Former Governor-general Peter Hollingworth took “a punt” on a paedophile priest

AUSTRALIA
Mercury

PATRICK BILLINGS
Mercury

FORMER Governor-general Peter Hollingworth has told a child abuse inquiry in Hobart how he, as the then leader of Brisbane’s Anglican Church, took “a punt” on a paedophile priest in allowing him to remain a rector in Queensland.

Dr Hollingworth was the Brishbane Anglican Archdeacon in 1993 when he learnt priest Johnt Litton Elliot had sexually abused a boy prior to ordination.

Elliot was a former Church of England Boys (CEBS) leader in Tasmania before he moved to Queensland in the 1960s.

In the late 1970s he started abusing a boy, aged nine or 10, for about four years while working as a lay preacher and CEBS leader.

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