Amish say kids shouldn't testify

An Amish woman is charged with 21 offences against seven children.

By JONATHAN SHER AND JOE MATYAS, Free Press Reporters

AYLMER -- Amish leaders and parents don't want their children to testify against a woman charged with sexually assaulting and "administering" bugs, worms and rotten meat to them.

Eileen Miller, an Amish woman, has been charged with 21 offences against seven children subpoenaed to testify at her preliminary hearing next week in St. Thomas.

The court hearing prompted Amish leaders to send a letter to authorities on behalf of a community that lives a simple horse-and-buggy lifestyle according to their religious beliefs in the southeast corner of Elgin County.

In the letter, obtained by The Free Press, Bishops Isaac Stoltzfus and Peter Stoll cite biblical passages in Corinth-ians 1, writing their church forbids followers "to go to law one against another, nor to press charges or testify against another."

"To have our children appear in court for this purpose would be in violation of (our) principles," they wrote in the letter, also authorized by five parents of the children.

Miller is not the mother of the children involved in the case.

The bishops and parents said in the letter the children were traumatized when they were questioned by police and social workers and shouldn't be subjected to further anxiety in court.

"We respectfully request that the children be released from having to appear in court," they wrote.

But it appears unlikely their request will be granted.

"I expect them to testify," Crown Attorney Doug Walker said yesterday.

If authorities don't listen to their appeal, the Amish community is resigned to letting the children testify, the bishops said, but it doesn't sit well with them.

"We will have no choice," Stoll said. "We may have to suffer for our beliefs, but we don't think our children should have to."

Stoltzfus said the statements given by the children should be good enough in court and he questioned what good would come from having them testify.

The Amish report serious crimes to authorities and will testify if called upon to do so, he said.

"We abide by the laws of the land as long as they are not in conflict with the laws of God," he said.

He said he would be "very disappointed if a member of our church sent that letter to the newspaper."

The Amish community would prefer to resolve the problem as peacefully as possible, without making it worse, he said.

Miller, 33, is charged with:

- Six counts of sexual assault.

- Sexual interference.

- Two counts of invitation to sexual touching.

- Two counts of assault with a pellet gun.

- Two counts of uttering death threats and one threat of bodily harm.

- Five counts of attempting to render children insensible, unconscious or incapable of resistance by choking, strangling or suffocating.

- One count of administering a noxious thing, specifically rotten meat, bugs and worms.

Chris Bentley, one of two lawyers representing Miller, declined comment yesterday.

The charges were traumatic for an Amish community that has earned respect among those who share their theological beliefs but not their homespun practices, said Abe Harms, director of the Mennonite Central Committee.

"They are friendly, honest and have a strong work ethic," Harms said.

The collision between faith and secular authority is the second in three years in Aylmer. In 2001, the Church of God blocked social workers from children whose parents had been accused of hitting them with objects. A family court hearing that will shape their fate began last May but has not been resolved.