Offender DatabasesViolent and Sexual Offender Databases |
Victims MemorialA memorial to those murdered in NZ in the last twenty years
EDUCATE . ADVOCATE . SUPPORT
SITEMAP(3)Where to find everything here | FAQFrequently Asked Questions | New!New on this site lately |  Chinese language summary
|
escalating violence in our community
Become a member of the
Sensible Sentencing Trust
Offender Databases
Neville Cooper
"Hopeful Christian"
Sexual assault of three girls aged 12-19 in the mid 1980's
.
.
none
Born 1926
At large in Gloriavale, West Coast
Sentenced to five years in December 1995
Released on parole November 1996
Background
The Press. Christchurch, August 17th, 2002
A remote West Coast complex houses a growing sect with multimillion- dollar
businesses. Even infrequent trips by some of the 300 members into Greymouth put
$300,000 monthly into the town's stores. Welfare, benefits, and pensions are
foreign concepts; community members support their own, apparently bankrolled by
profits from the businesses. The woman stands under the veranda, her hands
cupped in front and a faint smile fixed across her face.
She has long hair, a white headscarf, and a long, navy-blue dress buttoned
tightly to the neck.
She looks as serene as a nun and lives a cloistered life but this definitely is not a convent. It is the first glimpse of the Gloriavale Christian Community and Garden of Children, a town-size commune 70km inland from Greymouth. Further along the veranda, smiling acolytes with names such as Noah, Fervent, and Pilgrim greet the hundreds of visitors who have journeyed out on this long gravelled road on a mid-winter's night for a concert and meal as guests of the community. By the end of the four-week concert season, this extraordinary, introverted community in the middle of nowhere will have hosted 3200 West Coasters, many of them just curious to get a look inside the commune walls.
It is not just the enigma of communal living that draws people, but also the surprise that it has become one of the biggest players in the West Coast economy with four international businesses. Inside, the crowd is funnelled into a large auditorium, the Living Museum, which is decorated with finely crafted, half-scale models of a sailing ship and vintage aeroplane in celebration of modern achievements. Everyone is seated at tables facing the front, just like school, settled in for the four-hour concert with a bottle of non-alcoholic home brew and apple cider. The music and the singing is faultless, the comedy skits funny, and the life- like props amazing. There is also a three-course meal served by Rapture, Serene, and Harmony.
The only visible sign of difference is the men's toilet, modestly equipped with cubicles instead of the openness of a urinal. So why does a tightly closed commune that regards the outside world as corrupt open its doors and purse so generously to well- wishers and sceptics alike? It is, community head and spiritual leader Hopeful Christian explains to the crowd, a "love gift" to the West Coast community. To the secular world, that means public relations. Quietly but steadily the walls of Gloriavale have grown in 11 years, transforming a remote cow paddock above Lake Haupiri into a modern three-storey complex that stands like a temple on the bottom slopes of the Southern Alps.
Mirrored on either side are two three-storey dormitories -- one of which is still under construction -- to house the fast-growing community of 315. There is a registered pre-school for 70 children, and primary and secondary schools, with a combined roll of more than 100. School life is normal, except that teachers have identified health, physical education, and the arts as not fitting well with their beliefs. However, music, movement, and performing are key features of community life. From pre-school age, children are encouraged in music and by high school are all competent violin players. According to the Education Review Office, school programmes are organised in line with New Zealand curriculum standards and adapted to suit the community's beliefs.
For instance, science is taught in biblical context, and girls are encouraged in the kitchen to prepare for their future life in the community. Everyone from pre-school age to old age is dressed in the same modest uniform that neatly keeps temptation and curiosity at bay. Theirs is essentially a small town compacted into three buildings, surrounded by the commercial enterprises that keep the men employed and the community fed. "I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it," proclaims the church letterhead.
Perhaps not, but the gates have been rattled at least. It was only seven years ago that Hopeful Christian was jailed on three charges of indecent assault on community members. He served just 11 months before being released on parole back to Lake Haupiri. He is now 75 but remains in charge.
The troubles began in 1993, two years after the Haupiri sect was founded, when girls and boys complained to the police that they had been sexually assaulted at the Cust Christian Community. The complainants were aged between 12 and 19 at the time. A jury found Hopeful Christian guilty of 10 of the 11 charges and he was sentenced to six years. That was overturned by the Court of Appeal the following year, and a new trial ordered.
