Tas bishop wanted sex abuse apology

Sky News
November 24, 2014

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2014/11/24/tas-bishop-wanted-sex-abuse-apology.html

Tasmania's Anglican Bishop wishes a Hobart boys' school had taken his advice and apologised sooner to a former student sexually abused by a teacher.

An emotional John Douglas Harrower choked up on Monday as he recounted to a royal commission his 2002 advice to The Hutchins School board that they say sorry to the victim.

'I personally would have wished that the school had given an apology, a fulsome apology,' said Bishop Harrower, who has been head of the church in Tasmania since 2000.

In 1993 a man known for legal reasons as AOA reported to the school his abuse in 1964 by then headmaster David Ralph Lawrence.

He sought acknowledgment of the abuse and an apology from Hutchins.

It took more than two decades and repeated pleas from AOA before the apology was forthcoming in October.

Bishop Harrower said his role in the school is one of 'culture bearer' and he had no power to intervene in such issues, but when he became aware of the matter he called a meeting in 2002 with school representatives to discuss the claim of AOA.

'I had come to the view that ... I would give an apology, even though in a sense it wasn't mine to give,' he told the commission of the case of AOA.

Bishop Harrower said he knows the importance of a face-to-face apology in helping victims deal with their abuse.

He hoped that in a March 2002 letter to the school board, he had conveyed his feelings and would have convinced the board of a similar approach.

But the school refrained from apologising to AOA because, despite lengthy investigations, it could not confirm the abuse occurred.

'If you can't prove, substantiate that in fact this complaint actually occurred then how do you actually give an apology for it?' Bishop Harrower, acknowledging the school's predicament.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is looking at how Hutchins and the Anglican church handled reports of abuse at the school.

Four victims have given evidence to the Hobart hearing detailing sexual abuse at the school in the 1960s at the hands of teachers including Mr Lawrence.

The hearing will continue on Tuesday.