AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)
Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Friday 22 November 2013
If the dozens of people who were abused at a Church of England (Anglican) home had sued successfully it would have been financial ruin for the New South Wales diocese of Grafton, a lawyer has told a national inquiry into child abuse.
Peter Roland, former lawyer for the diocese, is being grilled at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on why, in 2006 and 2007, traumatised survivors of the North Coast Children’s Home (NCCH) in Lismore were told the church had no liability.
The commission has heard at one stage a letter to 41 victims mentioned a modest ex-gratia payment for “their inconvenience in these matters”.
At the request of the commission chair, justice Peter McClellan, documents showing how much money was spent by the diocese on lawyers were produced, showing bills of $27,000 and $11,000. One bill gave an estimated figure of $62,000 if the case went to court.
The commission heard Roland’s firm had received a dossier of 450 documents detailing emotional, sexual and physical abuse of former residents at the home, but was instructed by the diocese that the church had never been vested with care, control and management of the home.
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