AUSTRALIA
Huffington Post
Eoin Blackwell Senior Associate Editor, HuffPost Australia
An Anglican Church-founded youth group was used by a “network of sexual perpetrators” who knew of each other’s offending while they abused children for more than a decade, a new report says.
The Child Sex Abuse Royal Commission report found the Church of England’s Boys’ Society’s (CEBS) only formal response to the sex abuse was to strip awards given to certain offenders, while the body’s national council decided against an apology in 2009.
The report also found a culture developed in the CEBS — a Scout-like activity group — in which perpetrators had easy access and opportunities to sexually abuse boys in their care.
The abuse often occurred on youth camps, sailing and fishing trips and overnight stays organised by the CEBS, which the Commission found was was left to operate autonomously by the Anglican Church in the 1970s and 1980s.
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