BishopAccountability.org
	Abuse Bishop Forced to Hand Back OBE By Greg Roberts The Australia March 3, 2007 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21316199-2702,00.html The disgraced former bishop at the centre of the child sex abuse row which led to the downfall of former governor-general Peter Hollingworth has been forced to return his imperial award. Donald Shearman handed back his Order of the British Empire following intervention by NSW Premier Morris Iemma and Buckingham Palace. He is believed to be the first Australian who has been forced to return an imperial award in the absence of a criminal conviction. Supporters of NSW woman Beth Heinrich have lobbied for the OBE to be returned since she went public in 2002 with her revelations that Mr Shearman sexually abused her over two years in the mid-1950s. The revelations led to the resignation of Dr Hollingworth as governor-general after he suggested the teenager had initiated sex with the then priest. Dr Hollingworth made the claim while defending his failure to act on a series of complaints from Ms Heinrich about Mr Shearman when Dr Hollingworth was Anglican archbishop of Brisbane. Mr Shearman expelled Ms Heinrich from a church boarding school in the NSW town of Forbes in 1956, after the abuse had come to an end. He was 32 when he was consecrated as Australia's youngest bishop in 1961. In 1978, the then Bishop Shearman was awarded the OBE for outstanding services to the church. But in 2004, he became the first Australian bishop to be defrocked when a church tribunal stripped him of his holy orders over the Heinrich revelations. Mr Shearman admitted the abuse but has never faced charges. Late last year, Sydney woman Belinda Reid wrote to Mr Iemma asking for the NSW Government to act to recover Mr Shearman's OBE. Mr Iemma's office wrote to Buckingham Palace and was told Mr Shearman should be asked to show cause why he should not be stripped of the award. In a letter to Ms Reid, Premier's Department director-general Col Gellatly said the Central Chancery of the Order in London had advised that Mr Shearman had returned the OBE to the Order of Knighthoods. Yesterday, Ms Heinrich said she welcomed the return of the OBE. "It was one of the things that needed to be done," she told The Weekend Australian from her Wagga Wagga home. "He still needs to do more. "He still needs to apologise to me and to compensate me for what he did to my life. The only thing he has ever been sorry about is that I chose to speak out about what he did to me." In August, the Anglican Church formally apologised to Ms Heinrich for Mr Shearman's conduct and paid her compensation of $100,000. Brisbane child sex abuse campaigner Hetty Johnston said that in 2002 she wrote to then NSW premier Bob Carr about Mr Shearman's OBE but no action was taken to recover it. "It is good that the award has finally been returned after all this time," Ms Johnston said. "Any good work that someone might have done at some time is completely negated if that person has sexually assaulted a child." Mr Shearman, who has refused to express regret over his treatment of Ms Heinrich, declined to comment when contacted at his Brisbane home yesterday.
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