A secretive religious organisation is accused of claiming tax-exempt status on public property that it treats as private.

The Exclusive Brethren has meeting places in Bedford's Goldington Road and Barker's Lane.

Under the Places of Worship Act (1855) and the General Rate Act (1967) they claim these are exempt from paying propertybased taxes including council tax.

This is on the basis that their meeting halls are public places, like an Anglican church or a park.

Notices on the padlocked gates give telephone numbers for members of the public wanting to gain entry.



When a Bedfordshire on Sunday reporter rang, he was asked for the spelling of his name, informed that his request was 'highly unusual' and given another number.

On that number, a secretary took his details and said someone would call back.

They never did.

One of the Brethren's neighbours, who asked not to be named, told this paper: "You will not be able to visit without being visited several times by Brethren to establish your motives.

"As a local taxpayer, I feel I am being defrauded." The Exclusive Brethren and the Open Brethren are the two 'wings' of a Christian Evangelical sect founded in 1820.

The two groups get their names from their attitude towards outsiders ('non-fellows').

Exclusive Brethren are not allowed to:

• Live in semi-detached houses



• Watch television or films, listen to radio or read books



• Use computers, mobile telephones, or remote-controlled devices.



• Women are not allowed to cut their hair or wear jeans.



• They must wear a headcovering while praying, so they wear it all day in case emergency prayers are needed.



• Disobedient children are 'shut up' in their rooms, isolated from friends and family until they show a 'broken and contrite spirit'.

One ex-member has written about his treatment of his son under Brethren rules, saying: "I will have to bear the shame for the rest of my life."

We spoke to Bedford Borough Council about the Exclusive Brethren's tax-exempt status.

A borough council spokesman said: "The council levies business rates in accordance with the rating list supplied by the Valuation Office Agency, which is an executive agency of HM Revenue 'Closed' church is not looking for brethrens of fresh air and Customs.

"It is up to the Valuation Office Agency to decide if such properties, as places of public religious worship, should be exempt from the rating list.

"We have therefore passed the information supplied by Bedfordshire on Sunday to the valuation office in order that they may review the exemption."

No-one from the Exclusive Brethren would comment on this story.

(Bold added)

Extract: (bold added)

A $10 company linked to the reclusive religious sect Exclusive Brethren may face a police probe over its funding of pro-Liberal political ads.

Australian Electoral Commission officials have sent a preliminary brief of information on Willmac Enterprises to the Australian Federal Police.

An AFP spokesman said no decision on whether to launch a formal investigation had been made.

Commission funding and disclosure director Kevin Bodel told a Senate estimates committee yesterday that it had been investigating $370,000 of pro-Liberal and anti-Greens advertisements and leaflets in Tasmania, South Australia and Prime Minister John Howard’s Sydney seat of Bennelong before the 2004 election.

“It doesn’t relate to the expenditure disclosure lodged by Willmac after the last election,” Mr Bodel told the hearing.

“(Willmac’s) third party disclosure of electoral expenditure is correct. That probably is about as far as I can go.

“We pursued a line of inquiry and reached a point where we believed it would be better handled by the AFP, and at that point we referred the matter on, having collected a degree of evidence.”

Willmac was established about a week before the October, 2004, election by Exclusive Brethren member Mark Mackenzie and closed 18 months later.

Extract: (bold added)

For 16 months the AEC has been investigating the source of funds used to pay for advertisements and leaflets in Mr Howard's electorate, Bennelong, and in South Australia and Tasmania, worth $370,000, in the days leading up to the election.

All the advertisements were pro-Liberal, pro-John Howard, and anti-Greens.

At the centre of the investigation is a $10 private company, Willmac Enterprises, which was set up just three weeks before election day by Sydney pump salesman Mark Mackenzie, a member of the reclusive sect.

The company's spending on leaflets, advertisements and direct mail put it in the top five biggest spenders among "third party" election campaigners.

Willmac spent 10 times the amount spent by Right to Life ($30,555), more than doubled the spending of the Aust- ralian Conservation Foundation ($127,099), and even out- spent the Wilderness Society ($229,073). The company was quietly deregistered again 18 months later.

Some advertisements were authorised by Stephen Hales, the brother of the sect's world leader, "Elect Vessel", Bruce D. Hales. The address given was the brethren-run school in the Sydney suburb of Meadowbank.

But an initial report by the AEC, released in December, found that "there is no evidence that Willmac Enterprises received any gifts or donations from other sources that contributed to the costs of the advertisements and pamphlets".

Mr Mackenzie, and the Exclusive Brethren's leadership restated that position to The Age.

A spokesman for Mr Mackenzie said funds came from "business earnings, not donations, but from income generated through business activity".

But The Age believes that further evidence has emerged that casts doubt on Willmac's disclosures. In the short time Willmac was in existence it paid for a pamphlet and advertisements in a range of Sydney and South Australian newspapers.

The Electoral Act requires "third party" donors to set out the details of "all gifts made … that were used to fund the expenditure".

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown told The Age yesterday that "on the face of it," the advertisements were "devised by the Exclusive Brethren using their school as a base … but paid for by Willmac, another brethren person's company". "You have to assume that this was nowhere near as honest as you'd expect and that it manipulated the process to escape the fact that the Exclusive Brethren were campaigning for John Howard."

Mr McCorkell said last month that there were no formal plans to campaign for Mr Howard in Bennelong at the next federal election, "but no one is ruling it out".

