Archbishop May Not Have “properly” Reported Paedophile Priest

By Sophie Morris and Nick Butterly
West Australian
July 26, 2016

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/32147540/archbishop-may-not-have-properly-reported-paedophile-priest/#page1

Archbishop Roger Herft. Picture: Bill Hatto

The most senior Anglican in Australia has backed church officers who revealed that the Archbishop of Perth Roger Herft may have failed to properly report details about a notorious paedophile priest in NSW.

Primate of the Anglican Church, Melbourne Archbishop Philip Freier, even offered a prayer of support and gratitude for those who last week said there was no record that Archbishop Herft had referred complaints about the paedophile to police.

He gave no public backing to Archbishop Herft and said the allegations of abuse, aired on the ABC last week, were “shocking and distressing”.

“We pray for the perpetrators of abuse and those involved in covering up this criminal behaviour that they might acknowledge the evil and damage that they have done and be brought to justice with repentance and a will to change their lives,” he said.

Archbishop Freier’s intervention, on behalf of Australian bishops, leaves Archbishop Herft in an awkward position ahead of his appearance in Newcastle in August at the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse.

Within the Anglican Church, complaints against Bishops are investigated by an Episcopal Standards Commission, which could hear any issues arising from Archbishop Herft’s appearance before the Royal Commission.

The Diocese of Perth said Archbishop Herft had been advised by lawyers not to comment ahead of that hearing.

The ABC last week published documents showing Archbishop Herft, as Bishop of Newcastle in 2002, received a complaint about serial offender Father Peter Rushton.

But the Director of professional standards for the Newcastle diocese said there was no record of Archbishop Herft passing the matter onto police.

There are questions as to whether the failure to pass the information on could place the Archbishop in breach of longstanding mandatory child abuse reporting laws.

The ABC reported Archbishop Herft received at least four complaints about Rushton.

A leaked diary note marked confidential recorded that Archbishop Herft said an unnamed priest came to see him on October 2002 to raise concerns Rushton had abused a child 15 to 20 years earlier.

Archbishop Herft wrote at the time the complaint “left me in an unenviable position” because “Father Peter had my licence (to be a priest) and if he re-offended I would be held liable as I now had prior knowledge of his alleged behaviour.”