Paedophile Anglican Priest Presided over Ivan Milat Murder Victim Service without Church Authority

By Giselle Wakatama
ABC News
August 5, 2016

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-05/paedophile-priest-milat-memorial-service/7695464

A New South Wales priest forced to resign after abusing a child presided over a high profile memorial service two years after being pushed out of his job.

The now-dead Anglican paedophile priest Stephen Hatley Gray was placed on a good behaviour bond in 1990 for abusing a boy at Wyong on the central coast.

His case is a focus of a royal commission hearing into the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle.

Parishioners and the boy's family said they were assured Gray would never practice again.

But the ABC has learned he presided over a televised memorial service in the Belanglo State Forest in honour of two backpacker victims of Ivan Milat in 1992.

The Anglican Diocese of Sydney has told the ABC it is appalled.

"It has now been brought to our attention that some two years after his offending in Newcastle, Gray conducted what he claimed was a memorial service at Belanglo forest for the victims of the backpacker killer," the diocese said in a statement.

"As we understand it, this was not held in an Anglican church, so we are not aware of what he claimed it to be, but he certainly had no authority to conduct any Anglican service.

"It is appalling that he caused further distress to his victim and his family by this action."

The diocese said Gray had been asked not to come back to Sydney when he left in 1988.

"We wish to make it clear that Stephen Hatley Gray had no ecclesiastical authority in the Diocese of Sydney beyond 1988," the statement read.

"In 1987 and 1988, prior to his moving to Newcastle and his offences there, he was given authority to officiate for two separate periods of one year, and for one parish only in east Sydney.

"He was then told by Bishop John Reid that he would never again be granted authority to conduct services in the Diocese of Sydney."

The diocese said it was committed to helping the royal commission.

"The Diocese of Sydney fully supports the work of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and acknowledges the devastating, deep and lasting effects of abuse on survivors, and on their families and friends," the statement read.

Gray died in 2010.