Members of the Exclusive Brethren sect plan to continue to fund political advertising, despite facing a likely police investigation into alleged breaches of Australia's electoral laws. The Australian Federal Police has received a brief from the Australian Electoral Commission relating to the financing of pro-Coalition and anti-Green advertising during the 2004 federal election campaign.

"If a formal referral is received, the AFP will conduct an evaluation to determine if an investigation is warranted," a spokesman said yesterday.

The AEC has examined funding of ads disclosed by a company run by Sydney Exclusive Brethren member Mark MacKenzie.

Mr MacKenzie's $10 company, Willmac Enterprises, set up a week before the election and disbanded last year, spent about $370,000 on ads in four states during the 2004 campaign.

These included ads supporting the re-election of John Howard in Bennelong, and anti-Greens ads and pamphlets published in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, some using the addresses of sect schools.

Section 305 of the federal Electoral Act requires those declaring spending on elections to disclose any donations or gifts by others used to fund such expenditure.

Last year, an AEC inquiry found no evidence to suggest that anyone other than Willmac had funded the ads.

But by February this year the AEC had discovered "new materials" and made further inquiries, including into the "issue of where (the) funding came from".

"We pursued a line of inquiry and reached a point where we believed it would be better handled by the AFP," commission funding and disclosure director Kevin Bodel told Senate Estimates hearings yesterday.

Mr MacKenzie, a Sydney pump salesman, would not comment yesterday.

The Brethren is a fundamentalist Christian group that shuns wider society and bans voting by followers.

However, its members have developed a reputation across the world for funding election ads supportive of conservative politicians and attacking progressives.

Greens senator Bob Brown said he hoped a police investigation would throw further light on how a company set up by a pump salesman for $10 a week before the 2004 election could fund $370,000 in election advertising.

"They disclaim that this is Exclusive Brethren-organised activity, whereas the evidence points to it being highly organised amongst members of the sect," Senator Brown said.

A pamphlet entitled Keep Howard in Bennelong was, for example, authorised by Stephen Hales, brother of Brethren sect leader Bruce Hales, and, like other ads in South Australia and Victoria, listed a Brethren school as the authorising address.

Brethren spokesman and Queensland public relations consultant Tony McCorkell insisted the sect had no involvement in any election advertisements.

However, he defended the right of sect members to continue funding such material. "As private taxpayers of Australia they can do what they like," he said.

The Australian revealed in January that the Liberal Party in Tasmania was billed for anti-Greens ads placed by Brethren members during last year's state election.

Liberal state director Damien Mantach insists this was an administrative error and that the party did not pay for the ads.

Additional reporting: Patricia Karvelas

A company with reported links to the Christian sect the Exclusive Brethren is being investigated by the Australian Federal Police over an advertising campaign that promoted John Howard at the last federal election.

A Senate hearing has been told the company Willmac Enterprises was set up a week before the 2004 election and spent nearly $400,000 on pro-Government advertisements.

The hearing was told the company was started by a member of the Exclusive Brethren and some of the advertisements were authorised by the brother of the group's leader.

Kevin Bodel from the Australian Electoral Commission says the matter is now in the hands of the police.

"We pursued a line of inquiry and reached a point where we believed it would be better handled by the AFP and at that point we referred the matter on having collected a degree of evidence," Mr Bodel said.

Electoral officials have the asked the Australian Federal Police to investigate federal election advertising by a $10 company set up by an Exclusive Brethren member.

Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) funding and disclosure director Kevin Bodel said he sent a brief of information about Willmac Enterprises to the AFP on Tuesday.

And Mr Bodel confirmed today's exclusive report in The Age that Willmac spent $370,000 on pro-Liberal and anti-Greens advertisements and leaflets in Tasmania, South Australia and Prime Minister John Howard's Sydney seat of Bennelong before the 2004 election.

The Age reported that Willmac was set up just before the election by Sydney pump salesman Mark Mackenzie, a member of the reclusive sect.

The company's spending on leaflets, advertisements and direct mail put it in the top five biggest spenders among "third party" election campaigners.

Willmac spent 10 times the amount spent by Right to Life ($30,555), more than doubled the spending of the Aust-ralian Conservation Foundation ($127,099), and even outspent the Wilderness Society ($229,073). The company was quietly deregistered again 18 months later.

Mr Bodel was today tight-lipped about the extent of the AFP investigation into Willmac.

"It doesn't relate to the expenditure disclosure lodged by Willmac after the last election," Mr Bodel told a Senate estimates committee hearing.

"That third party disclosure of electoral expenditure is correct. That probably is about as far as I can go,'' Mr Bodel said.

"We pursued a line of inquiry and reached a point where we believed it would be better handled by the AFP, and at that point we referred the matter on, having collected a degree of evidence.''

Australian Electoral Commissioner Ian Campbell took a series of questions from Australian Greens senator Bob Brown on notice, saying he did not want to compromise any police investigation.

Exclusive Brethren spokesman Tony McCorkell told The Age said the organisation was not a stakeholder in Willmac, therefore would not be involved in the AFP investigation.

But authorisations for some of the election material were linked to the Exclusive Brethren, The Age reported.

A spokesman for Mr Mackenzie told The Age Willmac's funds came from "business earnings, not donations, but from income generated through business activity.

The Exclusive Brethren sect faces a police investigation over its huge advertising spending in favour of John Howard and the Liberal Party at the last election.

