BishopAccountability.org

Youth group had network of sexual abusers

7 News
February 12, 2017

https://au.news.yahoo.com/qld/a/34400238/youth-group-had-network-of-sexual-abusers/#page1

A youth group set up by the Anglican Church hosted networks of pedophiles who knew of each other's offending and facilitated the sexual abuse of boys, a royal commission has found.

The abuse often occurred on camps, sailing and fishing trips and overnight stays at rectories and private homes in the 1970s and 1980s as The Church of England Boys' Society (CEBS) was left to operate autonomously.

In its damning report, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse also criticised former governor-general Peter Hollingworth for allowing a priest facing abuse allegations to remain in the ministry.

The report, released on Monday, detailed a series of systematic issues in the operation of the CEBS and Anglican dioceses of Tasmania, Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney.

It found the Anglican Church failed to make the links at a national level about the possibility of organised pedophile networks operating in the youth group.

There was a focus on protecting the reputation of the Anglican Church, dioceses, youth group and individual clergy, with child sexual abuse treated as isolated incidents of "aberrant behaviour", the report said.

Abuse allegations weren't reported to police and there was a lack of child protection policies in the CEBS, which was attended by boys aged between six and 16 years.

The youth group, with limited oversight, focused on promoting physical activities and overnight trips organised by the group's leaders and other men connected to them.

"Within this environment, a culture developed in which perpetrators had easy access to boys and opportunities to sexually abuse those boys," the report read.

The report follows public hearings last year that investigated the responses of the CEBS and Anglican Dioceses to child sexual abuse allegations against people associated with the youth group in the 1970s and 1980s.

A number of survivors testified that they believed they were either shared by their abusers or there was, at the very least, awareness between their abusers of each other's conduct.

The commission examined the experiences of survivors of abuse perpetrated by convicted pedophiles Louis Daniels, Garth Hawkins, Simon Jacobs and John Elliot and alleged abuser Robert Brandenburg.

It found Dr Hollingworth's decision to allow Elliot to remain in the ministry following an abuse complaint was a "serious error of judgment" which focused overly on the priest's needs and excluded those of the victim, his family and the need to protect children.

Dr Hollingworth had also failed to take into account advice from a psychiatrist who formed the opinion Elliot was a pedophile with an untreatable personality type, the report said.

Commissioners Jennifer Coate and Bob Atkinson were satisfied the CEBS National Council's only formal response to child sexual offending was to revoke national awards given to offenders.

CEBS has ceased operating altogether in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania and national camps are no longer held.

The Anglican Bishop of Tasmania, Dr Richard Condie, said he was "deeply saddened" by the church's failures.

"Again I offer my apology to chose who continue to be affected by them," he said in a statement.

Dr Condie said he had launched disciplinary proceedings against Bishop Philip Newell, who was criticised for his handling of matters in the 1980s and 1990s.

"If the formal investigation recommends that charges be laid, the church's disciplinary tribunal will be convened to hear the matter," he said.

Bishop Newell could face four penalties, one of which would be to depose him from Holy Orders, meaning he would no longer be considered a member of the clergy.




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