Former Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton Admits He Had " Fallen Very Short" in His Oversight

By Matthew Benns
The Telegraph
November 26, 2013

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/former-bishop-of-the-anglican-diocese-of-grafton-admits-he-had-fallen-very-short-in-his-oversight/story-fni0cx12-1226768754992

Former Grafton Diocese Bishop Keith Slater in the witness box of the Royal Commission.

SMILING Bishop Keith Slater smiles so much he apologised for doing it before giving evidence at the harrowing royal commission into child sex abuse today.

"I apologise in advance if I may seem to smile at time which is not appropriate," he explained. It was just his "personality".

But there was nothing to smile about as the commission heard a litany of Bishop Slater's failures to help more than 40 victims of physical and sexual child abuse at the former North Coast Children's Home in Lismore, adequately compensate them or report their church abusers to authorities.

"On reflection," Bishop Slater agreed in the witness box, that withdrawing the church's compensation offer to victims at one stage to help broker a better settlement was at odds with any kind of moral approach.

Commission chair, Justice Peter McClennan, said: "When you say 'the settlement being brokered' I take it what you mean is achieving the best outcome for the church?"

"I guess that would be a way of putting it, yes," said Bishop Slater. No smile.

The royal commission is examining the response of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to the claims of horrific physical and sexual child abuse at the Lismore home by at least 12 priests and members of staff over 48 years.

Bishop Slater explained the Diocese was concerned about money at the time because of a $10 million debt. However the commission has heard the trustees of the diocese had assets worth more than $200 million.

Justice McClellan said: "There were a lot of assets and not much cash, putting it bluntly."

Despite this, Bishop Slater said it did not occur to him to reorganise the assets to free up more cash for the victims.

This was despite repeated concerns from the head of the Anglican Church, The Most Rev Dr Phillip Aspinall, that the Diocese was "playing hardball" with the victims.

The majority of the victims eventually received a payout of $825,000 which came to less than $10,000 each after costs. They also received an apology signed by Bishop Slater which denied the home was the church's responsibility.

Another victim received a letter from Bishop Slater offering to put her in touch with a priest for pastoral care - to which she replied that it was "inappropriate" because she had actually been sexually molested by a priest.

Richard "Tommy" Campion, the victim who first raised the alarm about the home, chose to fight on. At one crucial meeting with the church, Bishop Slater refused to fund a lawyer for him despite the church having legal representation.

Dr Aspinall finally suggested to Bishop Slater that he resign after receiving a letter from the former acting registrar of the diocese, Anne Hywood, alerting him to breaches of protocol in dealing with the victims of abuse at the children's home.

Bishop Slater said he had "fallen very short" in his oversight of the protocols. "I am totally humiliated in myself in this regard and I want to express my deepest and profound apologies to any person upon whom this has impacted," he said.