Another legal action worthy of special attention began in 1992, when an unnamed British mother of a Family International Member, referred to in court documents only as ‘Mrs T.’, sued for custody of her grandchild. The case fell to the Right Hounourable Lord Justice Alan Ward. In an unusually thorough investigation into what on the surface seemed like a simple custody case, Lord Justice Ward solicited eyewitness testimony from people all over the world, including Berg’s granddaughter Merry. He also consulted with a number of psychiatrists and healthcare officials before hearing the case three years later. The hearing itself took over two months (seventy-five days). Ward’s finding, issued in a 295-page report, found that despite the vehement denials, the Children of God/Family of Love officers committed numerous transgressions. Among them, lying:

In ‘Deceivers yet True,’ June 1979, Berg seemed to countenance deceit and sometimes outright lies to accomplish God’s purpose….”

…I regret to find that in many instances [during these proceedings] there has been a lack of frankness and a failure to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth....

In particular, lying about their sexuality.

No doubt the pedant World Services would contend that the Family do not believe in ‘total promiscuity’ because it would no doubt be defined by The Family as sexual activity born of lust. But the Family do believe in sexual activity freely enjoyed by consenting parties who can convince themselves that they are each sacrificing the sanctity of their body in order ‘lovingly’ to satisfy a need of the other. In its way this is an example of dissembling the truth--deceiving yet true.

He especially chastised them for their mischaracterization of Flirty-Fishing:

I am quite satisfied that most of the women who engaged in this activity and the subsequent refinement of ESing, (which was finding men through escort agencies), did so in the belief that they were spreading God's word. But I am also totally satisfied that that was not Berg's only purpose. He and his organization had another and more sordid reason. They were procuring women to become common prostitutes. They were knowingly living in part on the earnings of prostitution. That was criminal activity. Their attempts to deny this must be dismissed as cant and hypocrisy. To deny that the girls were acting as prostitutes because 'we are not charging but we expect people to show their thanks and their appreciation and they ought to give more for love than if we charged them' is an unacceptable form of special pleading....

Lord Justice Ward also cited the doctrinal support of pedophilia and other illicit sex:

The meaning [of Mo Letters pertaining to sex] is perfectly clear. Berg advocates the enjoyment of this new freedom to engage in sexual activity with whomever one desires regardless of the age of that person or the closeness of the relationship to that person subject only to such restraint as is encapsulated in the admonition that the activity must be engaged in love and that is to say ‘without endangering anyone, or harming anyone, or infringing on anyone else’s freedoms and other rights,’ quoting from the original Law of Love....

He found the practice of FFing injurious to minors:

I also find it disturbing that The Family cannot see that the practice of FFing was harmful to minors. Such harms arose from these matters: -- (a) The children were exposed to explicit literature…; (c ) I am satisfied that the ‘Jesus Babies’ [kids conceived out of ff-ing] suffer from the knowledge that their father is unknown to them and that they had no contact with their father....

Furthermore, he found The Story of Davidito and other cult literature bordering on child pornography, and powerful evidence of sexual abuse of children:

If that picture [i.e., the depiction of Ricky Rodriguez’ daily life] is accurate, then it gives some idea of the sexual ethos of the place--the couple engaging in sexual activity in the pool and the nanny and her boyfriend having sexual intercourse in the bed in the boy’s presence. It gets worse....

I have no doubt from the context of the book as a whole that what Sarah was required to kiss was his [Rodriguez’s] penis....

Taking the gloves off, Lord Justice Ward commented on a videotape of pedophilic activity taken from the Philippines and placed into evidence:

Video number 5 is the ‘Love Video.’ It shows young children dancing, two girls together, scenes of masturbation and sexual intercourse or simulated sexual intercourse, a testimony from a girl called Joan admitting that she masturbated....

Let’s stop it there, shall we?

As I said, Lord Justice Ward conducted a thorough investigation, and thus gave many more examples than this. But by now, I think it should be abundantly clear that he found numerous instances of legal infractions, flight from prosecution and, most important, abuse of children.

So, in the case of Mrs. T. v. the Family, whom do you think Lord Justice Ward found for, and why?

I’ll give you a hint: it followed an increasingly predictable pattern happening all over the world.