Senior Anglicans Apologise for Failing to Deal with Abuse Allegations in Australia
By Helen Davidson
Senior members of the Church of England have issued formal apologies after an inquiry found a high level Anglican clergyman made serious failures in addressing allegations of the sexual abuse of children in Australia and Britain. The year-long independent inquiry in Britain examined an alleged cover-up by the Anglican church in response to allegations made in 1999 and 2003 against a former Queensland school principal, Robert Waddington, and revealed by the Times of London and the Australian. Waddington, who died in 2007, was a principal of North Queensland’s now closed St Barnabas boarding school from the early 1960s to 1970. He was unexpectedly sent to Queensland in 1954, one year after he joined the church, very soon after abuse allegations were raised, and in circumstances one former victim suggested were suspicious. After he left St Barnabas, Waddington returned to England where he held senior roles in children’s education and became the dean of Manchester. At least six boys and one clergyman were allegedly abused by Waddington, the Australian reported, as far back as the early 1950s and as recently as 2003. Bim Atkinson, a former St Barnabas student, said children in England would have been saved from abuse if his allegations against Waddington had been acted on in 1999. The archbishop of York, John Sentamu, said he was “deeply ashamed” at the church’s failure to stop the abuse of children by Waddington. Sentamu’s predecessor, Lord Hope of Thornes, is accused of failing to act on allegations and information he received about Waddington. Sentamu conceded there was a “systemic failure” in the church’s response. “As I have said to them, I am deeply ashamed that the church was not vigilant enough to ensure that these things did not happen, failing both to watch and to act, where children were at serious risk,” he said. The Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, thanks Sentamu for setting up the inquiry, and victims for coming forward to give evidence. “Robert Waddington abused children. He abused them in Australia and in England,” said Walker in a statement. “He exploited the trust placed in him, first as a teacher and then as a priest, to gain repeated and unsupervised access to the children he abused. My heart goes out to those whose lives have been irreparably damaged by what Robert Waddington did to them. When I read of the ongoing effects of his abuse, decades after it took place, it makes my blood run cold.” Hope denies any involvement in a cover-up and says he did not have full details when the allegations were presented to him in 1999 and 2003. He withdrew Waddington’s permission to act as a priest in 2004. He said there was no recommendation in place at the time that he should go to the police, but offered a formal apology if “either of the two persons concerned” felt they had been denied justice. “Last May, in some of the reporting, it was suggested that there had been some cover-up by me,” Hope said on Wednesday. “This report makes clear that not applying the policy is not the same as a cover-up. “Hindsight is, of course, a wonderful thing. If all that has been learned by organisations and the public about child abuse in the last 15 years had been known in 1999 and 2004, I would certainly have acted differently.” The report by Judge Sally Cahill QC concluded that Lord Hope’s concerns for “the welfare of Robert Waddington seems to have been paramount in his response to these allegations.” The Australian royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse told Guardian Australia it cannot confirm lines of inquiry but would likely be requesting a copy of the report. However, that does not necessarily mean a public inquiry will be held into Waddington’s time at St Barnabas, the spokeswoman said.
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