A Pentacostal Church in Sydney implied that child abusers should try to avoid detection and said that Satan was to blame for accusations, a royal commission heard.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse the document stated "The Bible says to avoid the appearance of evil ... It shuts down opportunity for anybody to accuse you ... Satan is the accuser of the brethren."
It was written by a teacher and a mother of five with no background in child protection.
"[They] had the competencies but perhaps not the professional background," Chris Peterson, the senior pastor at the church between 2006 and 2012 said.
The pair's policy was included in the training manual for workers at the Queensland church where a teenage boy was sexually molested between 2004 and 2006.
Peterson agreed that the reference to the "appearance of evil" suggested perpetrators try to avoid detection.
"In other words, don't get caught," he said.
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