Anglican Church in Spotlight at Royal Commission
By Joanne McCarthy
IT was the Catholic Church in the witness box earlier this year at the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into child sexual abuse. For the next two weeks at the federal royal commission in Sydney it is the Anglican Church’s turn. The Diocese of Grafton has already apologised to children raised at its North Coast Children’s Home at Lismore, who were physically beaten, sexually abused and emotionally neglected. But on the first day of evidence yesterday the callous treatment of the adult survivors of that abuse when they sought the diocese’s help from 2006 was laid bare. Documents showed the diocese denied responsibility for the home, ignored the truth, bullied victims and offered shockingly low financial settlements to some, while refusing others. But it was the evidence of two victims that showed the devastating impact of the abuse, and the extraordinary efforts of one man, Richard ‘‘Tommy’’ Campion, to force the church to tell the truth about its dark past. He refused to accept compensation until it was available to all victims of the home. He spent five years fighting for a meeting with Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall, and yesterday Tommy Campion wept in the witness box as people learnt the truth about the Church.
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