AUSTRALIA
SBS
AAP
29 AUG 2016
The Anglican archbishop of Perth has conceded he should have done more amid allegations a senior NSW clergyman, who had formerly been investigated for child porn, had his “own group of boys”.
Archbishop Roger Herft, who was head of the Newcastle Diocese between 1993 and 2005, was alerted to a child sex complaint relating to four men in 2003.
One of the men was senior priest Peter Rushton, who was accused of abusing another priest’s son around the same time and had come to the archbishop’s attention when removalists thought they found child pornography at his house five years prior.
Archbishop Herft on Monday told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he was “deeply fooled” by Rushton, who he thought had “changed” after the pornography matter.
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