I Failed to Act on Sex Abuse: Herft

West Australian
August 12, 2016

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/32320719/i-failed-to-act-on-sex-abuse-herft/#page1


Perth’s Anglican Archbishop Roger Herft has told a royal commission that he struggles “to find an answer” for failing to act on warnings about a notorious paedophile priest abusing at least one boy in his diocese.

Archbishop Herft gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday, focusing on his level of knowledge of historic claims of child sexual abuse during his time as Bishop of Newcastle between May 1993 and February 2005.

Asked by counsel assisting the royal commission Naomi Sharp if he dropped the ball with serial abuser Father Peter Rushton, Archbishop Herft said he “should have acted more effectively” but did not.

“I don’t know whether ‘dropped the ball’ is an adequate phrase,” Archbishop Herft said.

“I’ve asked myself a number of times why was I not more alert, why weren’t the people around me more alert, why weren’t the other Archdeacons outside of the particular group that we have spoken about more alert. And I struggle to find an answer for that.”

Archbishop Herft conceded that on hearing allegations about Rushton in 2003, he could have revoked his licence.

The commission also heard evidence of two youth group leaders notifying him of two boys approaching them in 1994 or 1995 and disclosing that they had been “sexually interfered with” by defrocked Dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence.

Pressed by Chief Royal Commissioner Peter McClellan on whether the allegations put him “on alert”, Archbishop Herft said Lawrence held a “very significant position” in the diocese and the community at the time.

“For me to proceed with an allegation of this seriousness would have required some, I suppose, evidence would have been important for me to try to pursue the matter,” he said.

Ms Sharp presented the commission with a letter addressed to the youth leaders in which the then-Bishop allegedly wrote: “Further to your meeting with me, I have raised your particular concerns with the priest against whom the allegations were made and he has clearly informed me that as far as he is concerned he is not aware of any indiscretion.

“If the matter is to be pursued further, the person who came to you would need to follow the process formal and I enclose the necessary documents which set this out.”

Archbishop Herft yesterday denied having any recollection of meeting with Lawrence in 1995 to discuss the allegations.

Soon after becoming Bishop of Newcastle in 1993, Archbishop Herft put in place a sexual harassment policy stating “every case of sexual harassment, whether simply innuendo or full scale rape, is of major concern”. But he agreed yesterday that the policy was not prepared with child sex allegations in mind.

Asked whether he understood his obligation to report allegations of child sexual abuse to the police, regardless of his view of the merits of an allegation, Archbishop Herft said he did but he thought there were “some conditions attached to it in terms of the process of complaint”.

The public hearings in Newcastle have been adjourned until August 29.