Sins of the Father Read online

  Phil wasn’t around enough to enforce any new system. The children were on their own after school and for long periods in the holidays. They suffered their father’s unreliability and accepted it as normal, knowing that they would be the last ones to be picked up from sports practices, or that any arrangements they made would be broken if something came up at work.

  To Phil, being able to provide for his family was essential; it was what a good father did. It was important to him that he could buy things they needed, give them holidays, and surprise them with treats; it was how he showed them he loved them. He would shower them with expensive treats whenever he came back from long periods away. Interestingly, Neville had done the same thing when Phil was a child. He’d be away on his tent campaigns or speaking tours and come back laden with gifts for the children.

  Although Phil was a loving and generous father, he wasn’t able to see that what they needed most was his time and presence. They’d been through so much, but he couldn’t help them overcome the issues arising out of their past because he hadn’t dealt with them himself. He just kept going, staying positive for them and doing what he was good at, which was making money for them. His absenteeism made Bev’s life just about impossible as she struggled with trying to be a stepmother to his strong-willed bunch who were so used to having their own way.

  Jessica was born in February 1997, another little blond-haired Cooper.

  Bev had a new baby, her own son Mitchell who was not quite four years old, and Phil’s five children to parent, often single-handedly.

  Bev and Phil married once Phil’s divorce from Sandy came through in October. Crystal was pleased. It felt like she had a real mother at last, although the wedding brought questions for the nine-year-old from her friends about where her real mother was. She opted for simplicity, saying her mum lived in New Zealand and they didn’t see much of her. It was easier than saying she lived in a cult, then having to explain what a cult was.

  By the end of 1997, the good relationship between Bev and Tendy foundered as Tendy and Justine became more and more rebellious. Justine was 12, a year older then Tendy, and where she led, Tendy followed. They were either the best of friends or fighting to the death, with Bev having to cope with the fallout. Justine was headstrong and now she was doing exactly as she pleased. She’d bring cigarettes home for her and Tendy to smoke. Phil tried to stop them by using the psychological approach. He bought a packet of cigarettes, sat the girls down, and lectured them on the evils of tobacco use. When he figured the message had hit home he left the room, leaving the smokes behind as an awful warning. The lecture had no effect and the girls grabbed the cigarettes, thrilled with their windfall of free smokes.

  Israel’s difficulties weren’t behavioural but were just as serious. His academic achievement by the end of his second year of high school was abysmal. Phil, already guilty about him missing out on his childhood, didn’t want him to grow up without an education as well, and suggested that he go to boarding school. It also meant he’d be out from under Bev’s feet at home.

  Israel agreed to go, although he hated leaving the children he regarded as his own. They’d been such a close family it was hard for him to settle in a new situation but school was another community and turned out to be a bit like living with a whole lot of brothers. It was a Catholic school with strange rituals and, weirdly for him, he saw similarities between the community and the Catholicism Neville abhorred.

  Boarding school felt initially like the worst thing that had ever happened to Israel, but turned out to be one of the best. He caught up on the schooling he’d lost and excelled academically, but perhaps more importantly for a 15-year-old, it helped him to accept his history and to feel more a part of the world he now lived in. When he first arrived, he repeated his fictional stories about his family, but his classmates picked up on discrepancies and kept questioning him until he told the truth. It was a relief to stop hiding.

  For the whole of his first year, he kept pretty much to himself, immersing himself in study because there was nothing else to do. He was used to getting up early at home and continued to do so at school, using the two or three hours before breakfast to study. During this year he taught himself how to study by reading everything he could: text books that weren’t part of the class requirement; re-reading work done during class; reading around each subject in every reference he could find. His grades improved as he filled in the gaps in his previous schooling.

  It wasn’t until the second year that he began to make friends and, as he did, he reduced the intensity of his study regime, although he still maintained a rigorous schedule to ensure he didn’t fall behind again. By his final year, the school and his peers had come to recognise his capacity for taking on responsibility, making him a prefect and a house sports captain. Israel relished the responsibilities which included the care and welfare of the younger boys. He was happy to return to the nurturing, caring roles that had so long been part of his life at home.

  At home Phil’s business continued to grow. It was the challenge he loved, the feeling of being in the midst of chaos and controlling six different things at once. It absorbed and fascinated him. However it absorbed his time as well and Bev was left to deal with Justine and Tendy who were increasingly out of control, getting into trouble and always fighting. On the home front, the family struggled with issues that Phil could ignore as long as he buried himself in work.

  At Christmas 1998 Phil took all of them to New Zealand for the holidays. It was good for them to be with the wider family again and the whole clan attended church on Christmas Day.

  One day they decided on the spur of the moment to go to the West Coast and visit their mother and sisters in the community. Phil drove the children over but he knew they wouldn’t be let in if the community saw he was with them, so he and Jess got out of the van at the gate while Bev drove the others into the grounds. They were driving around looking for the right building when they caught a glimpse of Dawn among a group of people. She looked shocked to see them, like a deer in the headlights, and vanished when the group scattered at the sight of a strange vehicle. Later Israel realised she would have been indoctrinated in the belief that outsiders were evil and that her own siblings weren’t good Christians. She would also have been swept up by the group around her whose instinct was to run when an unknown vehicle approached. The community was very sensitive to the possibility of further abductions.

