AUSTRALIA
Telegraph
Victim’s warnings about clergyman who assaulted him ignored because offender had common name, inquiry told.
MATTHEW BENNS THE TELEGRAPH NOVEMBER 21, 2013
CHILD sexual abuse victim Richard Campion’s warning about a clergyman who assaulted him was ignored by the Anglican Church’s standards watchdog because the offender had a common name, the royal commission into child sex abuse heard today.
Quizzed about his failure to act, Philip Gerber, former Professional Standards Director for the Dioceses of Sydney, Grafton and Newcastle, admitted: “I am very unhappy with myself.”
Mr Campion’s 2005 letter told how he had been sexually abused at the former North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore by a Reverend Brown.
“It’s not an uncommon name, it’s you know, Brown,” said Mr Gerber.
Counsel assisting the Royal Commission, Simeon Beckett, suggested he could have asked Mr Campion for more detail on his attacker, including his first name.
“It wouldn’t have been much of a stretch would it to have actually done some research to ascertain what his name was and whether he had been licensed to officiate in the Diocese of Grafton,” he said.
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