It is expected the Australian Electoral Commission will announce today that it is referring to federal police questions over whether sect members have fully disclosed their involvement in the campaign.

For 16 months the commission has been investigating the source of funds used to pay for ads and leaflets worth $370,000 in Mr Howard's electorate, Bennelong, and in South Australia and Tasmania, before the election. The ads were pro-Liberal, pro-Howard, and anti-Greens.

At the centre of the investigation is a $10 private company, Willmac Enterprises, which was set up three weeks before the election by the Sydney pump salesman Mark Mackenzie, a member of the Christian sect.

The company's spending on leaflets, ads and direct mail put it in the top five spenders among "third party" election campaigners. Willmac spent 10 times Right to Life's expenditure ($30,555), doubled the spending of the Australian Conservation Foundation ($127,099), and outspent the Wilderness Society ($229,073).

Some ads were authorised by Stephen Hales, the brother of the sect's world leader, "Elect Vessel" Bruce D. Hales. The address given was the Brethren-run school in Meadowbank.

An initial commission report found "no evidence that Willmac Enterprises received any gifts or donations from other sources that contributed to the costs of the advertisements and pamphlets".

Mr Mackenzie and the Exclusive Brethren's leadership restated that yesterday. A spokesman for Mr Mackenzie said all the funds came from "business earnings, not donations, but from income generated through business activity".

A Brethren spokesman, Tony McCorkell, said: "The church organisation is not a stakeholder in the entity Willmac, so I cannot see why it would be involved [in an investigation] … With a federal election around the corner, the timing of this development could only be described as curious and rather astounding."

A NSW council will use money from a secretive religious sect to appeal against a court decision allowing a sex shop to go ahead, says an adult industry association.

The Flirt Adult Store won an appeal against the Lithgow City Council's refusal to grant it development approval to set up shop in the town's main street.

Mayor Neville Castle said council was considering appealing the Land and Environment Court decision to the Supreme Court.

But, the chief executive of adult industry group Eros Association, Fiona Patten, has accused the council of allowing the controversial religious group the Exclusive Brethren to bankroll its appeal.

Ms Patten today said the council had "severely undermined" its independence by saying it would accept money that many would view as "tantamount to bribery".

At a policy meeting earlier this month, council announced it was considering appealing the Land and Environment Court decision and a local businessman then offered to pay for a barrister.

Council investigations found there appeared to be no impediment to the local authority receiving such a donation, Mr Castle said.

Mr Castle said he did not know whether the businessman was a member of the Exclusive Brethren.

He said the council's general manager, Paul Anderson, discussed the funding possibility with "the people" behind the offer last week.

But Ms Patten said she was sure the money was coming from the secretive sect.

"Everyone knows that it is the Exclusive Brethren who are behind this offer and that it is a religious sect trying to buy influence and favour for its moral agenda," she said.

Mr Castle says the council opposes the sex shop on planning grounds, not on moral principles.

"So if anybody else was willing to fund an appeal it'd be based on the same (planning) lines," Mr Castle said.

The Exclusive Brethren is said to boast about 40,000 members worldwide - many based in New Zealand and Australia - and has been accused of underhanded campaigning against the Greens at the 2004 federal election and subsequent state polls.

Comment was being sought from the Exclusive Brethren.

A NSW council will use money from a secretive religious sect to appeal against a court decision allowing a sex shop to go ahead, says an adult industry association.

The Lithgow City Council has been accused of allowing the Exclusive Brethren to bankroll its legal case against an adult store after a local businessman offered to pay for a barrister to represent the council in the Supreme Court.

Eros Association executive Fiona Patten said the payment would be seen as "tantamount to bribery" and said she believed the money was coming from the Exclusive Brethren.

"Everyone knows that it is the Exclusive Brethren who are behind this offer and that it is a religious sect trying to buy influence and favour for its moral agenda," she said.

Mayor Neville Castle said he did not know if the businessman was a member of the Exclusive Brethren and council investigations found there was no impediment to the donation.

The council's general manager, Paul Anderson, discussed the funding possibility with "the people" behind the offer last week, he said.

The Flirt Adult Store won an appeal against the Lithgow City Council in the Land and Environment Court after the council refused to approve its operations in the town's main street.

Mr Castle said the council opposed the sex shop on planning grounds, not on moral principles.

The Exclusive Brethren is said to boast about 40,000 members worldwide – many based in New Zealand and Australia – and has been accused of underhanded campaigning against the Greens at the 2004 federal election and subsequent state polls.

For a supposedly secretive organisation, the Exclusive Brethren church can't seem to shake its controversies. Matt Philp reports from the Brethren stronghold of Nelson.

There are letters - boxes of them - kept in Nelson MP Nick Smith's electorate offices, that tell of deeply scarred lives. They are from mothers forbidden to speak to their children for 40 years. From siblings separated from brothers and sisters.

The correspondence, by people "shut out" of the Exclusive Brethren church, dates back to the early 1990s, when Smith took up cudgels on behalf of an excluded couple fighting for custody of their children from Brethren grandparents – and reaped a whirlwind.

When the MP publicly questioned the role of the church in the family dispute, it slapped a $3.2 million defamation suit on him.

"The Exclusives," says Smith, "don't give an inch."

Smith's case drew early, unwelcome attention to the Brethren. These days, the sect with the reputation for secrecy can't get out of the headlines. Maladroit attempts by Brethren businessmen to influence the 2005 election have made the church political dynamite. Now, allegations of historic child sex abuse against an elderly Nelson-based member are prompting fresh scrutiny.

