Judgment of Lord Justice Ward

This document, originally 295 pages, was prepared by the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Ward and signed 1995-10-19.

It is a ground-breaking legal document which details not only a trial for custody of a child born into The Family International and resident in the United Kingdom, but also how the writings, doctrines, practices, leadership and the group's treatment of children were placed under scrutiny.

• Complete Judgment of Lord Justice Ward — Editor's Note: Around 650 KB.

Leaving no stone unturned, the court investigated thousands of pages of never before revealed internal documents, employed the opinions of investigative experts and social workers, and personally interviewed many witnesses (see also: Category:Testimony).

Justice Ward ruled that The Family, including its top leadership, had engaged in abusive sexual practices involving minors, as well as severe corporal punishment and sequestration of children. However, in a last minute turn around, he said The Family had abandoned these practices and that they were an acceptably safe environment for children. Conditional custody was granted to the mother, a full-time member of the group, with the requirements that the group cease all corporal punishment of children in the United Kingdom, improve the education of members' children, denounce their founder David Berg's writings, and "acknowledge that through his writings Berg was personally responsible for children in The Family having been subjected to sexually inappropriate behaviour".

As a result of this, The Family accommodated (albeit quietly) the custody-granting condition of admitting wrong-doing on Berg's part for literature which endorsed adult-child sex. In his apology to the Judge, Steven Kelly (Peter Amsterdam) stated:

"The judgement refers in particular to 'The Law of Love' and 'The Devil Hates Sex', and we accept that as the author of ideas upon which some members acted to the harm of minors in 'The Family,' he [Berg] must bear responsibility for that harm. Maria, and all of us in World Services leadership, also feel the burden of responsibilty [...] Further, in 1980 Father David's statements in his discourse entitled 'The Devil Hates Sex' opened the door for sexual behaviour between adults and minors, such sanctioning being the direct cause of later abusive behaviour by some 'Family' members at that time."

However, despite the group publicly renouncing former policies and doctrines that condoned or encouraged sex between adults and minors, in their internal publications there has been no such renunciation. Evidence of this is represented by the following quote from Family leader Karen Zerby:

This [sexual contact between adults and minors] is about the only subject where we're really going along with the System, we're playing along with them, we're acting like we believe what we did was wrong, because we have changed, and stopped doing it [...] We need to somehow explain to our [teenagers] that love and loving affection is not wrong. As it says in [Berg's writings], if it's not hurtful, if it's loving, then it's okay. Of course, having actual intercourse with a child wouldn't be okay as it wouldn't be loving, but a little fondling and sweet affection is not wrong in the eyes of God, and if they have experienced the same in the past they weren't 'abused.' [...] We need to explain to our [children] that any experience they may have had along these lines, if it was loving and if it was desired, was not wrong. We need to show them that even if in some case the experience for them wasn't so great, that by comparison to what goes on in the System, it still wasn't abuse. —[Karen Zerby], Summit '93 Mama Jewels #2, 1992. p.19.