The Australian branch of the Church of Scientology helped a stepfather cover up his sexual assault of his pre-teen daughter and blamed the girl for the attacks, the victim has revealed. The daughter, now an adult, says her stepdad molested her from the ages of 7 to 11, and that Scientology official Jan Eastgate told her and her mother to lie to police about the abuse—and that it was her own fault, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
"'Just say no, she kept repeating that. Don't say yes because otherwise you will be taken away from your parents and you'll never see your family again," Carmen Rainer recalled being told. ''They told me it was my fault because I'd been bad in a past life. I believed them. I was 11, that's what I knew. I grew up believing what they believed." Eastgate said Rainer's claims are false and that the church insisted that Rainer's stepfather go to the police in 1999. Rainer made a statement to police in 2001, which led to her stepfather's arrest and conviction for indecent assault.