Nowhere more than in Nelson. Other, bigger New Zealand cities have greater numbers and arguably more significance within the church, but the province of sunny hedonism is still Brethren heartland, the place where the church made its start in this country, built businesses, planted a stake.

"Nelson was where James George Deck, the man with the mantle in the early days, was based," says Massey University associate professor of history Peter Lineham, who was raised in an Open Brethren church on the West Coast and who has written a history of the Brethren in New Zealand.

"It has a deeply entrenched Exclusive Brethren culture."

And the smallness of Nelson, Richmond and Motueka makes members highly visible.

At the heart of the Exclusive statement is the belief that the world is defiling, that it is a sin to mix. Nevertheless, it is not unusual to see headscarved Exclusive women pushing heavily laden trolleys down the aisles of Nelson's supermarkets. Brethren businesses are prominent players in certain industries and an Exclusive Brethren college was last year established in Richmond.

Given that visibility, there are worries that the publicity could prompt harassment towards Brethren. The Nelson Mail, in an editorial, has pointed out that there is as yet no evidence the allegations of sexual offending are in any way institutional and has cautioned about the dangers of a witch-hunt.

The policeman in charge, Detective Inspector John Winter, agrees, describing it as no different to any sex-abuse investigation. Says Winter: "We need to take the organisation out of it."

Easier said. Mark Hewetson, a board of trustees member for Westmount Tasman, the Exclusives' new Richmond school, says the climate is "slanted" and "often very unfair" towards the church. He rejects the perception of Exclusive Brethren as isolated.

But the Nelson branch hasn't exactly helped its cause with its history of controversy and a reputation for being particularly hardline – nor, for that matter, its silence. Hewetson spoke briefly to The Press for this story, but a request for an interview with another spokesman for the local church was batted back as a matter for Exclusive Brethren communications in Australia.

Smith, however, says he is inclined to take a more balanced view of his Brethren neighbours today.

During his legal stoush – eventually settled with a joint statement and no payout – he gained a "pretty good knowledge of what takes place in there", he says.

His summation: patriarchal, closed, defensive and historically implacable when it comes to former members.

In his early years as electorate MP he met a lot of "people who had left the church or been forced out with very deep scars. The way they treat ex-members is incredibly harsh and psychologically damaging."

But he sees far fewer of those cases now. He hopes that the appearance of a slight softening is genuine. He was surprised when church leaders approached him years ago apologising for what had occurred in the 1990s.

"They now regularly make delegations to me about issues of foreign policy, moral issues. I've always found their lobbying respectful and polite."

How does he believe the Exclusives are seen locally?

"As law-abiding citizens, as a rule. They are seen in business as people who always pay their bills and are as good as their word. No doubt they are also reasonably good consumers of spirits (alcohol), but having said that, there's no evidence of many problems arising.

"I think when any closed organisation makes noises that they want a greater degree of openness, that that should be welcomed. But we should judge them on their actions, not their words."

In that respect, although a supporter of the principle of greater choice in education, Smith worries about where the recent development of separate schooling might lead.

"It does offer an additional risk of them becoming more isolated and closed. In the past, at least the children of Exclusive Brethren had contact with other parts of the community through their schools."

The other major point of contact is commerce. To drive up Richmond's Gladstone Road is to get a feel for the kind of industry Nelson's Exclusive Brethren have made their own: trucking; a light machinery firm, owned by one of the "name" families from the local church; a bearing and transmission business. Head into Tasman's orchardland, and you find farms owned by Exclusive Brethren, although perhaps not as many as in years past.

The change of tack is, in part, a result of an international directive from church leaders in the 1960s for church members in outlying districts to "move into the towns". But Brethren choices in business are also decided by their strictures against higher education. Unlike Mormons, they aren't likely to feature strongly, if at all, in the corporate world.

In some ways, the Exclusives have been successful in business despite their beliefs. Barcoding is forbidden – "but they tend to get around it by smoke and mirrors," says Peter Lineham. Similarly, they have found ways to accommodate computers, although never the internet – "they believe strongly that the Antichrist is taking over the world and if they are connected in to it they will be judged".

They tend to shun the local Chamber of Commerce and are not players in industry groups.

"But because they're in similar businesses there's often a lot of room for complementary marketing by Brethren businessmen, and supporting one another generally. There is a tremendous amount of internal lending."

Does it amount to a Brethren business bloc?

Former tobacco grower and current mayor of Tasman John Hurley grew up next to a Brethren family in Motueka and has had extensive business dealings with church members over the years.

"I've heard of it, I've never experienced it," he says of the idea of a bloc. "I don't doubt it's the case. But to the extent of dealing only with themselves? No, I'd dispute that."

Hurley ascribes Brethren business success more to "their very close attention to detail and their diligence. All my life I've worked and traded with them and I've noticed that when you buy something from a Brethren firm they back up their product."

Tasman orchardist Vince McCauley bought his land off the Exclusive Brethren after arriving in Nelson from Australia several years ago. He has since used them to supply his earthmoving operation. His perception of the Exclusives is that they are spread "far and wide" in local business. "And in all of the dealings I've had with them, they have been straight down the line."

When his daughter had to undergo open-heart surgery at a critical time of the season, he says, it was the neighbouring Brethren orchardists who stepped up. "They said `go, we'll sort it, we'll spray or mow or whatever'. They were superb."

