Newcastle’s ring of evil: abuse in Catholic, Anglican churches

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 27, 2016

DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10

It started with a grown man weeping in the witness box.

On the first day of its public hearings in Newcastle, NSW, earlier this month, Paul Gray broke down while describing to the child abuse royal commission his suffering at the hands of his godfather, Anglican priest Peter Rushton.

Asked if he wanted to stop giving evidence, Gray replied: “No, I need to read it. It’s important to me.” What followed was a very public reckoning for a region that arguably had suffered more than any other from child abuse committed by priests.

While much of the attention surrounding the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has focused on the Catholic diocese of Ballarat in regional Victoria, in Newcastle two churches — Catholic and Anglican — are in the inquiry’s sights.

Trying to estimate the true number of child victims is hopeless, but it is at least in the hundreds. Dozens of priests have been involved.

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