De-frocked dean thought police call was a ‘hoax’

Ex-Newcastle Anglican dean Graeme Lawrence denies being asked by his then archbishop on reports he abused children.

De-frocked Anglican Dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence. Picture: Ryan Osland

The former dean of Newcastle’s Anglican cathedral has denied being questioned by the current Archbishop of Perth over reports that he sexually abused children during the late 1990s, a royal commission has heard.

Graeme Lawrence also told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday that he took no action against another priest alleged to have abused children as he expected his then bishop, Roger Herft, to do so instead.

“I didn’t take any particular action. I left it to the diocesan bishop and the registrar to do those ­actions that were in their purview, not mine,” Mr Lawrence said.

Asked why he did not return a call in 2000 from a man identifying himself as a detective and asking about the priest, Mr Lawrence said he doubted the call was genuine, despite believing the victim had gone to police.

“Are you seriously suggesting in your evidence that this telephone call was some kind of hoax?” counsel assisting the commission Naomi Sharp asked.

“Yes,” replied Mr Lawrence, who was defrocked in 2012 after being found to have taken part in group sex with a teenage boy.

“That’s just not believable is it?” Ms Sharp asked.

“It’s true, ma’am,” he replied.

Ms Sharp also questioned whether Mr Lawrence was telling the truth in claiming Archbishop Herft had never asked him about two separate reports alleging he had abused children while dean of Newcastle. The archbishop stood aside from his position last month and is not performing any official duties or functions as he awaits the commission’s investigation into his former diocese.

Giving evidence this year, Archbishop Herft accepted that evidence before the commission showed he had asked Mr Lawrence about each of the allegations and the dean denied them at the time. No records of the conversations existed, the commission heard, and the archbishop said he had no memory of their taking place.

“It’s absolutely the truth,” Mr Lawrence said yesterday when questioned over his account.

The commission heard Mr Lawrence exercised considerable influence during his time in the Newcastle diocese and had given evidence in court in support of one convicted pedophile, Allan Kitchingman, with whom he had studied to become a priest.

Two other alleged offenders, including the late Peter Rushton, were also students at St John’s Theological College in Morpeth, during his time there, Mr Lawrence told the commission, although he did “not particularly” form a friendship with either man.