AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
March 7, 2005 - 9:05PM
A woman has accused former governor-general Peter Hollingworth of "basically" telling her to get lost when she went to him with a sexual abuse claim against a priest.
Beth Heinrich said she was a boarder at the Anglican hostel at Forbes in western NSW during the 1950s, run by then Bishop Donald Shearman, when he started having sex with her.
Just prior to his appointment as governor-general, Ms Heinrich approached Archbishop Hollingworth for assistance when she realised she had been sexually abused.
She claimed he fobbed her off, ABC TV's Australian Story revealed.
Now in her 60s, Ms Heinrich told the program that, when she was a schoolgirl, Bishop Shearman would make her lie naked on his bed with him, when his wife was away, and read a book about sexual techniques while he told her `This is what God wants it to be'."
Posted by kshaw at March 7, 2005 06:51 AM