I Failed Abuse Victims: Hollingworth

Daily Telegraph
November 13, 2015

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/penis-complaint-didnt-alarm-ex-principal/story-fni0xqi3-1227607653786

FORMER governor-general Peter Hollingworth has apologised to child victims of sexual abuse and admitted he failed to protect them when he was Anglican archbishop of Brisbane.

"I am extremely sorry that the church and I failed to protect you," Dr Hollingworth told the child sex abuse royal commission on Friday.

The former Archbishop of Brisbane made the statement after taking the stand at the Brisbane hearing and said he deeply regretted he didn't press harder to have complaints investigated more thoroughly.

Dr Hollingworth, who resigned as governor-general in 2003 over the church's handling of the abuse allegations, conceded if he had exercised "stronger authority", matters may well have been addressed more promptly and effectively.

"It's clear to me now that we did not do enough to help you, and actions of the diocese and the school compounded your distress and suffering," he said in reference to St Paul's, one of the schools examined by the inquiry.

He said he was appalled by the abuse suffered by former students of the Anglican-run school by two staff members, the late Kevin John Lynch and twice-convicted pedophile Gregory Robert Knight.

"I am saddened about the way these matters were dealt with during my time as archbishop," he said, having filled the post between 1990 and 2001.

Since then, Dr Hollingworth said he'd gained an enriched understanding of the emotional and psychological toll such abuse took on victims.

He later took questions from counsel assisting the commission, David Lloyd, about the conduct of ex-St Paul's principal Gilbert Case, who earlier told the inquiry he'd felt encouraged by the then-archbishop to successfully apply in April 2000 for a promotion putting him in charge of all Brisbane's Anglican schools.

Dr Hollingworth said he couldn't remember seeing a note from Mr Case to the diocese's former general manager Bernard Yorke in which the former denied one of Lynch's victims complained to him in 1996.

But he agreed the appointment of Mr Case - who earlier gave evidence he didn't think a male teacher fondling a student's genitals was a crime - comprised a "massive failure" in the diocese's recruitment processes.

"We have come a long, long way and it's been a painful journey and not least of all for me," he insisted.

His successor as archbishop, Phillip Aspinall, subsequently told the commission the commercial focus of insurers invoking the limitation defence was often in conflict with the church which wanted to respond compassionately to victims who took legal action.

"The Anglican Church does not want to deny that abuse occurred when we recognise that it did," he said.

"But we are trapped, in a sense, by the terms of these insurance contracts."

Nevertheless, he said the diocese had paid millions of dollars in redress payments to victims in the past despite having no legal liability to do so.

During its fortnight-long sitting in Brisbane, the inquiry has heard Lynch inflicted sadistic abuse on scores of young boys while employed at both St Paul's and Brisbane Grammar before being charged with nine counts of child sex offences in January 1997.

He killed himself the next day.

Knight, who was allowed to resign from St Paul's in October 1984, appeared before the inquiry and conceded he was a convicted pedophile.