AUSTRALIA
The Australian
AUGUST 26, 2014
Dan Box
Crime Reporter
Sydney
NSW police have launched a major new investigation into alleged child sex abuse within the Anglican Church in Newcastle.
Detectives have formed a strike force, codenamed Arinya-2, to investigate the alleged abuse, which is understood to involve multiple alleged victims and said to have taken place in the mid-1970s.
The investigation is the most recent of several inquiries into alleged child sex abuse within Newcastle’s major Christian churches. A previous case of alleged child sexual abuse in the Anglican Church was sent to trial at Newcastle District Court in 2001, but was ultimately “no-billed”, meaning prosecutors decided not to pursue the case.
A criminal prosecution that is no-billed can be brought back before the court if there is further evidence to support it, unlike other cases where the “double jeopardy” principle prevents an accused person facing trial twice for the same offence.
More recently, NSW police have investigated abuse allegations against three clerics from the Newcastle Anglican diocese, including a former dean of the city’s cathedral. The three priests — Andrew Duncan, Graeme Lawrence and Bruce Hoare — were formally defrocked in 2012 after an internal church inquiry found they had sex or were involved in group sex sessions with a teenage boy aged as young as 14. A fourth priest, Graeme Sturt, was prohibited from exercising any ministry for five years.
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