Deacon Quits Church in Protest Moments before Taking Stand at Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse

By Matthew Benns
The Telegraph
November 26, 2013

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/deacon-quits-church-in-protest-moments-before-taking-stand-at-royal-commission-into-child-sex-abuse/story-fni0cx12-1226768192664

Pat Comben, former registrar at the Diocese of Grafton.

The disputed Church of England childrens home sign in Lismore, Northern NSW, taken in 1970.

THE deacon who led the Anglican Church's response to allegations of child abuse in Lismore quit the church in protest just moments before stepping into the witness box at the royal commission into child sex abuse.

Pat Comben, former registrar at the Diocese of Grafton, said he should no longer be referred to by the title reverend and was not even sure he could still call himself a Christian after 50 years in the church.

The royal commission is examining the response of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to harrowing claims of physical and sexual child abuse over a 48-year period and involving 12 members of clergy and staff at the former North Coast Children's Home in Lismore.

"Some of us do have some guilt and take some responsibility for this," he said after a gruelling two days of evidence finished yesterday.

The commission heard Mr Comben took an argumentative approach with the more than 40 victims and instructed lawyers to make a compensation offer of $825,000 "and not a penny more".

The claimants were finally given a settlement that came to $10,000 each after costs - despite the diocese trustees having assets worth more than $200 million.

Outside the commission Mr Comben said he took the tough line under orders from the church hierarchy and if he had not "I would have been sacked by the church".

 

He asked the head of the diocese to sign his resignation papers moments before he took the stand, in protest at how "history is being rewritten by some members of the church".

"This has to be the lowest point of my career," said the former Queensland government minister, who now runs a caravan park.

"I can understand how people who have been abused consider suicide."

Former Lismore home resident Richard "Tommy" Campion raised allegations of abuse in a 2005 letter to the diocese that named abusers.

But Mr Comben did not follow official channels to alert the police, despite a telephone conversation with one of the accused priests confirming guilt in Mr Comben's mind.

And he found another convicted paedophile priest still listed in the Anglican Directory - known unofficially as the "stud book" - but took no disciplinary action.

The church did not officially inform police about the full scale of the abuse at the home until 2013.

On Mr Comben's argumentative approach with lawyers, Justice Peter McClennan, said: "Did it occur to you that you shouldn't be talking in an argumentative way until you had been able to talk to these people?"

Mr Comben conceded: "I was wrong". The hearing continues today.