He was retried on three charges in December 1995, and again found guilty. However, the charges, the drawn- out trials, and his eventual incarceration did nothing to shake the bonds of the Christian Community or the trust its members stored in their father figure, Hopeful Christian.
The complainants were ostracised from their remaining family in the community and left to flounder in the outside world. Others who have left voluntarily to get a taste of freedom have spoken of the difficulty of adjusting after a lifetime of seclusion; some of the "fallen" later returned to the fold.
Discipline is tough. A teenage girl caught by her mother holding hands with a boy was marched in front of a men's disciplinary meeting that lasted 16 hours. An Australian by birth, Hopeful Christian (formerly Neville Cooper) has said he found his faith after World War 2. In the late- 1960s he put that into practice, drawing followers into a commune known as Springbank, on a 100ha property near Cust, North Canterbury. They called themselves the Christian Community Church, but to outsiders they were the Cooperites. A strong work ethic, self- sufficiency, and a preference to shut themselves off from the secular world were the tenets of this brand of Christianity.
They might have been regarded as odd, but former Waimakariri District Mayor Trevor Inch once praised the community as a "model of fastidiousness" and its members a tremendous asset to the district. The surprise move to the West Coast came in 1991 as the community outgrew the Cust property. The growth was not so surprising because members are encouraged, if not expected, to raise large families. In that respect Hopeful Christian led by example. He had 15 children in 1994, shortly after marrying his third wife, who was 17 at the time.
Some new recruits have also come from the wider West Coast community. Members are free to go, but when they do all contact is severed. Each contributes their worldly possessions to a community pool, and is provided for when they leave. One member who left the Cust community with his wife and eight children in the 1980s walked away with a meagre $4000. The Gloriavale Christians are not to be confused with another conservative Christian sect, the Exclusive Brethren, who arrived on the West Coast from Nelson about the same time as the Haupiri community. Exclusive Brethren, based out of a windowless church in Greymouth, dress similarly and own some major businesses in town.
While their faith does not acknowledge the wizardry of computers and Eftpos, the Haupiri Christians embrace it all in their daily life. However, they do have some restrictive beliefs that appear incompatible with normal commerce. Interest, credit, and debt have no place here, yet members very successfully run one of the largest dairy farms on the West Coast with 1200 top-breed dairy stock, farm 1400 deer, and own some major businesses. Total worth is probably in excess of $10 million -- all ensconced on the 1687ha property. Ocean Harvest International Ltd exports fishmeal to China, Lakeview Moss Ltd has markets worldwide, and Avkair Ltd has the only fixed-wing and helicopter maintenance facility on the West Coast. Customers fly in from around the South Island.
The community also runs a joint venture charter service with the Greymouth Aero Club. Each company is owned communally and directed by one of the community's senior members, Steady Standtrue. Welfare, benefits, and pensions are foreign concepts; community members support their own, apparently bankrolled by profits from the businesses. The reality of the Gloriavale businesses is not insignificant -- between $300,000 and $350,000 is spent in Greymouth each month. "They have four international companies and so irrespective of their spiritual and moralistic aspects, economically they cannot be ignored," says Grey District economic development officer Frank Ash.
The Christian sect's interaction with the West Coast community is carefully controlled, but after 11 years the infrequent trips to town are barely noticed these days. "People might not agree with their doctrine, but they are now very much accepted as part of the community," says Ash.
The Press. Christchurch, August 17, 2002
Gloriavale is the successor to the Springbank Christian Community at Cust,
which was regularly in the headlines in the 1980s for sex scandals. It has
since rebuilt to become one of the largest contributors to the West Coast
economy, owning four export businesses.
The sect's founder and leader, 75-year-old Australian-born Hopeful Christian (formerly Neville Cooper), was sentenced to five years jail in 1995 after being found guilty on three charges of indecent assault on teenage members of the Cust commune. He served 11 months.
New Truth & TV Extra. Auckland, Apr 30, 1999
A CONTROVERSIAL sect headed by a notorious paedophile is paying almost
$100,000--for its own highway to heaven.
The Christian Church Community is set to buy 1.8km of public road AND a bridge
leading to its headquarters at Haupiri, on the West Coast of the South Island,
from Grey District Council.
