Is 'Father Joe' Missing Its Darkest Parts?

Aug. 19, 2004 -- Tony Hendra's best seller, Father Joe, about the priest who saved his soul from drugs, alcohol and reckless self-destruction, has been praised as "luminescent" and "profound" — but someone who says she knows the author well says he left out an important part.

Hendra's daughter Jessica, 39, says the author sexually abused her when she was 7 years old. "It's something that I've lived with for 32 years," she told ABC News' Diane Sawyer. "I guess I just felt it was that I couldn't allow this book to sweep me under the rug again."

Jessica says she didn't suffer every day for years, like some abuse victims do. But the instances still haunt her. "There was one particular occasion when I was 7," she said. "And then there were two other occasions when I was older, about 9 or 10."

She recalls one instance when she was in a room where her sister was sleeping, and she implored her father not to go out. Hendra had a drinking problem, and Jessica was worried he would not come back. He responded, according to Jessica, by saying, "I won't go out, but you have to take your underwear off."

Jessica says she thinks alcohol might have contributed to his behavior. But, she told Sawyer, "he's denied that that had anything to do with it."

Hendra has told other media outlets that Jessica's memories are false and that she had undergone hypnosis. Jessica denies both allegations, and friends say she told them of the abuse decades ago.

In addition, two therapists who treated Jessica for eating disorders also say they believe her.

‘Get Over It’

Hendra has called the allegations "appalling" and "false in every respect." He also says his daughter has a "long history of psychological issues" and that he hopes "she finds all the help she needs."

He also said the timing of Jessica's allegations was curious. She spoke to the press shortly after the book was released. Hendra himself declined to be interviewed by ABC News.

Jessica says she spoke out because Hendra had subjected his life to the public eye and declared that he had been saved and that he had confessed.

"I could not, in any good conscience, let that statement be made without coming forward about this," she said. "I just felt like it was not something that I could live with myself if I didn't say something."

Jessica says she went to her father privately, but "both times he said, 'Get over it. It's not a big deal. I might have, I did that. I did it, yes. Get over it.'"

Jessica told Sawyer she was talking publicly to tell her father "you don't get over these things."

"It's very, very difficult," she said, "and you know I'm sorry that he felt that I should just forget about it, but it wasn't possible."

Taking a Risk

Hendra said his friends think Jessica is motivated by rage and bitterness. A guest book from Hendra's country home in France, provided to ABC News by Hendra, shows loving entries from Jessica and her husband in 2002.

But Jessica says she doesn't hate her father. "I'm gravely, deeply and sadly disappointed in him, but I don't hate him," she said.

Hendra has said he never wants to talk to his daughter again. But Jessica says she has no regrets about going public — not yet, at least. "I knew it could be a he said/she said, but I feel very strongly that I have to take that risk and that the people that I love believe me," she said.

She said she wants her father to tell the truth, even if it might ruin his career. Before writing his best seller, Hendra was a comic writer for the National Lampoon and an actor in movies like the cult classic Spinal Tap.

But she is also hopeful that it won't. "I think the point of his book is that if you confess, salvation and forgiveness are always possible," she said. "I wish he had the moral courage to live that way."

Jessica wasn't only motivated to go public by her allegations of child abuse — she said she was also motivated by her father's "hypocrisy."

Jessica's mother, Judith, supports her daughter and believes her story. Jessica's sister, Katherine, who refused on on-camera interview, gave Good Morning America a statement saying her father "would be the first to admit that he caused much pain in the wake of his personal and spiritual journey, not all of which is forgivable. But he has also done some good."

Two colleagues of Tony Hendra's from the National Lampoon say Hendra had made inappropriate sexual jokes about his daughter when they worked together. Tony Hendra steadfastly insists that the allegations are completely false.

ABC News' Anna Robertson produced this Good Morning America story.