Robert Corfield, ex-minister of secretive sect, admits to child sex abuse
Robert Corfield, a man who abused a boy in Canada in a secretive Christian Church in the 1980s, has spoken publicly about what happened for the first time.
He was confronted by the BBC as part of a wider look into claims of child sexual abuse spanning decades within the Church, known as The Truth.
His name is one of more than 700 given by people to a hotline set up to report sexual abuse within the Church.
The Church, which has no official name but is often referred to as The Truth or The Way, is believed to have up to 100,000 members worldwide, with the majority in North America.
The potential scale of the abuse has been captured through a hotline - set-up last year by two women who say they were also sexually abused by a Church leader when they were children. People have phoned in claiming they too were abused, with testimonies stretching back decades through to present day.
The highly secretive and insular nature of the Church has helped abuse to thrive, say former and current insiders who spoke to the BBC. It has many unwritten rules, including that followers must marry within the group and keep mixing with outsiders to a minimum.
One of its hallmarks is that ministers give up their possessions and must be taken in by Church members as they travel around, spreading the gospel. This makes children living in the homes they visit vulnerable to abuse, the insiders said.
Mr Corfield was a minister - known within the sect as a "worker" - in Saskatchewan, Canada, at the time of the abuse.
This is the first time he has publicly admitted to child abuse, though he has previously been confronted by church members and wrote two private letters to Mr Havet in 2004 and 2005 which asked for forgiveness and said he was seeing a therapist. In one letter, Mr Corfield said he was "making a list of victims".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-cana...gn=KARANGA
Robert Corfield, a man who abused a boy in Canada in a secretive Christian Church in the 1980s, has spoken publicly about what happened for the first time.
He was confronted by the BBC as part of a wider look into claims of child sexual abuse spanning decades within the Church, known as The Truth.
His name is one of more than 700 given by people to a hotline set up to report sexual abuse within the Church.
The Church, which has no official name but is often referred to as The Truth or The Way, is believed to have up to 100,000 members worldwide, with the majority in North America.
The potential scale of the abuse has been captured through a hotline - set-up last year by two women who say they were also sexually abused by a Church leader when they were children. People have phoned in claiming they too were abused, with testimonies stretching back decades through to present day.
The highly secretive and insular nature of the Church has helped abuse to thrive, say former and current insiders who spoke to the BBC. It has many unwritten rules, including that followers must marry within the group and keep mixing with outsiders to a minimum.
One of its hallmarks is that ministers give up their possessions and must be taken in by Church members as they travel around, spreading the gospel. This makes children living in the homes they visit vulnerable to abuse, the insiders said.
Mr Corfield was a minister - known within the sect as a "worker" - in Saskatchewan, Canada, at the time of the abuse.
This is the first time he has publicly admitted to child abuse, though he has previously been confronted by church members and wrote two private letters to Mr Havet in 2004 and 2005 which asked for forgiveness and said he was seeing a therapist. In one letter, Mr Corfield said he was "making a list of victims".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-cana...gn=KARANGA
The meek shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will fly to the stars.
Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud ..... after a while you realise that the pig likes it!
Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud ..... after a while you realise that the pig likes it!