The flipside of Brethren unity is less palatable. The shunning of ex-members allegedly extends even to blacklisting their places of work. One former member told The Press that a Richmond supermarket was once ruled off limits merely because an ex-communicated member worked there.

If the Exclusive community is more visible in Nelson than most places, so, too, are the church's rejects and refuseniks. These people make no secret of their bitterness towards a church – more accurately, a church leadership – they blame for wrecking their families.

Motueka man Brendon Wood was "kicked out" of the Exclusive Brethren aged 15 – for being too friendly with non-church members, he says. An older brother had already left; another went later. Wood says his father was eventually excommunicated for refusing to quit the timber business as ordered (the issue: the requirement by secular authorities to carry walkie-talkies while on the job).

Wood's mother, three other brothers and a sister cleaved to the church. Even in a small town such as Motueka, they might as well have left the planet.

"It's better with them than it used to be," he concedes. "At least now they say `gidday' if they see me."

The softer line, which has included an apology to the Woods from church elders, has all come far too late. But at least the family's cartage business is no longer blacklisted.

"Since the reforms came in we've been allowed to buy things off Brethren businesses. They don't deal with us, we only deal with them and we can never work for them, but we can now buy parts."

Wood believes any thaw is the result of a directive from Sydney and the man reverenced as speaking the mind of God, the Elect Vessel Bruce Hales.

That would make sense, says Peter Lineham. The Exclusives may not believe in formal ordination, he says, "but in the end, everything winds its way to the top".

At the local level, another evicted Nelson member, Doug Field, says his experience of the church is that it was both hierarchical and deeply, relentlessly political.

"It might not have been written down, but everybody knew who was boss and the pecking order was made clear," says Field, who left the church more than a decade ago and has seen his family shredded just like Wood's. (It was one of Field's seven brothers, Stan, whom Nick Smith championed in the custody dispute.)

The leadership tended to involve the same handful of families.

"They were always the successful businessmen. The people with money were the ones who talked. My dad would sit on the fifth row in church because he was just a lowly chainsaw mechanic.

"As a kid, for the adults in my life, everything was about `what am I going to say? Will it be the right thing? Will I get a pat on the back?"'

Coupled with the hardnosed personalities of its church leadership, Nelson's reputation as the birthplace of the Exclusive Brethren in New Zealand has forged a particularly unforgiving regional character, says Field. "Nelson has a name among Brethren for being extra strict. I remember one school holidays going up to Palmerston North to help on a berry farm and noticing how much more relaxed it was."

He remembers having to ask a Nelson elder for permission to buy a house in a certain area. "You weren't allowed to buy in an area where the local meeting was already too full. Every aspect of your life was monitored, controlled."

But Field says he feels no bitterness towards the local flock, 90 per cent of whom he believes are decent people, if mistaken.

"I was told that the world was completely evil, that it was cold and dark out there and everyone hated everyone. It took me a year after I got kicked out to realise it was absolute bunkum. When I see them now, I feel sorry for them, because I remember what I was like, scuttling around like a four-legged crab. When you are Brethren, being out in public is not a comfortable thing."

Extracts:

A 49-year-old man is facing charges after a Whangarei Roman Catholic church hall was set on fire and daubed with Satanic slogans.

He is also accused of having a hand in the destruction of gates at an Exclusive Brethren church in the city. The Whangarei man was arrested yesterday after break-ins and fires at the St Francis Xavier Church hall in Kensington. He was charged with two counts of arson and one of burglary.

The man, who was to appear in the Whangarei District Court today, has also been charged with wilful damage over destruction of the gates to the Exclusive Brethren Church in Corks Rd, Tikipunga.

A front window at the Catholic hall was broken early on Tuesday and a burning plastic bag dropped through the broken pane on to the hall carpet. About 4am yesterday the hall was again broken into and the kitchen area set alight.

Police said yesterday they believed another fire set in a rear corner of the building was meant to ignite once the main kitchen fire took hold, but the Fire Service had the kitchen blaze under control before that could happen. The fire left an acrid stench and a pile of soot on the kitchen stove top.

"Antichrt" (sic) and the number 666 were spraypainted on the back of the building.

Despite the Satanic graffiti, he did not believe the attack was religiously motivated.

"It's just so annoying."

The Exclusive Brethren is denying any involvement with a magazine that revealed a bestiality film was shown at the home of the Police Commissioner Howard Broad in the 1980s.

The matter has been referred to the Police Complaints Authority.

The man who told the magazine about the film has had links with the church, which led the Prime Minister to imply there might be a link this time around.

But a spokesperson for a group of Brethren businessmen, Neville Simmons, denies there are any connections.

The source of reports that a bestiality film was shown at Police Commissioner Howard Broad's house in 1981 was an investigator who spied on Labour MPs on behalf of the Exclusive Brethren, Investigate magazine has confirmed.

However, Dunedin private investigator Wayne Idour - who confirmed last September that he was hired indirectly by the Brethren to dig dirt on Labour MPs - has categorically denied supplying the illegal movie, as claimed by Police Minister Annette King yesterday.

Ms King said she had spoken to a former policeman, Peter Gibbons, who was also at the party.

In a statement issued by his lawyer, Mr Idour said: "Any allegations that I (brought and played the film) are completely and totally false. I do not know who supplied it and I do not know who was operating the projector."

