Aspinall affirms reporting policy

THE Anglican Church will retain mandatory reporting to police of child sex abuse complaints.

Phillip Aspinall

THE Anglican Church will retain mandatory reporting to police of child sex abuse complaints, despite "second thoughts" by its top cleric about the system.

Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall had ordered a review of the policy after the Church of England backed away from it in Britain.

This was because of concern that calling in police against the wishes of victims in so-called historic cases of abuse -- which emerged years on, when they were adults -- could amount to a form of "re-abuse".

But Dr Aspinall, the Archbishop of Brisbane, said the Anglican review had come down on the side of keeping mandatory reporting to police of all child sex abuse allegations levelled against priests, teachers and other church staff. "One of the things that carried considerable weight in our final decision was the fact that over the last . . . decade we have not had one victim who is now an adult express any concern to us about a policy of reporting everything to the police," he told The Australian.

"So in light of that, notwithstanding the seriousness with which we considered the Church of England position, we believe the policy we have got in place is the right one."

The decision was welcomed yesterday by child protection advocates. University of South Australia emeritus professor in child development Freda Briggs said mandatory reporting was essential given the churches' failures to declare previous crimes.

"It's because they left decisions to clergy that the churches have got into trouble, and providing forgiveness particularly when priests confessed but were not reported to police," Dr Briggs said. Victims or their parents did not have to pursue it through the courts if they chose not to but the allegations should always be reported. "Police need to know," she said.

Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston said police must be informed of abuse against children. But she said in cases of historical abuse where the complainant was unwilling to talk to police it was important the police still had that intelligence. She said Bravehearts had a dual process to enable information to go to police without triggering involvement from victims, which had resulted in convictions.

Dr Aspinall said his "second thoughts" about mandatory reporting of historic child sex abuse allegations had been prompted by research findings in Britain that taking the decision to bring in police away from adult victims could disempower them and "actually be seen as re-abusing them".

He said victims' advocates, victim support groups and academics in the field had been consulted as part of the church review, which affirmed the existing policy.