Child sex abuse inquiry uncovers more victims

AN independent inquiry into child sex abuse in Australia and England has been finalised.

Archbishop of York John Sentamu, pictured last month, said he hoped the church would learn from the “systemic failure’’ that allowed Robert Waddington to commit child abuse.

AN independent commission of inquiry into child sex abuse in Australia and England by one of the Anglican Church’s most powerful clergymen and its subsequent cover-up has been finalised, with the year-long probe uncovering new victims of the serial paedophile.

Archbishop of York John Sentamu said the inquiry confirmed the “seriousness of the crimes’’ committed by the late Robert Waddington, who rose to become the church’s head of education in Britain after serving as a school principal in Queensland during the 1960s.

The inquiry, ordered in May, 2013, after an investigation by The Australian and The Times newspapers exposed Waddington as a paedophile, also led to an ongoing probe into other Anglican clergy who served in the Diocese of York in the past 70 years.

The newspaper investigation revealed English church officials and senior Australian Anglicans failed to report to police the allegations of abuse made in 1999 by a former Queensland student, Bim Atkinson, and similar claims made in 2003 by Manchester choirboy Eli Ward. Archbishop Sentamu is expected to release the inquiry report, by English judge Sally Cahill, next month.

In a statement, Archbishop Sentamu said he hoped the church would learn from the “systemic failure’’ that allowed the child abuse. “Whilst it is never possible to put right the wrongs that have been done, the seriousness of the crimes which have been committed makes us determined both to acknowledge our responsibility and our shame for our failure to protect children in the past, and to respond far more positively to those victims who bravely come forward to share their experience today,’’ he said.

Anglican Bishop of North Queensland Bill Ray said last night he understood the inquiry had uncovered more victims of Waddington in Britain and ­Australia.

Bishop Ray said he had been “frustrated’’ by the duration of the year-long inquiry, which had initially been scheduled to run for three months. “I have been ­assured that it went longer than expected because it was being run by an independent judge who needed more time to investigate the allegations,’’ he said.

“I understood that there are a number of victims in the UK and Australia who have come forward during the inquiry.’’

Waddington died in 2007 and it is alleged he abused boys at four institutions over 50 years. The newspapers revealed there were allegations of abuse from at least four students of Waddington while he was headmaster of St Barnabas boarding school in Ravenshoe, near Cairns, in the 1960s.

Waddington later returned to Britain and became head of education for the Church of England and Dean of ­Manchester.

Bishop Ray last year said a search had failed to find any files relating to St Barnabas. It is alleged Waddington abused boys at the school, and mentored other Anglican brothers and teachers who were later convicted of child abuse at other church institutions.