In the 1980s, a man named Robert Corfield abused a boy in a secret Christian church. Now, he is talking about it for the first time.
The media talked to him as part of a bigger investigation into reports of child sexual abuse in the church over many years, called The Truth.
Many people have named a hotline to report sexual abuse in the church. This person’s name is just one of over 700 names given to the hotline.
The group claims it is dealing with all accusations of abuse.
The church doesn’t have a name, but it’s often called The Truth or The Way. People think it has around 100,000 members all over the world, with most of them in North America.
Two women who were also abused by a church leader as kids set up a hotline last year to hear from other people who have been abused. The hotline has helped show how widespread the abuse may be. People called to say that they were also hurt, and their stories go back a long time until now.
Former and current church members tell the media that the church’s secretive and closed-off ways have allowed abuse to thrive. There are many rules in this group. One of them is that people in the group should marry each other and not spend too much time with people from outside the group.
A Scottish evangelist started the church in Ireland in 1897. The church is based on ministers sharing teachings from the New Testament by talking to people.
One important thing about it is that ministers give away their things and stay with church members as they go from place to place, telling people about the gospel. The children who visit these homes are more likely to be hurt by people who live there, according to the insiders.
Michael Havet, who used to go to the church, said he was hurt by Robert Corfield when he was 12 years old in the 1980s.
“Mr Havet says that people used to call him ‘Bob’s little companion’ and it made him feel bad. He still feels this way. ”
After hurting him, Mr. Havet says Mr. Corfield would make him kneel next to him and pray.
“He says I had to work hard to move past that and start praying again. ”
When the media asked Mr. Corfield about the child abuse accusations, he admitted that it happened for six years in the 1980s.
He said he had to admit that it’s true.
Mr Corfield was a minister in Saskatchewan, Canada when the abuse happened. He was known as a “worker” in the sect.
This is the first time he has admitted to hurting children in public. Before this, people from his church talked to him about it and he wrote two letters to Mr. Havet in 2004 and 2005 asking for forgiveness and saying he was getting help from a therapist. In a letter, Mr. Corfield said he was “making a list of victims”.
“I want to make sure everyone I hurt gets help,” he wrote.
But when the media asked Mr. Corfield about it, he said there were no other victims like Michael. He also admitted to giving massages to two or three other teenagers.
Abuser gets a new chance to start over.
Mr Havet and 11 other people have told the media that there has been a lot of abuse in The Truth for a long time, but it has been ignored or hidden. Some of the people who have been accused of the abuse have stayed in important jobs for many years.
Mr Havet thinks that the way the church handled his case is a perfect example.
In 1993, he told Dale Shultz, the top church leader in Saskatchewan, about the abuse he experienced. Dale Shultz is also known as an “overseer”. Overseers are leaders of the church. There is one for each US state and Canadian province with active followers.
Mr Shultz didn’t tell the police. Later, he attacked Mr. Havet because he thought Mr. Havet had told other people about the abuse accusations.
“Mr Havet grabbed me and yelled, then he slammed my head against a hard pole, which made it start bleeding. ”
Mr Havet says that Mr Shultz told him to leave the church. Meanwhile, Robert Corfield, who abused him when he was a child, was relocated to be a minister in Montana.
Mr Corfield told the media that he thought it was Mr. Shultz’s choice to send him to Montana, and he stayed there for 25 years.
“He told me that it would give me a new start and also create distance between me and the victim. ”
Last year, Mr. Corfield was fired as a minister after someone in the church told him about Michael’s abuse. The media saw emails from inside the church about this. One email also said “there might be more people who were hurt. ”
The former minister said to the media that he left his job on his own when Michael accused him. He also said that he has not been told about any other accusations.
When the BBC asked Dale Shultz about the information, he said in an email that most of it was wrong. But, he refused to give more information.
A big problem happening all over the world.
Mr Havet is one of over 1,000 people who used to be in a group and now talk to a hotline set up by Advocates for The Truth.
The group started last year by Americans Cynthia Liles, Lauren Rohs and Sheri Autrey.
They claim to have been given the names of over 700 people who are suspected of something.
