AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Bruce Mackenzie
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has found the Anglican Diocese of Grafton treated victims insensitively and conducted settlement negotiations in a hostile manner.
The commission’s public hearing was told about frequent sexual, psychological and physical abuse of nine former residents of the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore between 1940 and 1985.
Handing down its findings, the commission found the diocese denied responsibility for the sexual abuse, denied some victims financial compensation and conducted some settlement negotiations in a hostile manner.
It also found the diocese was not following its own policies in handling the matter and that denying legal liability on the grounds it did not control the home had a detrimental effect on abused former residents.
The Right Reverend Keith Slater resigned as bishop of the diocese in May last year admitting that legal liability played a role in his decision not to pass on all complaints to the church’s professional standards director.
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