AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE McCARTHY Nov. 22, 2013
HISTORICAL Newcastle Anglican diocese files alleging ‘‘falsification of records’’, including those of child sex offender priest Allan Kitchingman, were found this year and referred to police, an explosive statement to the royal commission into child abuse has said.
Diocese professional standards director Michael Elliott has told the commission about an anonymous 2002 letter which said the ‘‘disappearance’’ of Kitchingman from a clergy list in 1968 and his subsequent move to the Grafton diocese ‘‘could today be construed as a type of cover-up’’.
‘‘This ‘disappearance’ was deliberate,’’ the letter said.
In 1968 Kitchingman was convicted of an indecent assault on a male, although the commission heard on Monday ‘‘such an act is no longer a criminal offence’’.
He became chaplain to the North Coast Children’s Home at Lismore where he sexually abused a boy, 13, in 1975. He was convicted and jailed in 2002. Despite the jail sentence his name remained on the Newcastle diocese clergy list from 2002 to 2007.
The anonymous 2002 letter accused the diocese of matters that were ‘‘reported to superiors, then dealt with quietly’’, including the case of Kitchingman.
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