Abused 14-Year-Old 'Not a Child': Pastor

9 News
February 7, 2013

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/02/07/17/01/abused-14-year-old-not-a-child-pastor

A former Baptist pastor says he didn't report a girl's allegations that she had been sexually abused by a church youth worker because he didn't know a 14-year-old was considered a child.

In December 2002, then Senior Pastor Steven Chard and his wife Jill were approached by a 16-year-old girl at the church in Greenacre in Sydney's west.

The girl, who can't be named, told him she had been having sex with the church's then youth group leader Wayne Paul Mason. On one occasion this was without consent, a court was told.

The teenager later told Mr Chard she had spotted Mason kissing another underage girl.

Mason, 42, a former police officer, was jailed this month for indecently assaulting and having sex with four girls under the age of 16 between 1996 and 2005.

At the time, Mr Chard did not go to police, the Department of Community Services (DoCS) or the girl's parents.

In an interview with AAP a week after Mason was sentenced, Mr Chard said, "I made decisions that perhaps were wrong".

But he said at the time the girl came to him he had not received any training of his mandatory reporting responsibilities under the Child Protection Act 1998.

He also said that while he knew child abuse should be reported he did not know which age bracket this applied to.

"I didn't know that a 14-year-old - even though that's underage - I didn't know that was a child," he said.

The father of the girl, who is now 26, said Mr Chard was "in denial" and accused him of "trying to wriggle out of this".

The father told AAP he had gone to Mr Chard with concerns about Mason before the allegations surfaced.

Mr Chard said he did not recall having such a conversation.

The Baptist Union told AAP that letters outlining reporting responsibilities were sent to churches between 1998 and 2003.

While training is now mandatory it was only voluntary at the time.

"It is reasonable to expect that Mr Chard would have been aware of his reporting responsibilities," the union said.

"Common decency would dictate that sexual misconduct with a minor is totally unacceptable."

Mr Chard said he had resigned from his post as pastor in April 2003 "as a direct result of all this".