This story discusses graphic details of abuse.
Gloriavale leaders claimed God must have blessed the food that killed Prayer Ready in an isolation room at the Christian commune and lied about the circumstances surrounding her choking death, a former member says.
Six Gloriavale women are seeking a ruling that they were employees, not volunteers, working in slave-like conditions at the Gloriavale commune (pictured). Photo: Google Maps
Anna Courage told an Employment Court hearing the death of her 14-year-old aunty in 2015 was a turning point in the life of her entire family.
She said a leader claimed in high school prayer time that Prayer's death was part of God's plan.
"It was bad enough that she had died, but then the leaders lied to every single person about her and about the events around her death," she said.
"Then they said that God must have blessed the food that killed her because everything is God's plan."
Courage is one of six former Gloriavale woman seeking a ruling they were employees, not volunteers, during their time at the West Coast sect - a claim the community's leaders strongly deny.
She told the court Gloriavale founder Hopeful Christian was a convincing, charismatic man who had a way of making people do whatever he wanted.
"He could convince you your shoelaces were tied when you were wearing velcros," she said.
"He had practice, and lots of it, so convincing five people from the government that this was a fully-functional, working, wonderful Christian place, that would have been icing on the cake for him."
Gloriavale's community concerts, which involved four hours of free entertainment, food and gifts, amounted to bribery, Courage said.
"I used to think the reason the concerts were founded was to bribe all the people Hopeful had invited to stay out of his business and to give them a reason to keep staying out of his business," she said.
She said Christian claimed a Gloriavale woman who had a mental breakdown and was dragged screaming out of a meeting was filled with evil spirits.
"We got told that she was filled with demons and she had to be sent away to have the demons cast out of her," she said.
Courage was born into Gloriavale and tried to run away twice at the age of seven and 12.
The community's children were told they legally had to live with their parents until the age of 18 or Oranga Tamariki would take them away to live with "horrible people", Courage said.
She told the court she was always hungry, did gruelling work and once fell asleep at an ironing board and burnt her arm.
Exhausted, overworked girls on Gloriavale's teams were "zombies" and the community was a machine designed to control and subjugate, Courage said.
"To leave you have to get to the point where you don't care that you're going to go to hell," she said.
She told the court she was suicidal before she eventually left on her own at the age of 17 and was sent to live with her grandparents in Australia in 2018.
"When I got there I was in a lot of shock. Every time I saw a blue dress that reminded me of the Gloriavale dresses I had a panic attack," she said.
Courage returned to New Zealand three months later and said she still found some days harder than others.
"There are some days when I wake up and I absolutely freak out, it's all been a dream and I'm late for duty," she said.
Leaver Rosanna Overcomer told the court she would pray to die in her sleep so she did not have to face life at Gloriavale.
"Every night I would go to bed and pray that God will kill me in my sleep or that he would give me an incurable disease so that I could die quickly and wouldn't have to live there any more," she said.
As a child, Overcomer said she was so hungry she would eat sour grass from the paddock.
When she was upset about her brother leaving the commune, Overcomer said Hopeful Christian thumped her on the shoulder and told her she should be rejoicing because God had cleansed his church by getting rid of him.
She left the commune with her husband and children in 2013.
On Wednesday the mother-of-six testified workplace sexual harassment was normal at Gloriavale, where leaders would grab girls' bottoms, unzip their dresses or ping their bra straps in the kitchen.
The community's leaders have said they do not condone sexual offending and have taken steps to address it.
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The National Network of Family Violence Services NZ has information on specialist family violence agencies.
