No Police in Most Uniting Complaints

Big Pond News
April 22, 2013

http://bigpondnews.com/articles/National/2013/04/22/No_police_in_most_Uniting_complaints_865722.html


Most child sex abuse complaints brought to the Uniting Church have not been referred to police by the church, a Victorian inquiry has heard.

Legal adviser for the church's Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Philip Battye, said police had been involved in only a small number of complaints.

'It would be a smaller number rather than a larger number,' Mr Battye told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the handling of child abuse allegations on Monday.

'There would be very few of those complainants where there has been police involvement.

'Numbers of care leavers don't want the police to be involved,' he said of people who had left children's homes operated by the church.

Sixty-three abuse victims in Uniting Church orphanages had received $2 million in compensation since 1998, the inquiry heard.

Of those, and an additional seven complaints, only one related to abuse by a clergy member, Mr Battye said.

'At least two thirds or more were not by clergy but by a spouse of a cottage parent, for instance,' he said.

'We're not dealing with employees of the church.

'It's very difficult to locate these persons.'

The inquiry was told the Uniting Church has no records before 1998 of child sex abuse complaints seeking compensation.

The church acknowledged abuse probably had occurred before this but blamed poor record keeping for the lack of detail.

Mr Battye said agencies still in existence had better records than those which had closed.

'It's felt that there will have been complaints that pre-date 1998 but in terms of complaints where compensation has been sought, that's the best knowledge that we have of the initial complaint that's been made,' Mr Battye said.

Reverend Peter Blackwood said he did not think the synod had withdrawn any ministers due to child sex allegations.

'I don't think they've been any I know of for child abuse,' he said.

However, he said one minister was withdrawn in the last four years due to child pornography allegations investigated by federal police.

Mr Battye said it was 'theoretically possible' that some alleged perpetrators were still involved with the church, potentially dealing with children.

'I can't say I'm totally confident that they're not, but these complaints do go back many years.

'We are talking about 30-plus years ago.'

Mr Battye said the church didn't take it upon itself to refer complaints to police but it told complainants if they wished to, they could, and the church would co-operate.

The last complaint relating to the criminal abuse of a child was in September 2012.

He said the complaint would have been made by the victim rather than the church.

Mr Battye said the church defended legal claims of sexual abuse against its members by invoking the statute of limitations.

'If there are legal proceedings then the church will plead the limitation defence, because it's open to the church to do so,' he said.