Mr Idour confirmed he was at the party and that the movie was shown, but he had "expressed disgust to some of the people in my vicinity" over its contents. There were a lot of people in the room and he recalled cheering and crude comments.

The event was outlined in an article in Investigate, which went on to allege that Mr Broad groped female officers - something he strongly denied. It also alleged a culture of police corruption in Christchurch and Dunedin and that Labour ministers covered up criminal allegations, including rape claims.

Investigate editor Ian Wishart yesterday confirmed that Mr Idour gave him information about the party at Mr Broad's house.

Though he was willing to be named, Mr Wishart said he chose to respect Mr Idour and his family's privacy because of the terminal illness of a close family member.

He said Investigate had never paid Mr Idour, nor did it have any links with the Exclusive Brethren.

Prime Minister Helen Clark had earlier questioned whether there were links between the religious group and the magazine. "We have to ask the question of who funds these sorts of investigations? Who funds Investigate magazine? Who prints it? These are questions journalists can legitimately ask."

Brethren spokesman Tony McCorkell denied any link with Investigate and said it appeared as though Miss Clark had become obsessed with the church.

He spoke with senior church members yesterday, who confirmed that Mr Idour had been hired by "one or two" individual church members last year, but had since severed all ties. "It's got nothing to do with them, and absolutely nothing to do with the church."

The Police Complaints Authority has begun an initial analysis of all allegations raised by the magazine. Authority head Justice Lowell Goddard said it would decide on the appropriate course of action once that was complete.

Extracts:

The private detective and former police officer who was used by the Brethren to follow the prime minister has denied being the source of a pornographic movie shown at Police Commissioner Howard Broad's home in Dunedin in 1981.

...

"I categorically deny that I supplied the movie. Any allegations that I did are completely and totally false. I do not know who supplied it and I do not know who was operating the projector," Idour's statement read.

"It is just too long ago to recall specific detail and I am not prepared to speculate."

In September last year Idour admitted that he and a colleague had been hired indirectly by a member of the Exclusive Brethren religious sect to spy on Miss Clark and other Labour MPs.

He said his mission was to uncover "illegal activities" and he would soon reveal sensational information.

Nothing has since been revealed.

A parliamentary committee has rejected a petition from Exclusive Brethren members calling for MPs to stop "denigrating" them for their participation in the "2005 election debate".

The petition of Wellington church member Graeme Murray Turley and 26 others requested "the House instruct its members to desist from denigrating a minority group known as the Exclusive Brethren because some of its members independently chose to lawfully participate in the 2005 election debate".

It followed Labour MPs attacking National's links with the Brethren, which ran an initially covert $1.2 million dollar campaign attacking Labour and the Greens in the lead up to the election.

Government ministers also trained their guns directly on the Brethren at times.

Defence Minister Phil Goff labelled the Brethren a "clandestine" and "extremist" group that were guilty of "lies and dishonesty", while list MP Jill Pettis said the secretive sect "were just concerned about power, influence and money".

Parliament's standing orders select committee yesterday rejected Mr Turley's petition, saying members had freedom of speech within Parliament's debating chamber.

MPs should be mindful that people cannot immediately respond, but "members are not prevented from commenting in severe terms on the conduct of people outside Parliament if they consider it necessary to do so," the committee's statement says.

"The House is a forum for robust debate, not least when members are referring to political activity."

If people thought they had been maligned they could apply to the Speaker to have their response incorporated into the parliamentary record.

The Brethren had a response recorded to Mr Goff and Ms Pettis' comments in November last year.

Police revealed last night they had cautioned five members of the Brethren religious group who were arrested earlier for taking down SNP election posters put up near East Aberdeenshire Golf Club at Balmedie. The men were reported to the police by SNP candidate Allan Hendry who lay in wait for them after being alerted to what they were doing.

A spokeswoman said last night the men - aged 30, 23, 22, 19 and 18 - were dealt with under the adult warning scheme and released. Mr Hendry, of Balmedie, said he was later offered and accepted a personal apology from the Brethren. He had been told posters had been taken down, so put up some more displaying the SNP logo beside the A90 Aberdeen to Peterhead road and lay in wait. He acted after seeing two of the men climb a tree to take down one of the posters.

A Teen Starts a New Life Outside the Insular Sect In Which She Was Raised

Before Stelli Carmichael bolted from her grand family home in Fairview Park last December, other members of the fundamentalist sect in which she'd been raised seemed to know she was leaving. A young relative approached her that night and said in a ghostly whisper, "Stelli, if you go, someone in the church will die. You don't want that, do you?" Another, a boy about her age, said that it would be him who would die.

She didn't want anyone's life cut short; that's why she was leaving. So, with her house still crammed full of family and friends celebrating her 18th birthday, Stelli slipped out the side door at midnight and disappeared into the wickedness of Greater Cleveland. They'd told her she'd be swallowed whole. She'd take her chances.

"But they knew where to find her," says 26-year-old Justin Stang, the boyfriend to whom Stelli fled.

Soon members of Stelli's insular religious community, the Exclusive Brethren, were pounding on the front and side doors of Stang's modest mustard-colored house on the approach path to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Stelli, not two hours free, peeked through the curtains: Twenty members of her family and sect stood silently near the street, waiting for her to change her mind.

"They were just standing out there in a line, staring at the house," Stelli recalls. "It was creepy."

