Graeme Lawrence Gives His Long-awaited Evidence

By Ian Kirkwood
Newcastle Herald
November 18, 2016

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4302406/defrocked-dean-takes-the-royal-commission-witness-stand/

THE defrocked former Anglican dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence, has begun his long-awaited stint of evidence before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Taking the stand under oath after the lunch break, an at-times combative Mr Lawrence was taken through his relationships – professional and social – with the other main Anglican figures named in this section of the commission’s investigations.

Having been mentioned so frequently during this inquiry, Mr Lawrence’s evidence was always going to be pivotal, and he clashed from early on with the counsel assisting the commission, Naomi Sharp.

Although he was forced by the revelation of documents to modify some of his early evidence, he insisted that while he was dean of Christ Church Cathedral from 1984 to 2008, he had only ever heard one allegation of an Anglican clergyman abusing children, that of priest CKC accused of abusing a person code-named CKA.

He said he understood that the diocese had a “yellow envelope” system holding complaints against clergy but he had never personally seen the envelopes.

He said he had never been on a committee dealing with clerical child sex abuse and had never been in a position of leadership when it came to handling child sexual abuse allegations at Newcastle.

He expected that the bishop of the day, Roger Herft, would lead that process and he did not expect to have matters drawn to his attention by the bishop.

He denied asking another priest to write a reference for an accused priest, Stephen Hadley Gray, in 1990, and denied writing a reference for convicted priest Allan Kitchingman.

Even after he was shown a transcript of a 2002 court case in which the late judge, Ralph Coolahan, referred to him speaking highly of “the offender” in and out of church, he insisted he had no memory of the case, saying the reference “mystifies me”.

He was also questioned closely on the CKA/CKC case, which has been central to this royal commission hearing.

Mr Lawrence told the hearing he did everything he could to support CKA. He initially denied that CKA had told him at the time who his abuser was but he later conceded – after a the commission chairman, Peter McClellan, picked up an apparent inconsistency in his evidence – that he had known the name.

He was later questioned over an allegation, raised in the earlier, August, part of this hearing, that he had sexually abused two youths at a church camp.

He said the couple, the Walls, who made the allegation, were “absolutely incorrect”.

He said bishop Herft had never raised it with him despite indications it had happened, according to a document that was under the bishop’s name but was not personally signed.

In this document, the bishop had referred to raising the concerns with “the priest” involved and had not named Mr Lawrence, who said he had “no idea” who the bishop was referring to.

Mr Lawrence was also shown a document from 1997 in which the now retired archbishop of Sydney, Harry Goodhew, had apparently blocked him from being a bishop.

Mr Lawrence said he had not seen the document until the royal commission.

Mr Lawrence has not been charged with any offences over any of these matters.

Read full details in Saturday’s Newcastle Herald.

The hearing resumes on Wednesday, November 23.