  Bev started the engine again and they finally found where they were meant to go. The moment they pulled up, Neville/Hopeful and his second-in-command came out of the building and strode over to the van where Hopeful demanded to know why they were there. Bev told him she’d brought the children to see their mother. He asked who Bev was. Phil’s wife? He already had a wife thus Bev was an adulteress, a whore. He fired an entire repertoire of abusive names at her while the younger children cowered, crying, in the back of the van. Bev didn’t want to leave until they had seen their mother, but Israel knew it was never going to happen and told her to just go. The younger ones cried most of the way back to Christchurch. The visit strengthened Israel’s belief that his dad had been right to take them out of the community. It gave Justine, Tendy and Crystal first-hand insight into his reasons for doing so, but for seven-year-old Andreas it was simply upsetting.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: CHANGING DIRECTION

  Justine went to school with our kids. She had lots of issues but lots of talent too. She was struggling with the whole rejection thing, but she buried it. FAITH

  When they returned to Australia, Phil and Bev decided it would be good for them all to start attending church as a family. Bev hadn’t grown up in a religious family although she did attend a Catholic school. She liked the idea of being part of a church community and together she and Phil sought out one that suited them both, hoping that shared worship would bring them closer and lead to positive changes in Justine and Tendy’s behaviour. Israel, Crystal and Andreas accepted the regime change. To Israel it felt like a connec
tion to happier times in his life, first in the New Zealand community when he was very young, then later with the Hutterites. Justine and Tendy were unimpressed. Tendy hated what she saw as hypocrisy. There they were, pretending to be the perfect family sitting together in church, when their reality was more like chaos and mayhem. She refused to play the game of happy families. No way was she going to pretend to be a good Christian girl. Instead, she perfected the role of offended drama queen.

  Justine and Tendy, increasingly stroppy and strong-willed, ignored all rules. They got into trouble and they didn’t care. Bev was often by herself, trying to discipline them when Phil was out of the country on business or buried in work at the office. By 2001, desperately worried that they were on the point of wrecking their lives, Phil phoned Faith to ask her if she’d take one of them. She discussed it with her family and they decided to take Justine because, like them, she was keen on sport. However Tendy had thought she would be the one to go, and when she discovered it was Justine, she was angry, blaming Justine for manipulating the situation in her favour. Justine had mixed feelings about leaving home. Living in a new country would be exciting, but she wasn’t sure whether life with Faith would be so good.

  Faith was under no illusions about how difficult it would be to take her niece under her wing. She feels now that she was too strict with her, something Justine heartily agrees with, although she also credits Faith with saving her from making a huge mess of her life. She stayed with Faith for three years until she was 18 and finished school. Once she settled in, she loved school because it was big on sport and she made lasting friendships. Her new friends didn’t smoke and didn’t think it was cool so she quit the cigarettes along with the other anti-social behaviour. While she was living with Faith, Justine began to appreciate the value of the religious beliefs the family lived by and she herself became a Christian.

  With her partner-in-crime living in another country, 14-year-old Tendy was finding life hard. Justine was in a good school, whereas Tendy was still changing schools often and still with her bad group of friends. She hated going to church, and the way she saw her family pretending they were all happy and wonderful whenever anyone was around. She wouldn’t play the game and refused to smile when she had to be in a family photo. She felt that all the others could pretend, but she couldn’t. She was the emotional one, the one who wore her heart on her sleeve. Her behaviour worsened: she climbed out the window at night; she wandered around town until a desperate Phil finally found her; she smoked and drank. At home, she spun every incident into a drama designed to prove how much her family hated her. One night she climbed out the window to go joy-riding with boys. When she came back, Bev was waiting for her at the end of the drive, worried sick. They had a huge row but Tendy was unrepentant. She ran to her bedroom and phoned her father who was in Thailand on business. ‘Help! She’s psycho! She’s going to kill me!’ She spun it so that Bev was an evil witch-woman and she the hapless victim. It worked. Phil flew home immediately.

  Whereas Tendy was more and more alienated from the church, it became increasingly important for the rest of the family. Bev got involved in various church-run activities and one day attended a lecture given by a woman working in an orphanage the church supported in a remote area of Borneo in Indonesia. She came home enthusing about the amazing work being done there. Phil astonished her by telling her she should go and visit the place to see it for herself.

  Balai Karangi village in the province of Kalamatan was not a tourist destination. Getting there would require three separate flights into areas increasingly remote from the English-speaking world, but the orphanage had captured Bev’s heart and she decided to go. Phil suggested she take Tendy with her for company but also in the hope that the trip would shock her into seeing that her own life was paradise compared with how others had to live.

