‘I feel stronger today’: clergy abuse survivor

By Tim Howard
Daily Examiner
June 13, 2016

http://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/news/i-feel-stronger-today-clergy-abuse-survivor/3043868/

SAYING SORRY: Sexual abuse survivor Beth Heinrich and the Bishop of Grafton, Sarah Macneil chat after the bishop apologised to her on behalf of the diocese for sexual abuse at the hands of a former Busihop of Grafton Donald Shearman.

A WOMAN who was sexually abused by a former Bishop of Grafton for 40 years, says an official apology from the Diocese has left her feeling stronger and able to manage her pain.

Beth Heinrich, sat in the congregation at Christ Church Anglican Cathedral on Sunday morning to hear the Bishop of Grafton, the Very Reverend Sarah Macneil apologise for the "reprehensible" conduct of her predecessor Donald Shearman.

Shearman was defrocked in 2004 when a church inquiry and tribunal uncovered a sex scandal involving him and Ms Heinrich going back to the mid-1950s.

Those same findings also led to the resignation of the Governor-General of Australia, Peter Hollingworth, for his efforts in attempting to cover up the scandal.

Ms Heinrich hoped her example would encourage others to seek justice.

"I hope it's an example to other people of what they can do to make themselves feel better by seeing what I've been able to accomplish," she said.

" I don't know whether it's the finish for me, but I know I'm stronger now.

Ms Heinrich described the effect of the bishop's apology as "mind blowing."

"It will help by making me stronger to bear the pain every day," Ms Heinrich said.

"The pain doesn't go away. I'm just stronger so I can pretend easier.

"This apology from Bishop Sarah has helped. I feel really powerful today."

Ms Heinrich said she is not finished with the Anglican Church yet as she has set her sights on the Diocese of Brisbane, where then Archbishop Peter Hollingworth presided in 1995 when she set about getting justice.

She said Hollingworth dismissed her claims and supported Shearman, sending her on a five-year spiral of depression.

"He couldn't even make time to see me after I had driven 21 hours to meet with him," she said.

"He told me he didn't have time as something more important had come up."

Ms Heinrich said she had written to the Diocese six months ago about her situation, but had not received a reply from them.

"They are the ones I am going after next," she said. "They will find I am not prepared to leave it or just to go away."