Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Jehovah's Witnesses Victoria, British Columbia, Canada · 1989

Canada: congregation elder convicted of sexually assaulting a disabled member of his own congregation

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

elder/bishop, Victoria First Ward congregation

Organization

Victoria First Ward congregation

Spiritual nexus

The victim's vulnerability was heightened by disability, and Nelson's access to her came through his standing as her congregation's leader — the role that put him in a position of unsupervised trust over her.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 1989-05-27 · guilty plea and sentence

    British Columbia Provincial Court, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Robert Kenneth Nelson, a congregation leader in Victoria's First Ward since being assigned to the role in 1979, pleaded guilty on 27 May 1989 to sexual assault of a member of his congregation described in press coverage as 'mentally handicapped.' He was sentenced to two years' probation, 150 hours of community service, and ordered to take a conducted tour of a local jail. He was subsequently removed from his congregational role over the offence.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • congregational leadership standing over a member with a mental disability, giving him access and unquestioned trust

Primary record

Sources

case documentation database sentencing report aggregation FLOODLIT case file on Robert Kenneth Nelson, citing Times Colonist, 'Former Mormon bishop guilty of sexual assault' (27 May 1989) and 'Former bishop on probation for sex assault' (30 May 1989).

Case-documentation aggregator's summary with links to the original Times Colonist newspaper reports of the guilty plea and sentence.

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