AUSTRALIA
Australian
DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10
The Anglican Archbishop of Perth warned two youth leaders they would face legal action if they continued to complain about alleged child abuse committed by a senior priest, a royal commission has heard.
Archbishop Roger Herft “was more interested in standing up for (the alleged abuser) than listening to the issue,” one of the youth leaders said in a witness statement tendered to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Robert Wall told the commission he met Archbishop Herft in about 1994-95, when he was the bishop of Newcastle, in NSW, to report the allegations against Graeme Lawrence, the dean of the city’s cathedral.
Mr Lawrence, who was defrocked in 2012 after having group sex with a teenager, has been identified in evidence to the commission as part of a “Gang of Three” church officials who protected serial paedophile priest Peter Rushton.
The commission yesterday heard a note of a 2015 meeting with former diocesan trustee Keith Allen records him saying “the biggest concern in the Newcastle diocese was Bishop Roger Herft”. The file note records Mr Allen “indicated that Herft will be in trouble”, counsel assisting the commission Naomi Sharp said.
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