloriavale founder Hopeful Christian told a father who had just buried his daughter that he could take comfort from the fact she would not be molested, a court has heard.

Clem Ready said he was shaken by Christian’s attitude to the death of 14-year-old Prayer, who choked on a piece of meat in an isolation room at the West Coast commune in 2015.

The father-of-13, who still lives at Haupiri, told the Employment Court hearing he was terribly hurt by Prayer’s death.

“After we buried her, Hopeful came up to me and said – in a serious comment – that I could take comfort from the fact that she now would not be sexually molested by anybody in the community,” Ready said.

Ready was convicted of beating Prayer and her sister Connie over a period of 13 years, but he told the court it was a turning point in his life.

Ready’s daughter Virginia Courage and grandaughter Anna Courage are among six women who want the Employment Court to rule they were Glorivale employees not volunteers – a claim the community’s leaders strongly deny.

Ready described a sexual culture of relief not restraint, where women and girls were always blamed and punished for misbehaviour.

“Hopeful had the view that men had limited ability to control themselves sexually and should a man be tempted and subsequently succumb, this meant that any falling from grace would primarily be the woman’s fault,” he said.

“This was a tenet of the community, taught by Hopeful and endorsed by other leaders.

“The leaders will decide the girl led the male astray, the girl is totally to blame, she must be a harlot, a whore – these are the words they use to describe the girls who complain.”

Ready said he felt so angry about a woman’s mistreatment he wanted to expose the leaders, but they failed to act when he uncovered “disturbing” information because of the risk to their reputations.

Ready told the court he felt depressed at his impotence and left Gloriavale for 18 months, before returning in 2020 to reunite with his wife.

“While living in Gloriavale I was unaware just how prevalent sexual offending was by males in the community,” he said.

“When I left, I was hit with an avalanche of facts exposing this offending and realised that those who held all the power in the community had used their position to cover up their own and their children’s offending.”

Ready said he was not convinced Gloriavale was a safe place for children.

Gloriavale’s barrister Philip Skelton QC told the court the Christian community’s leaders did not condone sexual offending and had taken steps to address it.

Ready said women were groomed from birth to work hard, marry, provide unlimited sex to their husbands and become mothers of many children.

“Females from birth are conditioned to be hard-working and indoctrinated to be cheap, sweatshop-style labour,” he said.

His wife Sharon Ready told the court she signed documents without independent legal advice and a shepherd had control of her bank account.

“I never felt like I ever had a free choice when documents were put in front of me,” she said.

“I understood they could access and draw the money out of the account I opened and I had no control over the money at all.”