The commune says it has frequently been the target of vandals and thieves and
the purchase will heighten security and protect members from unwanted
intruders.Group leader Hopeful Christian, aka Neville Cooper, was jailed for five years
in 1994 on 10 charges of indecent sexual assault, including using a wooden
penis-shaped object on a 19-year-old woman.
Cooper, 71, is the spiritual leader of 300 devoted followers known as "Cooperites" living at the commune. His wife Ruth, 21, is 50 years his junior. Grey District Council expects opposition to the asset sale. But its CEO Paul Pretorius claims opponents do not understand the facts. "Some ratepayers think closure and sale of the road and bridge will deny them access to Haupiri River," he says.
"However, the public road is a dead end to another farm of the same landowner (the Christian community) and the road leading to the river is a private road. "Access to the river depends on the landowner granting approval." Pretorius says the cash windfall from the sale is much needed and will swell council coffers. "It makes good economic sense," he says. An independent valuer claims the road is worth $13,500, and the bridge $80,000. Greymouth police say the close-knit group has been subjected to abusive crime and vandalism for about eight years. The commune will take over responsibility for the maintenance and upkeep of the road and bridge once the sale is completed.
The Press. Christchurch, November 28, 1996
Religious leader Hopeful Christian left Paparua Prison along the stock route
yesterday to avoid news media after his release on parole.
Christian, 69, formerly known as Neville Cooper, was sentenced to a five-year
jail term in December last year. The District Prison Board granted his release
after a parole hearing on Tuesday.
The three charges of indecent assault related to incidents at the Cust Christian Community, which he headed, in 1985. He sexually assaulted a then 19- year-old woman with a wooden, penis-shaped object. Christian was sentenced to six years prison in 1994, but the Court of Appeal quashed the sentences and his convictions and ordered a new trial. He was found guilty at his second trial in December last year and resentenced.
Prison sources said yesterday that Christian was quiet in prison and did not mix with other inmates. He was released from Paparua Prison yesterday instead of the usual release facility at Addington Prison. Christchurch Prison's general manager, Tony Spencer, said he had wanted to avoid the news media.
Evening Post. Wellington, May 7th, 1996
Religious leader Hopeful Christian has failed to have his five- year jail
sentence for indecent assault reduced.
The Court of Appeal in Wellington yesterday upheld the sentence, imposed last
December in the Christchurch District Court.
The three charges of indecent assault from January 1984 related to a then 19- year-old member of Christian's community who said she was penetrated with a wooden object. Christian said she was given the object and encouraged to use it on herself as therapy.
Christian, 69, led a private religious group which had communities in North Canterbury and on the West Coast. He stood trial in 1994, was found guilty of 10 charges and jailed for six years. He appealed and was granted a retrial last year, at which only the three most serious indecent assault charges were prosecuted. On conviction he was sentenced to five years jail.
His lawyer Chris McVeigh said Christian originally appealed the conviction and sentence but the conviction appeal was abandoned. He said he could find no comparable cases in which a sentence as harsh as five years jail was imposed. The maximum for the offence in 1984 was seven years jail. The term gave the appearance of being imposed under the new law allowing for a 20-year maximum.
Delivering the Court of Appeal's judgment, Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum said the offences had been a gross invasion of the victim's body, that led to injury. The sentence was near or at the top of the range available but not manifestly excessive. The court rejected a submission that Christian got a substantially longer sentence after the second trial than he had at the first trial, when four years was imposed for the indecent assault charges. Sir Thomas said the four years was calculated with a five-year starting point, and taking into account cumulative sentences imposed for other offences and Christian's age and health.
The Press. Christchurch, October 14, 2006
When Venkata Siva Rayavarapu deserted the West Coast commune where he lived for
three years, he felt a great weight lift from his shoulders. "I felt like I
came out of prison. I felt light," says the 22-year-old student from southern
India. "I looked at the flowers on the side of the road. They were yellow and bright."
Inside Gloriavale Christian Community, life was a regime dictated by leaders
who demanded obedience and hard toil on the 1700-hectare farm at Haupiri, 70
kilometres inland from Greymouth.
Home for Rayavarapu is the poor Hanuman Junction, outside the southern city of Hyderabad. He happened to meet one of Gloriavale's leaders who was visiting India to help the needy and arrangements were made for Rayavarapu to come to New Zealand to study. The deal was for him to study community life and agriculture at Gloriavale and then return to help his own people in India. Gloriavale picked up his considerable travel, education, medical and living costs, as well as helping his family in India.
