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CHURCH Boss "Berated" Mum When She Complained Her Son's Sex Assault Complaint Was Not Recorded

9 News
August 5, 2016

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/05/03/34/church-stopped-keeping-problem-priest-list

Roger Herft, Archbishop of the Diocese of Perth, 'berated' a mother when she complained the diocese had not recorded her son's complaint. (AAP)

A mother who is an Anglican priest says her church showed no compassion once she reported her son had been abused by a man training to be a priest.

The woman, using the pseudonym CKR, said Bruce Hoare, archdeacon in charge of ordinations at Morpeth College near Maitland, laughed when she told him a 28-year-old theology student had given her 13-year-old son a wind-up figurine of a man thrusting his penis into a sheep.

And she said Bishop Roger Herft, now Archbishop of Perth, "berated" her when she complained the diocese had not recorded her son's sex assault complaint against the trainee priest.

CKR's son CKU also gave evidence at a royal commission on Thursday and said he reported to police in 2002 about being groomed, shown pornography, molested and hounded by Ian Barrack when he lived with his mother at St John's College in Morpeth in 1997.

Morpeth College was a seminary where Anglican clergy trained and has been referred to at the commission as "Satan's Playground" because of the high number of pedophile priests who studied there.

Barrack was jailed for two years in 2005. CKR said from the time she went to then archdeacon Hoare with the complaint about the offensive toy she was treated badly within the diocese.

A file photo of Archbishop Roger Heft. (AAP)

She said Hoare, later defrocked for having group sex with a teenage boy, did not seem to find the toy offensive and only changed his demeanour when she expressed her "revulsion at a toy showing an act of bestiality".

He told her he would show it to Bishop Herft and later gave her back the toy and told her to return it to Barrack.

CKR again went to Mr Hoare when in 2002 CKU disclosed the full extent of the abuse by the trainee priest.

She had meetings with Bishop Herft, someone from DoCS and a policeman and assumed the matter would be pursued through the diocesan professional standards process.

CKR learned in 2003 from a woman chairing the committee dealing with sex abuse allegations no record of her son's complaint had been made.

She was also told that Bruce Hockman, the diocese's business manager, had said at a meeting with Bishop Herft and other senior officials "Oh, we don't have to worry about this case. It's not going to get to court." The diocese later sent her son $2000 as a gift when they heard he was going to travel overseas.

CKR took civil action which took years to settle.

"Throughout the entire ordeal I have felt that the Church has never acted fairly, compassionately or pastorally", she said.

CKR said from the time her ex-husband, also a priest, studied at Morpeth in 1979-1981 there were rumours of sexual activity including that some of the would-be priests preferred young boys.

On Monday solicitor Keith Allen, former trustee and member or the diocesan council in Newcastle, will continue evidence he started on Friday.

He is being questioned about an apparent conflict of interest where he was advising the diocese and a solicitor making a claim against the diocese.

 

 

 

 

 




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