Victims come forward after late minister named a child sex offender

Résumé détaillé

A dozen victims have now come forward saying they have been abused by a Presbyterian minister. The Presbyterian Church says nine further victims have now contacted the church…

A dozen victims have now come forward saying they have been abused by a Presbyterian minister.

The Presbyterian Church says nine further victims have now contacted the church about abuse at the hands of former minister David Wentworth Pimm after he was named as a child sex offender.

Pimm, who died in 2014, worked as a minister at various churches around the country from 1955 until his retirement in Feilding in 2003.

On 2 November the church said it was working with three of Pimm's victims and believed there were more, so it was naming him to encourage others to come forward for redress.

Executive secretary Reverend Erin Pendreigh said the church had now been contacted by 12 victims in total.

"It has been interesting to hear from many that they were unaware of our redress system, or of our public apology last year. It took us naming David Pimm for them to realise we wanted to hear from them. For all our previous best efforts last year, the ripple of our intent hadn't reached some of those who had been harmed by us," she said.

"I received one message from a person who had drafted a letter a year ago - after our public apology. They shared of their experience, trying to raise the alarm regarding the behaviour of the minster, and how they felt the system had closed ranks on them and shut their efforts out."

Pendreigh earlier said the Presbyterian parish in Ōpōtiki received complaints about the abuse of a child in 2001 and 2002, followed by a 2010 complaint a victim had been abused in Karamea several decades earlier.

The 2001-2002 complaints resulted in Presbyterian Church disciplinary commission hearings in 2002 and in 2003.

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