Anglican Bishop Roger Herft ‘berated’ Mother over Priest Abuse

By Dan Box
The Australian
August 5, 2016

http://goo.gl/5aZToS

The Anglican Archbishop of Perth, Roger Herft, “berated” the mother of a child abuse victim after she discovered his diocese kept no records of a complaint that her son had been assaulted by a trainee priest, a royal commission has heard.

The woman, who cannot be named, subsequently received a $2000 “gift” from the diocese, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard today.

“I believe that the payment was an attempt at buying us off,” she said.

Her 14-year-old son, who also cannot be named, was preyed upon by trainee priest Ian Barrack, in the NSW diocese of Newcastle during 1998, the commission heard. Archbishop Herft was bishop of the diocese at the time

The woman, who was herself training to become a priest, said Barrack would buy her son presents including a wind-up toy figure of a man having sex with a sheep.