Picture of Abuse in Anglican Church Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn Emerges through Royal Commission

By Katie Burgess
Canberra Times
March 17, 2017

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/picture-of-abuse-in-anglican-church-diocese-of-canberra-and-goulburn-emerges-through-royal-commission-20170317-gv0eyx.html

The extent of abuse within the Anglican Church Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn has been revealed for the first time.

A month after the scale of abuse within the Australian Catholic Church was exposed, another survey conducted by the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse has shown 1082 people alleged incidents of child sexual abuse in the Anglican church and related institutions, with 1115 complaints made between 1980 and 2015.

Twenty-eight allegations of child sexual abuse were made in Anglican Church Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn. Photo: James Alcock

Of those, 28 allegations were made in Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn, a jurisdiction that takes in the ACT and the south-eastern corner of NSW.

There were 22 alleged perpetrators identified in the region with a further two unable to be positively identified.

Unusually, one in four alleged perpetrators were women, the data revealed.

The ACT had the highest percentage of alleged female abusers (27 per cent), with the exception of Rockhampton, where one in two of those accused were women.

Half of the complaints were against ministers while 11 per cent were against youth workers.

Welfare workers accounted for 14 per cent of complaints while 4 per cent were against school staff.

One in four complaints involved allegations of physical abuse as well.

The data showed three out of five complainants were aged under 13 years

The average age of complainants was 10.7 years. On average, boys were aged 12.7 years and girls aged nine years when the abuse took place.

Thirty-nine per cent of the complainants were male while 61 per cent were female.

The average time between the alleged abuse and the date a complaint was made was 29 years.

The release of the data marked the start of four days of grilling senior Anglican church officials about the failings that led to abuse within its institutions.

Of faith-based institutions where abuse occurred, the Anglican church was the second most reported by people who gave evidence in private sessions. The first was the Catholic church.

In her opening address, counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness SC said the scope of the survey of Anglican Church dioceses was different from that of the Catholic authorities.

"As I have explained, the data results do not include all complaints of child sexual abuse relating to all institutions associated with the Anglican Church in Australia and do not indicate the total number of incidents of child sexual abuse in Anglican Church institutions in Australia," she said.

"Furthermore, the data results are likely to underreport the incidence of child sexual abuse in Anglican Church institutions as the Royal Commission's experience is that many survivors face barriers which deter them from reporting abuse to external authorities and to the institution in which the abuse occurred."

However the chair of the royal commission has referred 84 cases to the police, with 23 referrals under investigation and four prosecutions made.

The Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn Matthew Brain is due to give evidence before the commission next week.