Australian campaigner concedes defeat on Working With Children checks

by MrMonroe 19 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

  • luna2
    luna2

    Who knows was this man's financial situation is. Right now $350 is huge for me...and especially if you knew you'd be looking at a great deal more than that to keep it all going. It could be he's emptied his bank account and cannot go further. Its probaly as MrMonroe and sizemik have said, though, and he only wanted to shine a spotlight on this and hoped the government would take over. At the very least, he's directed attention to the issue publically. I can't fault him for not wanting to bankrupt himself by continuing on his own.

  • mutinyinheaven
    mutinyinheaven

    if there's an actual case, why doesn't he reach out to people like us and set up a paypal acct. i'm sure he'd have his filing charges covered in no time.

    Tony DuShane
    whatnot: www.tonydushane.com
    talkies: www.drinkswithtony.com

  • MrMonroe
    MrMonroe

    Steven Unthank reached the point he did with an almost obsessive devotion to legal research to get the point where he could gain the approval of Victoria's Chief Magistrate to take the very unusual step of laying a private criminal prosecution against five corporate entities of a very wealthy worldwide religious organisation.

    My take on it is that he did this to pressure, or shame, the Victorian authorities into taking over the case and finishing the work he started. They seem discinclined to do that. Given that, it is ludicrous to think that someone who probably works a 40-hour week on modest income could personally prosecute the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania and its legal offspring in courts, filing briefs of evidence, serving documents, then actually appearing in court to question witnesses and direct matters in the same way a highly-paid public prosecutor would do.

    Unthank wanted the attention of the media and politicians to draw pubic attention to the high-handed attitude of the Watch Tower Society and the disinclination of authorities to protect thousands of children in Victoria who are sent door to door by their parents each weekend with adults who have never undergone police background checks. He got that.

    I just don't Paypal donations are going to be enough. Either the authorities will let the JWs get away with it or they won't. Unthank is an unusual character, but he has balls.

  • sizemik
    sizemik

    Thanks for putting the correct perspective on it Mr M . . .

    I submitted a fairly tame comment to the Sun thread a couple of days ago under my own name . . . but it wasn't posted. In fact the thread hasn't grown at all . . . Not sure why that is.

  • Broken Promises
    Broken Promises

    I think we need to consider that a month ago the Chief Police Commissioner of Victoria quit just a month ago over rumours of manipulation of crime statistics for political purposes. Note that this happened at the same time as Steven Unthank submitted his documents. So I think they have larger issues to deal with at the moment.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-16/overland-denies-he-quit-over-crime-stats/2760482

  • Broken Promises
    Broken Promises

    A question I have about what something Steven Unthank said in the "Protecting Victoria's Vulnerable Children Inquiry" which was held on June 8, 2011:

    He said:

    This religious organisation operates over 150 schools and secondary schools within Victoria and none of their instructors are registered with the Teachers Association, nor do any of them have working with children cards.

    also:

    Just a correction, they operate their own internal church schools for training and teaching and education. They’re not schools and kindergartens as we understand, like a primary school or a private school. Each school operates on 50 days per year and a normal school, as children attend for education by law, operates I believe on over 200 days per year, so these are small church-run schools.

    Link: http://jwnewsnetwork.wordpress.com/2011/07

    Is he referring to the Theocratic Ministry School? Because I don't have a clue what this dude is talking about.

  • Diest
    Diest

    Theres a cause we could donate to....

  • MrMonroe
    MrMonroe

    BP, yes, I guess he is talking about the Theocratic Ministry School. I have no idea why he expressed it the way he did, but I guess he was trying to put his point across that they have "school" instruction for JWs who include minors, with teaching carried out by elders who have no WWC checks.

  • strymeckirules
    strymeckirules

    i would donate my personal spending money to finance somebodys legal battle against the JW's.

    i waste money on worthless stuff.

    it would be money going to the greater good.

    i won't lead the revolution, but i'll support it.

    seriously.

  • Snoozy
    Snoozy

    No matter, the Watchtower society has more money and more lawyers to fight with overall..apparently money talks in their government. The one with the most rules...

    But at least it was brought to a lot of people's attention. And when and if abuse ever shows up there by the witnesses the Government can be told they were warned.

    Hopefully that will never happen!

    Snoozy

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