Anglican Church Failed to Censure Alleged Paedophile Priests

By Dan Box
The Australian
November 21, 2013

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/anglican-church-failed-to-censure-alleged-paedophile-priests/story-e6frg6nf-1226765287768

THE Anglican Church failed to take disciplinary action against three alleged paedophile priests - one of whom was later convicted for indecent assault - despite receiving several reports they had abused children, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard this morning.

All three men were allowed to continue to publicly describe themselves as a priest and attend worship.

One, the Reverend Campbell Brown, had a licence to officiate at church services until June this year, the commission has heard.

The former Professional Standards Director of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton in northern NSW, Phillip Gerber, told the commission he did not report allegations of abuse committed by Reverend Brown to police for over a year.

"I'm not trying to defend myself. It might have potentially ... put other people at risk, children and vulnerable people at risk. I'm appalled that my actions might have caused that," he told the commission.

Reverend Brown, the late Reverend Winston Morgan and Reverend Allan Kitchingam were alleged to have sexually abused boys at the North Coast Children's Home in Lismore between the 1950s and 1970s.

Reverend Kitchingam was subsequently convicted for indecent assault, the commission heard, while the diocese received the first of a series of allegations against the other men from their alleged victims in 2005.

Mr Gerber told the commission he did not refer either Reverend Brown or Reverend Morgan to police until December 2006, and that none of the three was entered into the church's National Register of allegedly abusive priests.

Nor were any of the men formally disciplined by the church over the alleged abuse, the commission has heard.