By Sachin Ravikumar
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious organisation was not liable for a 1990 rape committed by a church elder in Wales, in a judgment that reverses two previous decisions by lower courts.
In a unanimous judgment, the Supreme Court reasoned that Mark Sewell, who was convicted of raping the woman in 2014, did not commit the crime while carrying out activities as an elder on behalf of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Judges reassessed whether the Jehovah’s Witnesses could be held vicariously liable — a concept where an organisation can be held indirectly responsible for the actions of an employee or member — for Sewell’s crime following an appeal by the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
A trial judge in 2020 held the Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation in Barry, Wales vicariously liable for the rape, in a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal.
The trial judge had said Sewell’s position as church elder had been an important part of the reason why the woman became his friend, and that she may not have remained friends with Sewell if not for his position as elder.
Sewell was also convicted in 2014 of seven counts of indecently assaulting two other individuals, and had been expelled as a Jehovah’s Witness for unrelated conduct by the time of his conviction.
“Mark Sewell was not exercising control over (the woman) because of his position as an elder,” judge Andrew Burrows said in the Supreme Court’s judgment.
“The driving force behind their being together in the room at the time of the rape was their close personal friendship not Mark Sewell’s role as an elder.”
The Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian denomination founded in the United States in about 1870 and have more than a 100,000 congregations worldwide with 8.7 million members.
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar, Editing by William Maclean)
