AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser
Rebekah Ison, Australian Associated Press
November 16, 2016
A former Newcastle Anglican bishop says “vehement” supporters of a priest accused of abusing children were out to get him from the moment a professional standards probe began.
The abuse commission has heard a group of Newcastle parishioners are concerned about the process that led to the highly influential former Dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence being defrocked in 2012.
“They were out to get me,” Bishop Brian Farran, who was the head of the diocese from 2005 to 2012 and oversaw the defrocking of Lawrence, said on Wednesday.
“I got this anonymous text … saying, ‘Have a great holiday. Come back and resign’.'”
The royal commission has previously heard Lawrence, who had been the second most senior priest in the diocese, faced allegations of abuse against numerous children.
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