AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
JOANNE MCCARTHY
11 Aug 2016
A MAN who accused a Hunter Anglican priest of sexually abusing him as a child has rejected an apology from disgraced former diocese registrar Peter Mitchell for “sinking the boot in” after an aborted court case in 2001.
Mitchell, convicted of defrauding the diocese of nearly $200,000 in 2002, told the royal commission on Wednesday that he was sorry for the distress he caused the man, known as CKA, by writing what he conceded were false statements about the case in an Anglican magazine article.
Mitchell wrote in 2001 that “the facts show the Crown did not have evidence to bring any action against” the priest, who the royal commission was told is likely to face fresh child sex abuse charges dating from the 1970s.
“What you wrote there is false, isn’t it?” Justice Peter McClellan put to Mitchell whose Anglican Encounter article included a line that “The reality is the Crown did not have a case against” the priest.
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