Bishop was ‘weak, ineffectual’ in protecting kids from pedophiles

Roger Herft ‘showed no regard for the need to protect children’ while leading a diocese that had a pedophile network.

Anglican Archbishop of Perth Roger Herft “showed no regard for the need to protect children” during his time leading a diocese that sheltered a network of pedophiles, lawyers assisting a royal commission have said.

Archbishop Herft, who will ­retire in July, was “weak” and “ineffectual” in his previous appoint­ment as bishop of Newcastle between 1993 and 2005, when management failures “left children at risk”.

Over previous decades, the Newcastle diocese in NSW was home to “a network of perpetrators ... with evidence of complicity and knowledge of each other’s ­offending”, said counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Naomi Sharp.

Her formal submissions, published yesterday, identified the late Peter Rushton, who is known to have abused at least 12 children, as a “central figure” in this network, which “permissive and timid leadership by successive bishops” allowed to operate for more than 30 years.

During Archbishop Herft’s time in charge of the diocese, a group of church “insiders”, including former cathedral dean Graeme Lawrence and prominent local barrister Paul Rosser QC, worked together to frustrate efforts to deal with child abuse, Ms Sharp said. Even after the royal commission began its hearings in 2013, “sections within the diocese, largely connected with the cathedral … perpetrated a culture of cover-up and denial”.

Archbishop Herft was repeatedly told that Rushton and Mr Lawrence had allegedly abused children, but did not report this to police or investigate further, ­according to Ms Sharp. “Bishop Herft mishandled allegations against two of the most senior and domineering priests in the ­diocese. His response was weak, ineffectual and showed no regard for the need to protect children from the risk that they would be preyed upon,’’ she said.

“It was a failure of leadership.”

In his written submission to the royal commission, Archbishop Herft said he “disputes this proposed finding”, describing it as “a broad and generalised overstatement” and “not a fair reflection of the evidence”.

Archbishop Herft, who declined to comment yesterday, challenged more of Ms Sharp’s proposed findings about his ­actions in Newcastle. He “did not report the allegations concerning Mr Lawrence which were raised in 1995 and 1996 and Mr Rushton in 2002 and 2003 to the police ­because there was no complainant”, his submission read.

Mr Lawrence was defrocked in 2012 after being found to have taken part in group sex with a teenage boy.

Archbishop Herft “cannot be described as a timid and permissive bishop”, his submission reads, saying he “introduced a number of police initiatives with respect to the handling of allegations of ... child sexual abuse”.