  The trip in September 2001 went well. Tendy loved having Bev all to herself and the two of them got on well, the way they had when Bev first arrived in the family. Balai Karangi village welcomed them. Tendy with her blond hair was an exotic novelty and streams of children flocked around her wherever she went. They tugged her hand, pulling her with them to show her the hospital the church was building, and the orphanage. The people of the village had nothing but the ragged clothes they wore and their diet consisted of rice three times a day, yet they were so happy just to be alive.

  When they got home to Australia, Tendy went right back to being what she now describes as a little shit, but the visit had been transformative for Bev. She wanted them all to go over and experience for themselves the happiness of people who had nothing and who lived without any modern-world essentials. Phil jumped at the idea. Here was a project he could make happen, one that would help bring his family together. He threw his energy into raising the money to pay for airfares for all eight family members. They would go as soon as possible.

  His business couldn’t afford all the airfares so he swung into a round of fund-raising. Brunei Airlines agreed to sponsor some of the flights. Business friends he approached donated money for the trip and to buy materials for the building projects at the orphanage and hospital complex.

  Although the trip did no more for the children than paper over the cracks of their family life, it did leave a lasting impression on all of them, by putting their own history into some perspective. They felt they had life pretty good in comparison with the villagers, especially the orphans.

  Phil worked on the building projects, glad to use his expertise for such a worthwhile cause. Bev helped out in the orphanage and the kids roamed the village surrounded by a crowd of local children who attached themselves like magnets whenever Bev’s son Mitchell or one of the Cooper kids appeared outside.

  The visit did bring the family closer. The kids loved having their dad around in this haven from the outside world. His business back home couldn’t intrude because there was no internet and no phone coverage either. They were in the middle of a jungle high in the mountains in 30 degree heat, where they were pummelled by rain and thunder storms every day, and they loved it.

  Phil saw what a difference his and Bev’s little help had made. When he got home again he launched into a round of fund-raising, starting with a charity ball which raised thousands of dollars for the Mount Hope project in Balai Karangi village. It was a huge undertaking but he loved it; it was like the best days in the community when he masterminded the concerts.

  He and Bev have been back several times and they continue to support the orphanage and hospital with money and labour. In 2006 Phil opened a letter which contained a cheque for $15,000. It was from the recently established Hutterite community in Australia who had heard of his work at Mount Hope. He read to Bev the message that came with it: ‘God has blessed us and we know that you will use this to bless others.’

  They immediately put it toward the support of the orphanage.

  All the family were elated by their experience at the orphanage, but once back home again, cracks reappeared in the family structure.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: ESCAPE FROM GLORIAVALE

  Some of the adults who come in get converted to the community but not to Christianity and they can still be rotten old sinners. NAOMI

  Not many people leave Gloriavale now, partly because of its isolation, but also because the young ones have grown up inside and know no other way of life.

  Phil’s family offered hospitality to one young man who had left because he wanted to work with computers, but inside the community one does not choose and he was apprenticed to a painter. He hated it and decided to leave. To avoid being caught and hauled in front of the men, he walked across the swamp at the back of the farm and hitchhiked to Christchurch. The whole operation took him 14 hours.

  Naomi’s escape was different. The children’s maternal grandmother had been growing more and more disillusioned with Neville who once referred to himself as the angel of Gloriavale. She whispered to her son that if that was the case, his halo had slipped. Her son shushed her for fear someb
ody would hear and report her.

  Naomi was in charge of the shopping which gave her the freedom to go into town once a week to buy groceries. On one such trip, while the community was still at Springbank, she was put in touch with her friend who had left years before. The friend showed her a video, warning her not to shut her mind against it because it was the truth. Naomi was devastated to see her own daughter, Sandy’s sister Yvette who had left the community, describing in harrowing detail the way in which Neville had sexually violated her.

  A few years later at Gloriavale, Naomi felt increasingly that Neville was no longer preaching the word of God and she knew she couldn’t be wholehearted in her commitment. She felt that true religion was being squeezed out of Gloriavale and that she was dying inside spiritually. It took her two years to make the decision to leave because it was such a hard thing to do. She had family there, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and she loved her job, helping in the school where she was confidante to the children who all called her Grandma. On the other hand, she was constantly in pain from chronic arthritis and physically couldn’t handle the work. Neville told her she was getting lazy and that she didn’t have the spirit, that she was just giving in. In What We Believe he writes, ‘Christians should learn to bear pain and hardship as part of the corruption of this life’. He told her off and when she broke down, he said, ‘Don’t you cry!’

  She retorted, ‘I’ll cry if I want to,’ but then thought, oh, now I’m in trouble.

  Neville knew she didn’t like him.

  She planned her escape carefully. The first step was to get money but she was only 64 so not entitled to the old-age pension. However, Work and Income in Greymouth arranged a benefit for her of $146 a week which she had credited directly into her newly opened bank account. She asked the bank not to send her any mail, and waited several weeks for the money to accumulate. She left in April 2002, without telling anybody because if she had they would have tried to talk her out of it or, worse, she would have been called to front up to the men who would wear her down until she agreed to stay.