Royal commission finds Peter Hollingworth made 'serious error of judgement' by letting child abuser stay

By Sarah Hawke
ABC News
February 13, 2017

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-13/royal-commission-finds-hollingworth-made-serious-error-judgement/8265704

In 1995 Dr Peter Hollingworth said not allowing John Linton Elliott to continue would disrupt the parish.

The former governor-general and Archbishop of Brisbane Peter Hollingworth has been found to have made a "serious error of judgement" for allowing a rector who admitted to abusing a child to continue in the ministry.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has handed down its report into the response by the Church of England Boys' Society (CEBS) and four Anglican dioceses into allegations of child sexual abuse.

Public hearings were held in Hobart in February 2016.

The report detailed the case of John Linton Elliot who the commission had been told abused a boy in the 1970s when he was a lay preacher at St Barnabas Anglican Church in Sunnybank, Brisbane, and also CEBS branch governor.

The boy know as BYB was about nine when the sexual abuse started, and it occurred almost on a weekly basis until he was 13.

The commission found that in July 1993 Elliot admitted to the then Archbishop of Brisbane, Dr Hollingworth, that he abused BYB and his brother.

Dr Hollingworth met with BYB the following month.

"We are satisfied that during this meeting BYB told Dr Hollingworth that Elliot was a paedophile and Elliot had abused him over a number of years," the commission's report details.

Dr Hollingworth also contacted psychiatrist John Slaughter to provide a psychiatric assessment of Elliot.

"By the the second consultation with Elliot he [Dr Slaughter] had formed an opinion that Elliot was a paedophile and that his personality type was untreatable," the report details.

Later that year Dr Hollingworth permitted Elliot to continue in his role as rector of Dalby until his retirement in 1998.

"We are satisfied that Dr Hollingworth's decision to permit Elliot to continue in the ministry was a serious error of judgment which focused overly on Elliot's needs to the exclusion of those of BYB and his family and of the need to protect children more generally," the report found.

"We are also satisfied that, in making this decision, Dr Hollingworth failed to take into account the advice that Dr Slaughter had given him."

The commission also found a letter written by Dr Hollingworth to BYB's brother in 1995 was "inappropriate and insensitive".

Dr Hollingworth was responding to BYB's brother questioning as to why he had allowed Elliot to continue in the ministry.

The commission's report details Dr Hollingworth's response, that not letting Elliot continue would disrupt the rector, his family and the parish which "would be in nobody's best interests".

In March 2002, Elliot pleaded guilty to 28 charges involving five boys which included sodomy and indecently dealing with boys under 14.

The following year he pleaded guilty to further charges relating to offences against two boys including BYB.

He was sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison with a non-parole period of 33 months.

During last year's hearings in Hobart, Dr Hollingworth apologised for his mishandling of BYB's complaint.

He resigned as governor-general in 2003 after he was criticised in the Brisbane inquiry for his handling of allegations of child sex abuse against Elliot.