Charities Services have declined a request from The Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust and 35 ex-members to re-investigate the Gloriavale Christian Community.

A letter signed by recent ex-members contained a plea for a re-investigation, saying that the original issues for the 2016 investigation had not been dealt with..

They listed 170 additional concerns.

The information given to Charities Services included testimonies from those inside and outside of Gloriavale.

Reaction from ex-members has been shock, disbelief and anger.

A letter from Charities Services upset ex-member when it stated “While we consider that some behaviour Gloriavale undertook prior to our 2016 investigation may have been oppressive under the Act, we note that that behaviour no longer takes place.”

One leaver when approached for comment said, “That’s ridiculous, they must have been blind, deaf or dumb”.

Hope Harrison said, “That is nonsense. How did they work that out? As far as I’m concerned if there is anyone who is so derelict in their duty, they can go and live there.”

Other ex-members were left speechless when they heard the Charities Services believed the issues were resolved.

John Ready, an ex-member who left post 2016 investigation said, “They say they’re complying? That’s not even close to true. Who did they ask if they were complying? How did they ascertain this?”

“I just can’t compute or figure out what their thought processes are. It’s disgraceful. I would love to meet these Charities Services people face to face and ask them some direct questions.”

The Charities Services also stated that, “Many of the instances of concern around behaviour in Gloriavale tend to be more isolated in nature, occurring sporadically or as one-off examples.”

Trust Manager Liz Gregory and Trustee Bronwyn Kempf met with Charities Services in early December 2019, after more than 15 months of regularly reporting breaches of the agreements Gloriavale made with the Charities Services after their 2016 investigation.

Gregory said, “We are disappointed. They said that for a charity to reach the level of oppression it had to be “of a very serious and systemic nature”.