AUSTRALIA
Perth Now
BY ANNETTE BLACKWELL AAP NOVEMBER 20, 2013
PROTECTING investors in a multimillion-dollar diocesan investment fund debt took priority over the claims of abuse victims from a NSW Anglican children’s home, an inquiry has heard.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney was told on Wednesday that the Diocese of Grafton was $12 million in debt after building a private school at Clarence Valley, which never attracted enough students.
The diocese has been accused of mishandling compensation settlements and claims from people who were brutally abused from the 1940s to 1980s at a Church of England orphanage in Lismore.
In evidence by video link, Anthony Newby said when he became registrar at Grafton in October 2010 the school debt was not being serviced.
An oversight committee was set up to open lines of credit involving other dioceses – not an easy task as only two, Perth and Adelaide, eventually came on board.
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