All the women used to be part of The Truth, and Lauren Rohs and Sheri Autrey say they were hurt by the same man.
The man was Ms Rohs’ dad, a senior minister named Steve Rohs.
In 2019, Lauren Rohs found Ms. Autrey after reading her story of being abused as a child on the internet.
In the post, Ms Autrey talked about how her abuser used to sing a song called Maneater by the 80s pop duo Hall & Oates to her when she was in his bedroom at night.
Ms Rohs realized right away that the man they were saying did the bad thing was actually her father, because he used to sing the same song to her when she was little.
“I was shocked,” said the 35 year-old. “I was extremely confused. ”
She says that her father hurt her in many ways for a long time, since she was very young.
At the same time, Ms. Autrey says Steve Rohs stayed at her family’s house in Tulare County, California, for two months in 1982. She was 14 years old at the time, and he sexually abused her every day.
He sang Maneater because he wanted to manipulate me by making me look like a seductive person, the 54-year-old says.
The two women are 20 years apart in age. When his daughter was born, Mr. Rohs stopped working and started a family in San Diego, California. They went to live in Washington state, Idaho, and Colorado afterwards.
Lauren Rohs says her dad gave different reasons for why they moved a lot, like saying, “God wants us to be in a new place”.
The BBC sent Mr. Rohs emails and messages on social media asking about the accusations, but he didn’t answer.
Abuse culture continues to exist.
Ms Rohs says that when she was in the church in the 1990s and 2000s, the workers were like very important people who were never criticized, and people who call the abuse hotline now say that this is still happening.
Just like Mr. Autrey said she told people about her abuser, but he was still protected.
“I was really afraid, soiled, embarrassed, and felt guilty,” said Ms. Autrey, who was 17 years old at the time and thought she would be in a lot of trouble.
But her mother believed her immediately and told the California state overseer, who has passed away since then.
On 11 May 1986, Mr. Rohs wrote a letter admitting to kissing and touching a teen and asking for forgiveness. The overseer saw the letter and the BBC also read it.
Mr Rohs came to Ms. Autrey’s house with some people and said sorry to her.
Ms Autrey remembers saying that he wasn’t sorry because if he was, he would have apologized a long time ago.
Even though Mr. Rohs confessed to hurting children, he still had a lot of respect and power in the church. His daughter says he got a higher position in the church in 1994. He became an elder, a person who leads meetings in his own home.
The media knows that he lives in Minnesota.
The gates for the water to come in are being opened.
The hotline was started because the person in charge of Oregon, Dean Bruer, died in 2022.
He was a very important leader for The Truth and worked for the group for 46 years in six different US states.
His replacement wrote a letter saying Mr. Bruer has a history of hurting and sexually assaulting young victims.
It’s not known why the letter was written, but it got out and ended up on Facebook and TikTok.
Then more people began to come out and share their own experiences of being mistreated.
“I believed the hotline was only for Dean Bruer’s victims, but it actually allowed many more people to come forward,” Ms. Rohs explains
The friends now want justice that they couldn’t get before.
Ms Rohs says finding Sheri was a very special and powerful healing experience.
Ms Autrey says it has been upsetting for survivors to hear the amount of bad and evil things again.
Our situation was already bad, but seeing other people in such terrible situations makes me very angry. It has been not very nice, but also worth it. Ms Autrey left the Advocates in December.
Michael Havet with his dog. Picture from Advocates For The Truth.
The media sent an email with the allegations to over 20 people in charge in North America because The Truth does not have a main leader.
The only person who replied was Rob Newman, who is in charge of California.
“We take all abuse claims seriously and investigate them,” he wrote in an email, before Mr. Corfield admitted to wrongdoing.
“Our main worry is that victims get the right kind of help from experts. ” We take all reports of abuse very seriously. We think it’s important for everyone to get training on how to report abuse. We also encourage everyone to report any issues to the right legal authorities.
Ms Autrey thinks that things will not get better until those responsible for making mistakes are put in jail.
“It’s a very effective tool for criminals,” she says.
“It’s a very good system that has been around for 120 years. “
