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	Church Sex Abuse Claims By Jeremy Roberts The Australian July 21, 2007 http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,22108310-2702,00.html?from=public_rss AN Anglican Church leader escaped sanction over sex abuse complaints, despite an independent investigator finding that the evidence against him was credible and consistent with a pattern of preying on vulnerable women. In one case, a woman gave church investigators a sworn statement that she had attempted to commit suicide after, she alleged, Archdeacon Peter Coote let himself into her Adelaide home, stripped naked and had sex with her. Two other women provided the church with graphic accounts of how the married priest and father of five had made uninvited sexual advances towards them, also following visits to their homes. The case has stirred outrage among Anglicans in the diocese of the Murray, which takes in Adelaide's south and the regional centre of Murray Bridge, because of the failure by the local bishop to enforce the recommendations of a church disciplinary committee to subject Archdeacon Coote to a "prohibition order" and also to restrict his contact with women parishioners. The Weekend Australian has obtained a 2004 report into the allegations, prepared for the diocese's then professional standards committee by former Adelaide police detective Bill Newman. He found that the women complainants were credible and would make convincing or competent witnesses in any proceedings against Archdeacon Coote. "Peter Coote has displayed a course of conduct with the three complainants," Mr Newman said in the report. "If they are all to be believed, and I have no reason to doubt them, he has chosen vulnerable woman (sic) who were on their own." Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall has now been forced to intervene, reviving the church investigation into Archdeacon Coote's behaviour and referring allegations of serious criminal misconduct to the police. Archbishop Aspinall has also launched a review of the church's handling of the case. It will consider whether Bishop of theMurray Ross Davies imposed a "proper sanction" on Archdeacon Coote, who is effectively his No2 in the diocese. The bishop did request that the priest undergo "pyschometric" supervision with the diocesan psychologist but did not subject Archdeacon Coote to a "prohibition order", believing he lacked the legal right to do so. "The allegations that a person has escaped proper sanction is a serious allegation which needs serious examination," Archbishop Aspinall said in a statement to The Weekend Australian. Bishop Davies has denied he acted other than in line with the recommendations of the professional standards committee. All three complainants told The Weekend Australian that they were distressed that Archdeacon Coote had been permitted to retain his senior position in the diocese, and to continue as parish priest in Happy Valley in Adelaide's south. Each complainant gave The Weekend Australian permission to publish details of their statements against Archdeacon Coote, on condition that they not be identified. Archdeacon Coote said he had been advised by his lawyers to make no comment. The then 47-year-old woman identified in Mr Newman's report as Complainant 1 said she had been befriended by Archdeacon Coote after she moved into his then parish. In October 1995 she was single and living with her two children when the priest dropped by uninvited in October 1995. There was no answer at the front door so he went around the back, forcing the door to let himself in. Complainant 1 says she had been trying to sleep and after a "short conversation" Archdeacon Coote undressed. The woman said she had sex with Archdeacon Coote because he had previously made threats to her. The priest had said she would be "locked up in an institution and her children taken away" unless she sought treatment for depression, according to the sworn statement given to Mr Newman. "I was vulnerable because I was alone, depressed and I felt pressured by his constant visits." Feeling humiliated, the woman said she "closed the door and cried and cried" before taking an overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol. She was treated in hospital for several days. Complainant 1 said she had tried to put the encounter out of her mind, but decided to come forward after seeing Archdeacon Coote on television in 2003. Complainant 2, who was 51 when she gave her statement in 2004, said she invited Archdeacon Coote to her house in mid-1996 to show him some renovations. She said he walked to her bedroom and when she went to close the door he pushed her on to the bed and climbed on top of her. Complainant 2 said she shoved Archdeacon Coote aside and demanded that he leave. Complainant 3, 32 when she signed her statement, said that in August 2003 Archdeacon Coote had dropped off baptism certificates for her children at her home. He then began sending her sexually suggestive text messages, the woman said in her sworn statement. She did not keep the messages, but recalled one text saying: "Could be like Shane Warne." The complainants separately approached figures in the church in 2003 and 2004, triggering the internal investigation. The South Australian police subsequently received an anonymous complaint about Archdeacon Coote, but it was not clear yesterday whether the women's names had been provided to the police prior to Archbishop Aspinall's intervention. In late 2005 the Murray diocese's then professional standards committee recommended to Bishop Davies that a prohibition order be imposed on Archdeacon Coote requiring him to undergo psychosexual assessment to determine if "any further restrictions or actions" were necessary. The committee recommended that until the tests were carried out, Archdeacon Coote have weekly supervision for six months and be restricted from ministering to women when alone. In January last year, Bishop Davies decided not to impose the sanctions, because he believed he did not have the legal right to take the action against Archdeacon Coote. "This case was out of my hands from the beginning and my only input is to either accept or reject the recommendations of the PSC," Bishop Davies wrote in a report to his diocesan council. Bishop Davies, however, did request that the priest undergo "pyschometric" supervision with the diocesan psychologist. But according to Jill Herve, a senior lay member of the diocesan council, in letters to the three alleged victims dated May 22, the sessions were of limited use. "I believe that (Archdeacon Coote) attended a few sessions but these were not very fruitful," she informed the three complainants.
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