Eventually, the couple called police, who told her family to leave. But almost every day after that for two months, usually late at night, a knock would jar the door to Stang's house. Quite a few times, Stelli says, it was her dad, who had to say goodbye forever to his oldest daughter because of his standing as a Cleveland leader of the secretive Christian sect, one that lives a modified Amish-like existence but does so right down the street from Brook Park strip clubs and urban decay.

"We talked to my dad a few days later at the police station, and he told me, "You're "shut up," Stelli,'" she recalls, referring to the sect's practice of shunning drifting members. She shrugs her shoulders, cocks her little-doll head to the side. "He tried to get me to stay, he said the family was planning a trip to Australia to stay at Bruce Hales's house [the Brethren's spiritual leader] and that I should go too."

Hales has a son of marrying age, too.

"They were trying to set us up, I know that's what they were trying to do," Stelli recalls. "I would've gone and I wouldn't have come back. I'd have been locked up for life."

Since its founding in the late-19th century in Dublin, Ireland, the Exclusive Brethren sect has grown to about 40,000 worldwide, anchored mostly in and around Australia. They raise their children to stay, marry among themselves. A recent survey by Australia's University of Monash found that of more than 10,000 Australian children born into the church, nearly 96 percent remained into adulthood.

In their eyes, the world outside their factory-style churches is as wicked as the imagination can provide, Stelli says, and must be viewed with fear and contempt. "None of the churches anywhere have any windows," she says. "If they buy a building and there's windows, they'll take them out."

Members aren't allowed TVs. Computers were recently let in but only for business and schools. Radios and novels and things like amusement parks are still banned, though car phones (cords and all) are making their way around the male business owners. But most of the core rules are intact. No eating or conversations with "worldlies" outside the scope of commerce. Women can work in the family business until marriage, at which time they must stay home and care for their families. None goes to college. They attend church services every day, on Sundays from morning until dusk. And they work only for family businesses, securing a financial network stretching across the globe.

"That's how they get you," Stelli says. "Not only can't you see your family again [if you leave], but you've got your business all tied up with the Brethren. If you leave the church you lose your business, too. The church provides so much for everybody. It gives the mortgages, car loans. Everything. And they don't want you to even talk to anybody. You could be at the mall and if you said to somebody, "Oh, your baby's adorable. What's her name?', somebody would say, "Shut up, what are you doing?'"

Husbands who are put under "assembly discipline" are made to live separately from their wives and children for months at a time. The children aren't told exactly what their fathers have done. "One guy, his wife was pregnant and he didn't even know what she named it," Stelli recalls of a recent example. "He came back and was like, "Nice baby. What's her name?'"

Historically, the group has had a strict prohibition against voting. But its new leader, Hales, has allowed the group to throw its support behind conservative political candidates.

Just before the 2004 presidential election, according to The St. Petersburg Times, a group called the Thanksgiving 2004 Committee ran full-page ads in Florida papers in support of Senate candidate Mel Martinez, a gay marriage foe, as well as other ads elsewhere supporting President Bush's reelection. The group registered with the IRS just after the date that would have made it disclose the origins of the money used to buy the ads. Later, a map store owner told the Times that the committee was a group of Brethren, and it was later learned that more than half of the $600,000 the committee raised came from a moneyed Brethren member from London. A Federal Elections Commission spokesperson said at the time that that violated the law, but no action has been taken.

Stelli was taking part that year. She says most Brethren were working behind the scenes. She was made to volunteer by making hours and hours of campaign calls for U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine and Ken Blackwell's unsuccessful campaigns for God and country.

Stelli was secluded from everything but worship and family. She was raised in a community of about 200 Brethren in Tennessee until 2001, when her family moved the seven kids to Cleveland so that Stelli's younger sister could be treated at the Cleveland Clinic.

Stelli was raised to follow the rules: No cutting her hair or wearing makeup. Long skirts at all times in public, long head scarves to church. Her last year of school, in which three teachers taught a variety of subjects for kids young and old, the local church finished work on a permanent bleak-looking school building that used to house a Brethren business near the Berea Recreation Center.

"It's not an accredited school," Stelli says. "But they said it's doesn't matter because wherever I worked it'd be okay for them."

She met Justin Stang while still attending the sect's private school in a tiny trailer in the parking lot of the Brethren-owned pump business where Justin worked. She picked up some secretarial work at the business after school. He remembers overhearing Stelli and a schoolmate refer to their fellow Brethren as "weird," and adds, "I knew then that she was different from the rest of them." It was furtive glances and stolen phone calls and quick secret visits after that.

Before she turned 18, when her father forbid her to see Justin and he was subsequently fired from his job, Stelli was sent to live with family in Iowa, where a young man her age, who liked bodybuilding and other things she could care less about, had aims to make her his wife. She wasn't interested.

"There's not much to choose from" in the Brethren community, she says.

In Cleveland, there are about 100 Brethren; in Columbus, another 100. Each weekend, one of the two groups drives to the other city for day-long services and study, during which, as always, the women will sit in the back with the children and only the men will discuss the Scripture down front.

The Exclusive Brethren of Cleveland meet in a windowless brown brick box a short distance off Grayton Road, in a residential neighborhood near the airport. No sign advertises its services. Last Saturday, the parking lot was empty except for three late-teen girls in a newer model van. I identify myself as a reporter and ask how I can reach Bruce Carmichael. The girl who's driving starts to give directions to the Carmichael home, but the girl in the passenger seat stops her, gives me a cell phone number instead.

