AUSTRALIA
Daily Advertiser
Ken Grimson
June 10, 2016
BETH Heinrich’s fight for recognition of the immense damage done to her life by a senior Anglican Church cleric takes another step forward on Sunday when she receives an apology from the Bishop of Grafton.
The apology for the former Wagga and Temora woman will be delivered by Bishop Sarah Macneil in Christ Church Cathedral in front of her congregation.
Ms Heinrich is driving more than 1200 kilometres in a small car from her home in north-eastern Victoria to receive the apology more than 10 years in the making.
She went public in 2005 to reveal she had been sexually abused as a 14-year-old girl in a Forbes Anglican Church hostel in the 1950s by then assistant priest and hostel warden, Donald Shearman.
Shearman rose to become the Bishop of Grafton and the pair had an on-and-off adult relationship which Ms Heinrich puts down to the cleric having an emotional hold over her as a result of the earlier abuse.
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