The woman – only identified by the pseudonym BDS2 – lodged a compensation claim of just $300,000 in the NSW Supreme Court against her father, who sexually abused while the family was in the church when she was 17 years old.
However, NSW Supreme Court Justice Richard Weinstein ruled the victim, now aged 52, was entitled to damages of $1,495,395 last month.
The amount included past and future economic loss, as she had left her job due to PTSD suffered as a result of her abuse.
The court heard how the victim reported the abuse to the church elders in 1989, who then told her father.
Her father confronted her, slapping her so hard she hit her head and body on a brick wall behind her.
The elders then conducted a “Judicial Committee Hearing” where her father told the group the victim had “seduced him”.
At a second hearing, her father admitted to “stepping out of line”. The victim said the elders then did nothing.
In court, the victim said the church taught that the man was the head of the household and that God required them to be “absolutely obedient to their father”.
“The family was not permitted to read anything other than JW literature and they were forbidden from associating with people outside the JW community,” the court heard.
The victim reported the abuse to Queensland Police in 2000. Her father was eventually convicted in 2004 and incarcerated for three years, with the court proceedings taking over six years.
Judge Weinstein said the victim’s upbringing in the church was “cult-like”.
“(The victim) reported that she told the Elders about her father’s sexual abuse, but they did not believe her and would not let her report it to police,” Judge Weinstein said in his decision.
“(The victim) says that they would not let her discuss the matter unless her father was present and that her father had threatened to kill her if she spoke to them alone.”
Judge Weinstein also ruled the father pay for the daughter’s court costs.
Payout ‘shines a light’ on abuse within church
Other victims of child sexual abuse suffered within the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society – the name for the Australian brach of Jehovah’s Witness – told news.com.au they hope the payout will shed light on how the church protects abusers.
More than 70,000 Australians are members of the church, according to the organisation.
Perth woman Kezia Whitton’s brother Joel was convicted in 2023 for sexually abusing her when she was five and he was 18 while they were in the church.
Joel has since been released from prison and Ms Whitton has been told he has rejoined the church under a different name.
Jehovah’s Witnesses religious leader, Jon Oldfield also gave Ms Whitton’s brother a character reference ahead of his sentencing.
“I found out he’s just going from congregation to congregation. The church is just very quick to dismiss anything,” she said.
“They have their head in the sand. But a lot of people have been woken up. (The abuse within the church) is definitely more exposed now and there’s a light shone upon it.
“But there is a lot more that needs to be cleaned up. We need to be loud.”
Push to remove charity status
In 2017, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse exposed the Jehovah’s Witness for failing to protect children.
It found that the church had failed to report to police a single one of the 1006 alleged perpetrators of child sex abuse recorded by the organisation in Australia since 1950.
Despite this, little has been done to ensure the church reports the abuse to police.
Ex-Jehovah’s Witness and child abuse survivor Lara Kaput said the federal government needed to blacklist the church from their charity status.
In 2024, the church reported a total income of $14.4 million.
Due to its status as a religious charity, the organisation receives federal and state tax exemptions.
“The religion systematically interferes with the handling of abuse … covering up by victim-blaming, threats of Armageddon and shunning,” Ms Kaput told news.com.au.
“Frustratingly, our pleas are just a hot potato being passed around. This further emboldens the Jehovah’s Witness leaders.”