Abuse Lawyer Slams 'Mean' Anglican Church

The 9 News
November 19, 2013

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/11/19/12/18/woman-recalls-prayers-abuse-to-inquiry

A lawyer who represented abuse victims from a NSW children's home says the way the Anglican Church dealt with the claims was the most "scurrilous and mean-minded" he has ever seen.

When Simon Harrison led a group claim for victims of abuse at the North Coast Children's Home in Lismore, a lawyer for the Grafton diocese, Peter Roland, claimed there were limited funds for Mr Harrison's clients.

"He was pleading poverty, but I have seen that so many times with churches I just took it as a matter of course," Mr Harrison told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Tuesday.

"Out of all the claims I've dealt with over quite a few years, the way this was dealt with by the church was perhaps the most scurrilous and mean-minded attitude I'd ever come across quite frankly."

And when Mr Harrison represented a former resident, known only as CA, who sought compensation after the group settlement had been reached in 2007, he was told the North Coast Children's Home file was closed.

Tears flowed in the public gallery on Tuesday as CA's harrowing experience at the home in the 1950s was revealed.

In a powerful letter read by counsel assisting the commission Simeon Beckett, CA painted a sickening contrast between praying at the children's home and having the minister fondle her "little body".

"He would hear our prayers in the dark dormitory at the top end of the home, a chair pulled to the chosen child's bed, and as all chanted the prayers his hands would wander over the small budding body," CA wrote.

"His mouth on lips that had never known a gentle human touch, whilst his tongue would explore a mouth that needed to scream."

CA, who was placed in the home at the age of five, along with her brother, stayed until she was 14.

Former Grafton Diocese acting registrar Anne Hywood told the commission there was a sense that people had "missed the boat" to make a claim after the initial settlement.

People would come to terms with the abuse they faced at different times and the diocese may receive claims for years to come, she said.

Ms Hywood said she asked then Bishop Keith Slater, who later resigned and admitted his failings, about payments for victims, known only as CB and CC.

He allegedly replied "well, we are in the middle of a financial crisis".

The financial problems were largely the result of a school in the Grafton diocese needing a $7 million bailout, the commission heard.

Bishop Slater is expected to give evidence at the hearings.

Ms Hywood said she discovered complaints in the diocese registry that should have been referred to the professional standards commission, and that this had left her "particularly furious" because the diocese had not followed protocol.

The hearing continues in Sydney on Wednesday.