A lady alleging indecent assault and subsequent carelessness on the part of Hillsong Church is close to reaching a settlement to resolve her ongoing mental health issues.
A week-long hearing in Sydney’s Supreme Court is set to begin today for Anna Crenshaw, who is suing the church, the college she was attending at the time, and the male church staff member who assaulted her.
Rather, the parties adjourned the hearing for many hours shortly after it started, and they returned after coming to an undisclosed understanding.
“The matter has been resolved in principle,” Kelvin Andrews, Crenshaw’s attorney, informed the court.
Jason Mays, a former employee of a church, previously entered a guilty plea in Penrith Local Court for assaulting Crenshaw indecently in 2016.
After being given a two-year good behavior bond, he had no convictions against him.
As the hearing got underway today, Hillsong attorney Gillian Mahoney informed the court, “The claim against the church relates to how it responded to the report, including managing the plaintiff’s welfare.”
There was disagreement, according to Mays’ attorney Angus Macinnis, on the specifics of what happened and how much of an impact it had on Crenshaw.
Macinnis contended that Mays’ assault charge, for which he entered a guilty plea, is unrelated to sexual assault.
He stated that the nature of Mays’ attack on Crenshaw—which he characterized as “single, fleeting, spontaneous”—would determine the extent of her psychological harm.
According to Macinnis, Crenshaw’s first version of the assault was “less serious” than later accounts.
Hillsong’s founder, Brian Houston, was found not guilty in 2023 of concealing abuse that his late father, Frank Houston, had perpetrated decades prior in a separate legal dispute.
Houston personally addressed his father after learning that he had mistreated a small child and told church officials about it, but he chose not to report the incident to the police.
As a result of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Houston was charged with concealing a serious indictable offense in late 2022. Houston entered a not guilty plea.
Houston claimed that he did not notify the authorities about his father’s abuse because he did not think the victim intended for that to occur.
A magistrate determined that Houston was not legally responsible for failing to disclose the abuse, finding that Houston’s actions were reasonable given his knowledge of the victim’s intentions at the time.
The case of Crenshaw has been postponed until Thursday in order to prepare the necessary paperwork for a formal resolution.
As she exited the court, she gave the reporters no comments.