Rayavarapu and his father signed an agreement that he would live under the direction of Gloriavale leaders and not leave or talk to outsiders without their counsel and approval. Should he leave the tight-knit community, he would be on a flight back to India. He promised not to live anywhere else in New Zealand. Rayavarapu ended up breaching that agreement on all counts and battling the Immigration Service to stay in the country after a massive falling out with the Gloriavale community.
He claims he was driven to breach his agreement because he felt pressured into marrying a 17-year-old Mexican girl who he did not love. "They wanted me to marry someone that I would never think about. It felt strange to me. "One day I would like to have children but I have my own thoughts on when this will be. I will marry when I want to." But Gloriavale says Rayavarapu was using its community as a backdoor to gaining New Zealand residency. "We want to help needy people overseas but will not be party to those who use our help as a stepping stone to stay in New Zealand," says a leader, Fervent Stedfast.
Rayavarapu's case offers a rare portal into the closed world of Gloriavale Christian Community and Garden of Children, overlooking the shores of remote Lake Haupiri. Outsiders remember them as the Cooperites, from their early days at Springbank, a property near Cust, North Canterbury. Their leader was, and still is, Hopeful Christian (formerly Neville Cooper),who is now 80 years old. His third wife, Ruth, is about 55 years his junior and they have four children.
The community's troubles became very public in 1993, two years after the Haupiri sect was founded, when girls and boys complained to the police that they had been sexually assaulted at Cust. Hopeful Christian was tried by a jury, found guilty of 10 of the 11 charges and jailed for six years in 1994, only to have his sentence and convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal the next year.
He was retried on the three most serious indecent assault charges and sentenced to five years jail. Christian's crime was sexually assaulting a then 19-year- old woman with a wooden, penis-shaped object. Christian's own daughter, who does not want to be named, has heard stories like Rayavarapu's many times over. She is often tracked down by young men who have left the community and need help establishing a life on the outside.
The woman left the commune herself a few decades ago and well knows the psychological pressures they face. "They (Gloriavale) would say that you've got free choice. But if you go and tell them that you're going to leave, then you'll get hauled into a men's meeting for hours, until you decide you're perhaps going to stay.
"If you're going to go then they'll want you to go to Australia or somewhere way out of it so you can't cause any trouble." While 90 per cent of its practices are good, community life is marred by the tight controls on members, the lack of free will and the fear of eternal damnation if members left, Christian's daughter says. "It's fear that holds everybody there. For years after leaving I'd wake up in a cold sweat, thinking `I don't want to go to hell'."
Since moving to the coast in 1991, Gloriavale has grown to more than 400 members and is a key contributor to the district's economy. More than 360,000kg of milk solids are sent to the Westland Dairy Company each year, according to a pamphlet Gloriavale has produced about its community. The 1200-strong herd also provides meat, milk, icecream, butter, cream, yoghurt and cheese. More than 1400 deer are raised for venison, trophy heads and Gloriavale's own brand of deer-velvet products. They also rear ostriches.
Gloriavale owns Air West Coast, which runs weekday services from Greymouth and Westport to Wellington and charter flights. Avkair Ltd, a fixed-wing and helicopter maintenance facility, has customers flying in from around the South Island. Company documents show the businesses are communally owned by members with names like Willing Disciple, Justice Faithful and Trust Helpful.
Sphagnum moss is exported to Japan and as liners for hanging baskets to the United States under the trade name Angel Moss. A team of Gloriavale telemarketers rise early to service United States clients and agents. Another venture cooks and dries deer offal into a powder called venison meal, exported to the US and Europe as an ingredient in pet food. The tallow byproduct is sold to Asia for soap-making. The women in their long, navy-blue dresses, buttoned tightly up the neck, and white headscarves are well accepted as they go about their business in the outside world.
Trades are highly prized in the commune. In 15 years, members have built a large community building, two accommodation blocks, two rotary dairies, farm sheds, an aircraft hangar, hydro-electricity station and processing factories. Some men learn a second trade, after mastering their first one.
The women's work is home making and rearing large families, sometimes as many as 13 children. Birth control is considered as murderous as abortion. Women prepare about 7000 meals a week and wash 8000 laundry items. They bottle fruit, make butter and cheese, sew members' clothes and soft furnishings, and supervise the pre-school. Gloriavale's school is accredited to teach skills in apparel, business administration, laundry,
