Royal Commission Hears There Are Potentially Dozens of Clergy Not Yet Identified As Paedophiles

By Ashleigh Raper
ABC News
November 28, 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-27/potentially-dozens-of-clergy-not-yet-identified-as-paedophiles/5120000

The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse has heard there are potentially dozens of clergy within the Anglican Church who have not been formally identified as paedophiles.

Protocols for dealing with sex offenders within the Anglican Church are being scrutinised by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The commission is looking into the response from the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to allegations of historic abuse at the North Coast Children's Home in Lismore.

The Anglican Church set up a national register in 2004 designed to provide a database for information if a member of clergy had a complaint or finding of abuse established against them.

The General Secretary of the Anglican Church, Martin Drevikovsky, said that in response to the Royal Commission being formed last year an overview of all files concerning abuse was undertaken.

"In the case of Sydney it was 600 [files]. In the case of Melbourne I know it was hundreds," he told the Commission.

He said the number of clergy to make it onto the register is expected to be far fewer when the review is completed in the coming months.

Call for mandatory compensation scheme

The head of the Anglican Church in Australia Archbishop Phillip Aspinall wants the Royal Commission to recommend the establishment of a mandatory compensation scheme for all victims of institutional abuse.

Archbishop Aspinall, the Primate of Anglican Church of Australia, was the last witness to front the Royal Commission in its examination of how the Diocese of Grafton handled allegations that former residents of a children's home in Lismore had been physically and sexually abused.

He told the Commission that the Diocese focused on protecting its finances rather than the victims in responding to the claims.

But the Archbishop has suggested a way of changing that for the future by establishing a uniform compensation scheme that all religious, government and community organisations would have to follow to ensure victims get the pay outs they deserve.

"So that we don't have different classes of victims," he said.

He wants such a scheme to be an outcome of the Royal Commission.

Afterwards Archbishop Phillip Aspinell said the evidence presented over the last week and a half has been harrowing for the victims and all those who heard it.

"That little children could be abused and treated so sadistically makes any normal person just feel sick in the stomach," he said.

He said however there have been positives that have provided lessons for other institutions such as the laying bare of the failings of Anglican Diocese of Grafton in responding to victims.

The Royal Commission inquiry into the Anglican Church's handling of the allegations of sexual abuse at the children's home in Lismore has wrapped up today in Sydney.

Church was 'harsh'

In evidence yesterday Bishop Keith Slater admitted to the commission that the Anglican Church was harsh in its dealing with victims from the Lismore children's home.

A group of former residents from the children's home in Lismore made a compensation claim for alleged sexual and physical abuse between the 1940s and 1980s.

The royal commission is looking into the response from the Diocese to the allegations and how it handled the group claim.

Bishop Slater resigned as Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton over his handling of the claims.

During questioning, Bishop Slater told Counsel Assisting Simeon Beckett that the Church's finances were his main concern.

However in a statement to the commission at the end of his testimony, Keith Slater made an apology expressing his deep sorrow to those who were abused.