Churches knew of allegations against notorious paedophile priests, royal commission says

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

October 20, 2020

By Melissa Davey

The Anglican and Catholic churches missed crucial opportunities to stop them abusing other children, unredacted reports find

The Anglican and Catholic churches knew about allegations against notorious paedophile priests years before they were convicted and jailed for child sexual abuse, missing crucial opportunities to stop them from abusing other children.

The findings were outlined in two unredacted and one previously unreleased report published by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Tuesday. The findings were previously redacted so as not to prejudice ongoing legal proceedings against the two abusers: the former Anglican dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence and the former Catholic priest Vincent Gerard Ryan.

Lawrence is the most senior Anglican church figure found guilty of child sexual abuse, after being convicted in July 2019 of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 1991 at his home at Christ Church Cathedral in Newcastle, New South Wales. He was sentenced to eight years in jail.

The commission’s report on case study 42, which examined the response of the Anglican diocese of Newcastle to child sexual abuse allegations, found the allegations that Lawrence was sexually abusing children were made on three separate occasions to the then Bishop Roger Herft.

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