AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE MCCARTHY
March 15, 2016
THE Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hold a two-week public hearing into Newcastle Anglican diocese in June to expose how more than 30 child sex offenders preyed on children for decades, and whether they formed a possible network with offenders from outside the church.
Newcastle Anglican Bishop Greg Thompson said he welcomed the hearing, from June 20, and hoped it would be held in Newcastle so that “the wider community can understand what’s gone on”.
“I welcome the opportunity for Newcastle to have this important inquiry into the church’s life and into serious matters that have been raised over many years concerning the abuse that took place.
“It provides the opportunity to understand the culture and conduct that allowed perpetrators to work in our church.”
The hearing comes after a tumultuous six years in which the diocese has named a number of former priests and a former “boy bishop” as sexual abusers, has defrocked others after hearings into sexual abuse allegations, has seen a number of youth and church workers convicted of offences, and has issued a number of formal apologies for the diocese’s “shameful” past.
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