ANDREW Ashby was brutally raped by an Assemblies of God youth pastor in 2004, ignored by the church group when the pastor was jailed five years later, and offered $10,000 when he sought support and compensation as a 20-year-old.
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Even the church's insurer was ignored when it recommended the pentecostal group "reach out" to Mr Ashby more than two years after the pastor was jailed. By then Assemblies of God had changed its name to Australian Christian Churches.
Mr Ashby has come out from behind a child abuse royal commission pseudonym to condemn the church group after a pastor allegedly threatened to discredit Mr Ashby's mental state to his employer in January, 2018, as Mr Ashby sought to re-open his compensation case following royal commission revelations.
Mr Ashby, a pilot with a major global airline, joins Swansea child sex survivor Brett Sengstock, whose sexual assault by Assemblies of God leader Frank Houston also featured at a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse public hearing into ACC in October, 2014.
Mr Ashby and Mr Sengstock have criticised Prime Minister Scott Morrison's continued public support for Houston's son and Hillsong Church leader, Brian Houston.
The support, which allegedly includes Mr Morrison seeking to have Brian Houston invited to a White House state dinner in September, is despite an ongoing police investigation into how Brian Houston and Assemblies of God responded to serious child sex allegations against Frank Houston from 1998.
Mr Ashby provided Australian Christian Church documents to agree with Mr Sengstock's view that "There was no Christ in how they treated me" when Mr Ashby sought compensation in 2011, and again in 2017.
"They put lawyers into action and drove me through an extremely painful legal battle which resulted in myself at the age of 20 being stuck in a cold legal office while I went back and forth with lawyers to discuss a price to pay for my sexual abuse," Mr Ashby said.
He was sexually abused by Sunshine Coast Church youth pastor Jonathan Baldwin, whose "intense" interest in Andrew Ashby, 13 was the subject of serious complaints to pastor Ian Lehmann from 2004.
The royal commission found Mr Lehmann had a conflict of interest because his daughter and Baldwin were in a relationship and eventually married. It found the conflict of interest contributed to Mr Lehmann's "inability to take appropriate action to protect" the teenager.
Mr Ashby's lawyer strongly criticised the church group in a series of letters in 2017 after Mr Ashby sought to re-open his compensation case. It was five years after a $550,000 payment by ACC, for what a judge described as the "catastrophic" impact of the abuse on Mr Ashby's life. He asked the ACC to pay his legal bill of more than $160,000 because of new evidence at the royal commission.
Mr Ashby's lawyer accused the ACC of perpetrating "a separate and distinctive form of abuse" on Mr Ashby for meeting with him only twice in more than a decade, and restricting its "regret" to the way he was "treated by the perpetrator", while failing to acknowledge the church role in the offending exposed during the royal commission.
The ACC told Mr Ashby the direct contact with senior church representatives had been "adequate and sufficient".
A 2012 church investigation found ACC failed to provide "the appropriate care and support for the victim and his family" because of "a simple but serious failure to monitor the legal processes, the court case and its outcomes" over a 16-month period until 2009.
Mr Ashby's lawyer accused the church group of having a culture where the autonomy and independence of more than 1000 affiliated Australian churches was "misused as a moral and financial shield".
The royal commission established, and ACC conceded, that the church's structure was a significant barrier to adequately responding to victims of child sexual abuse.
ACC refused Mr Ashby's request to re-open his compensation case and church representatives did not respond to his repeated calls.
The church in August, 2017 said Mr Ashby had been "adequately compensated and redressed" and additional compensation would be "excessive and prejudicial".
Three months later the church advised Mr Ashby's lawyer he could "seek the intervention of the court" if he wanted to take the matter further.
In January, 2018 Mr Ashby alleged a church pastor phoned to say he would contact his employer to discredit his mental state. Mr Ashby's lawyer advised the pastor the statement would be false, defamatory and "unconscionable", and Mr Ashby would initiate immediate defamation proceedings if the pastor acted on the alleged threat.
Mr Ashby's employer is aware he was sexually abused by a pastor as a child.
Mr Ashby said he had been supported by only one Australian Christian Churches pastor, Bob Cotton of Maitland, since 2011 when Mr Cotton responded to an appeal by Mr Ashby's father to all ACC churches.
"They have effectively barricaded themselves behind a top tier law firm," Mr Ashby said.
"I cannot overstate their callous and heartless treatment of me and they should be exposed and held accountable for it."
Australian Christian Churches was contacted for comment.