Opinion: Church will try to protect its reputation but we can’t be bystanders 

Churches are renowned for trying to protect their reputation at all costs, but when the safety of innocent children is concerned, we cannot afford to be bystanders, writes Kylie Lang.

Yolanda Maria Borucki leaves her hearing at Brisbane Magistrates Court. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Churches are renowned for trying to protect their reputation at all costs.

The Anglicans and Catholics, for example, have knowingly harboured pedophiles who were permitted to irreparably harm children.

Perpetrators were not punished, but moved from one job to another.

It took brave victims pushing past their pain to speak out and a subsequent groundswell of public anger – and Royal Commission – for the churches to admit they’d failed.

The five-year Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that ended in 2017 made multiple recommendations.

One was that institutions “provide help” for members of the community who are concerned “an adult they know may be at risk of perpetrating child sexual abuse”.

Others were that “processes to respond to complaints of child sexual abuse are child focused” and “child safety is embedded in institutional leadership, governance and culture”.

These three seem no-brainers.

But for far too long, institutions – including churches professing to follow the teachings of Christ – have not put child safety at the heart of all they do. Writing it in a policy document or media statement doesn’t count. As expressed in the Bible, James 2:17, “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead”.

It must be acknowledged that churches are run by people, and people are fallible. So it falls to governments and authorities to weigh in to keep kids safe.

But more often than not, the harming of children only sees the light of day when whistleblowers step up.

Ashley Paul Griffith.

Many of these people have followed designated institutional channels for reporting witnessed or suspected abuse, and felt ignored.

Some have felt persecuted and come to the media, including this newspaper, desperately seeking a voice – and justice.

This week the case against former Uniting Church childcare worker Yolanda Maria Borucki was heard in Brisbane Magistrates Court.

The 60-year-old is accused of leaking sensitive information to a TV program in 2023, including that she helped report pedophile Ashley Paul Griffith to police in 2021.

Griffith, who in September pleaded guilty to 307 charges against 69 children between 2003 and 2022 at early learning centres in Brisbane, Sydney and Italy, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday.

Ms Borucki is fighting a charge of using a restricted computer without consent and causing detriment.

The detriment, according to a letter from the church to Ms Borucki on August 4, 2023 (she appeared on A Current Affair that night) is her alleged “deliberate attempt to cause irreparable reputational damage to Uniting Early Learning” and “significant damage to ongoing profitability”.

Yolanda Maria Borucki leaves her hearing at Brisbane Magistrates Court. Picture: NewsWire / Glenn Campbell

In court, Ms Borucki’s defence barrister Patrick McCafferty, KC, questioned the church’s motives in making a complaint to police.

“Perhaps it’s a feeble attempt at reputation management to distract attention away from permitting Griffith to work with children,” he said. “It’s difficult not to form the view that the Uniting Church has persisted with this charge because of the abject humiliation it suffered by reason of what can only have been either a fundamentally flawed or an inadequate internal investigation into Griffith, a pedophile it employed.

“That investigation enabled Griffith to continue to work with children. It permitted him to return to work subject to mild conditions, including he be required to review two policies, one of which was called the relationships with children policy.

“Not simply ironic, the prosecution in this case seeks to hold Ms Borucki criminally liable for an apparent breach of Uniting Church policy; it’s brazen hypocrisy under the circumstances.”

Police prosecutor Bimal Raut said the court had heard from witnesses who testified to seeing 17 emails sent from Ms Borucki’s work email to a private account and several emails sent to A Current Affair.

“She was never allowed to use (the computer) to send emails to private email or to Channel 9; there’s no exception,” Mr Raut said.

Uniting Church Queensland executive director Mike Folland has declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal proceedings.

Magistrate Kerrie O’Callaghan has reserved her decision until December 20. It’s entirely up to the court to judge the merits of the evidence.

As I see it, the case is not a complex one. When the safety of innocent children is concerned, we cannot afford to be bystanders.

Kylie Lang is Associate editor of The Courier-Mail

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