"Definitely give him a call before you do anything," she warns sternly.

"OK. Sure."

I tell the girls I'm working on a story about the Brethren, particularly Stelli's decision to leave it.

"She talked to you?" the driver asks.

"Yes." And the girls' eyes double in size.

Knocks on the door at Carmichael's home went unanswered. After several phone messages, Carmichael called back Monday to say that he was going to be too busy to talk until late in the week and suggested sending a letter to his address. "I don't really know what this is about," he said in the message he left, even though I'd told him in two of the messages.

Stelli said she'd be surprised if he or any of the Brethren talked. Even Hales doesn't do interviews.

And "something like this, it makes the family look bad," Stelli says.

But Stelli doesn't look the least bit sympathetic today, clad in a denim mini-skirt and halter top as she bounces through her and Stang's house with painted toe nails and that beauty mark on her cheek touched up with a pencil. Some days, she confesses, she hasn't done anything but watch South Park and The Jerry Springer Show. But little memories are piling up. Getting her ears pierced. Her first paycheck (as a waitress) "that I actually got to keep." Her driver's license.

"We went to the I-X Indoor Amusement Park" — the type of worldly recreation she's been raised to believe was wicked — "and it was just a whole bunch of people running around having fun with their kids. It's ridiculous."

She'd like to move on in a more concerted way, maybe move somewhere apart from her still-prying past, but her father still stands silently in her way. She says he owes her about $16,000 he long ago promised he'd start putting aside for her when she began working for his national salt-spreader business at around 14. When she left the family and the church, she says, he changed the name on the account to his. She'd like to get her GED and start college too, but to get financial aid, she'll need a parent's signature to become an independent student. She'll have to find her own way.

"I don't think I'm ever gonna get the money or the signature," she says. "But I'm free."

Extract:

Nelson police investigating historic sexual abuse complaints from five former Exclusive Brethren women say they hope to speak to the elderly Nelson man at the centre of the allegations within a couple of weeks.

Tasman police district commander Superintendent Grant O'Fee said police initially received three complaints from women allegedly abused by an Exclusive Brethren member in Nelson between the early 1950s and the early 1980s.

He said two more women came forward with complaints late last week, and that all five were now being investigated.

He said the fourth complaint had been laid in Auckland, and related to alleged offending when the woman was around 10 years old and living in the Nelson area.

He said there was no suggestion of further complaints being made by other women.

Mr O'Fee said investigations into historic complaints often took a considerable amount of time, as it was harder to contact everyone involved.

But he said police hoped to speak to the man the complaints had been made against in the next two weeks.

Police were still in the early stages of investigating the most recent complaint.

Extract:

Police investigating sexual assault claims by five former members of the Exclusive Brethren hope for "some sort of resolution within the next couple of weeks".

Tasman police district commander Superintendent Grant O'Fee told NZPA police were looking at "covering all the basics before taking it any further".

"I would like to think we would be looking at some sort of resolution within in the next couple of weeks, but it's very difficult to say," he said.

The women were allegedly abused by a Nelson member of the Exclusive Brethren between the early 1950s and the early 1980s.

Police had only finished interviewing the fifth of the women in the past few days, after police had earlier received complaints from three of the women.

The accused, a senior member of the secretive sect, was now in his 70s. He was alleged to have abused the women when they were between five and 10 years old.

Because the alleged sex attacks took place decades ago, it made investigating the case more difficult and took more time, Mr O'Fee said.

"It's not just a matter of sitting down for 20 minutes and taking a statement off someone.

"At the moment, we are talking to people who were around, corroborating the versions of events as they were given to us," he said.

Nelson police investigating historic sexual abuse complaints from five former Exclusive Brethren women say they hope to speak to the elderly Nelson man at the centre of the allegations within a couple of weeks.

Tasman police district commander Superintendent Grant O'Fee said police initially received three complaints from women allegedly abused by an Exclusive Brethren member in Nelson between the early 1950s and the early 1980s.

He said two more women came forward with complaints late last week, and that all five complaints were now being investigated.

He said the fourth complaint had been laid in Auckland, but related to alleged offending when the woman was around 10 years old and living in the Nelson area.

He said there was no suggestion of further complaints being made by other women at this stage.

Mr O'Fee said investigations into historic complaints often took a considerable amount of time, as it was harder to contact everyone involved.

But he said police hoped to speak to the man the complaints had been made against within the space of a couple of weeks, even though they were still in the early stages of investigating the most recent complaint.

Australia-based Exclusive Brethren spokesman Tony McCorkell said he was prepared to come to New Zealand and help police with their inquiries.

Mr McCorkell, who spoke to the man at the centre of the allegations when he was in New Zealand briefly last month, said the church would not pay for or assist with the man's legal needs.

"I understand he is seeking his own legal advice," Mr McCorkell said.

When in New Zealand, Mr McCorkell had met former members of the church claiming to have information about the allegations, but they would not give him any details unless they could be involved in the investigation.

Mr McCorkell said yesterday he had since spoken to the group, which had indicated the complainants preferred the police to deal with the investigation.

"And we are happy with that."

Mr McCorkell said the alleged offender was still a senior member of the church, but held no seniority.

He said the church would give every co-operation to the police.

"My understanding is that the relationship between the alleged victims and the alleged perpetrator was a family relationship ... nothing to do with the church."

He said he wanted to ensure their activities were not linked to the church and that they were acting independently.