Those actions were within their rights and, had Andrew Evans and his mates simply paid out the monies owing to the people in question, they could have all gotten on with their lives.

But instead, Andrew Evans and the rest of the AOG National Executive chose to withhold wages and commissions owing to those three people. They also seized control of the Independent Churches Insurance program belonging to Greg Sowerby.

Greg and Meredith Sowerby have had their home invaded by the Police, had a filing cabinet of documents relating to Greg’s Independent Churches Insurance program impounded, were interrogated for many hours on several separate occasions—both at Police Headquarters and at their home. They have been embarrassed in front of their neighbours; slandered in front of their customers; and their children have been frightened and humiliated.

That complaint went first to the Fraud Task Squad, then, on 15 March 1994, because there was no evidence of any fraud, it was passed to Detective Senior Constable Brenton Rowney of Adelaide Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB). At 6:05 pm on the same day he attended the home of Greg and Meredith Sowerby and seized the Independent Churches Insurance program files and began the difficult task of trying to sort the truth from the various allegations.

But this was not good enough for Andrew Evans and the rest of the AOG National Executive, and so they paid Lewis Hutchinson, Commercial Lawyers, to lodge an official “Letter of Complaint… concerning the investigation by Det B.J. Rowney No 2781/4…”

We do not know the date on which the complaint was lodged, but the detective’s written defence is dated 18 May 1994. Addressed to the “Officer in Charge, Adelaide C.I.B.”, it occupies thirteen pages.

According to Detective Chief Inspector Peter Graham (formerly of Adelaide CIB), there were two complaints made against the officer—first that he was “procrastinating”, and second, that he had adopted “a conciliatory rather than an investigative role” in handling the case.

The question to be answered is, Why did the Executive place such pressure (with its implied threat to his career) on the police officer?

Were they hoping to impress on the officer the true nature of Christian forgiveness and thus win the man to Christ? Or were they trying to pressure him into hastily laying criminal charges against Pastor Greg Sowerby, thereby vindicating their slanderous actions?

For example:

Contrary to the statement by the Executive’s solicitor on 22 December 1993, that “you were not permitted to sell insurance apart from personal contacts of your own”, the detective states:
“There is no directive to prevent Sowerby from selling his own I.M.S. insurance Non A.O.G. policies as opposed to selling A.O.G. policies. Sowerby was allowed to run his own business as a side issue by Nation(al) Executive of A.O.G.”

The Executive have made much of some comments by individuals employed at ANSVAR. But the detective made the following comment:
“There is correspondence from Ansvar that stated they believed the profits from the business between Sowerby and Ansvar was to benefit A.O.G. Churches and not Sowerby. There is no available documentation to support this allegation.”

And on the subject of who the Independent Churches Insurance program belonged to:
“The original application that is made to Ansvar to open the agency is made in the name of G.M. & M.A. Sowerby (Insurance Management Services). There is no other documentation other than the original application.”

And again:
“There is no documentary evidence to support any claims made by Ansvar, in fact the only documentary evidence supports an agreement between Ansvar and G.M. and M.A. Sowerby (Insurance Management Services).”

The investigating Police Officer made a comment in the report that: “I have doubts as to the quality of any witness within the AOG Insurance Fund”.

The files which had been seized by the Police were returned to their rightful owner—Greg Sowerby.

[ Read the Police Report for yourself. ]

The meeting was marred by several attempts at verbal intimidation by the two National Executive members. But the worst aspect of the meeting was their total denial of the AOG National Executive’s actions in paying a solicitor to lodge an official complaint against Detective Brenton Rowney.

(Apparently the Executive resented the fact that the police had spent some of their time clearing up cases involving rape, murder and robbery, rather than focusing exclusively on their trumped-up charges—charges which were unsupported by any evidence.)

On the next day, Greg spoke by phone to Detective Chief Inspector Peter Graham and repeated the denials of the Executive members. The Inspector offered to speak to any National Executive member who would ring him. He would read out the exact details of the charges and who laid them.

Greg informed the Executive of this opportunity for them all to obtain the facts, only to be greeted by a deafening silence. The National Executive members, Andrew Evans most noticeably, already knew all they wanted to about this cowardly attempt to hurt Pastor Greg Sowerby by casually damaging the career of an innocent policeman.

Since that time, Andrew Evans has been trumpeting that he has achieved “reconcilation” with his victims.

But ask yourself this question:
If, after many years of faithful service to your church, you were sacked, had your business stolen, were falsely accused to the Police, suffered an intense twelve month Police investigation, were defamed nationally in front of your colleagues, and then were suddenly “reconciled”, what would you expect to see happen?

—Would you expect to be offered your old job back?
—Would you expect to have your business returned to you?
—Would you expect to receive a public apology?
—Would you expect to have the Police Report showing that there were no charges to answer published by your now reconciled enemies?
—Would you expect to receive compensation for your losses?
—Would you expect to see the many AOG churches who deserted your Fuelcard business (only to have those churches pay a higher price for fuel) return?

You would probably expect all of those and possibly more.

What has Greg Sowerby received from the AOG National Executive since being “reconciled” with them?

Not only has Greg received none of those things, but the AOG National Executive is spending many tens of thousands of dollars to sue him in the Federal Court.

They have been able to use economic duress to force Greg into signing a worthless piece of paper with the word “Reconcilation” on it, for their own propaganda purposes. But there is no more reconciliation today than there was on 22 June 1996, when they commenced that legal action against him.

The advantage of arranging purely cosmetic “reconcilations” is that they can keep gullible AOG pastors quiet, without paying any of their debts!