I have been consulted by a couple, Drew who had worked for many years in youth ministry in the Anglican church Sydney diocese and his wife Pippa, a talented dancer and singer, the parents of four children. I now have their permission to publicise their plight and provide a forum for public discussion of the many wrongs done to them by Lachlan Bryant, the current director of the Professional Standards Unit of Sydney diocese (PSU), as well as others.
From time to time I will be posting various articles and documents to this site as they continue their battle against the toxic culture in the PSU. This culture was clearly demonstrated in the earlier cases that I have documented here, especially in the case of the Dobbs family. Even though there has been not one but two changes of director PSU, the culture of, at best, incompetence or, at worst, malicious bullying and contempt for justice and fair process still continues unchecked.
You will be shocked at how Drew and Pippa have been treated so far by the PSU and by others in leadership positions in the diocesan secretariat and hierarchy. In defiance of their protests at the attempts to gag them and silence their valid responses to an extraordinary complaint by Drew’s former assistant youth leader, AS, and rejection of the contempt with which they have been treated, they are still being denied due process and natural justice. They have been lied to, they have been bullied into making apologies for something which needs no apology.
Not the least of their problems stem from the fact that the complaints involve everyday actions that are not in themselves abusive or of a sexual nature, nor did they result in sexual overtures or a sexual relationship with AS, whether as a mid-teenager or in any time until he was in his early twenties when he left the youth group and went onto work in youth ministry himself. His complaint does not allege that he has suffered abuse or harm. But someone has told him he is a victim of sexual abuse and he has adopted the mantle of victim-hood.
Although he is a Christian and church worker himself in Sydney diocese, he failed to follow the prescribed process for dealing with a dispute between Christians laid down in Matthew 18:15-17 and he has refused to meet and discuss his concerns. He has rejected an apology, and yet to forgive is surely compulsory for Christians (see the Lord’s Prayer).
So many things are wrong with the way Drew and Pippa have been treated that I will dedicate separate posts to discuss single issues, and update you with new developments in the case as well as post longer examinations of the issues and some material written by Drew and Pippa expressing their pain and bewilderment that this man, who invited them to his wedding and asked Drew to lead the prayers, has turned on them without warning. And even so, he does not say that he was harmed or abused. He is relying on a tragic over-reaction to the sins of the fathers of the church which is embodied in the Code of Conduct and various diocesan Discipline Ordinances which ascribes to ordinary actions an implication and insinuation which they do not have without the addition of two crucial elements: intention and a course of conduct.
When he gave evidence recently to the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, the founding director of the PSU Sydney diocese Phillip Gerber admitted that he had been helpless against the culture in Newcastle diocese of the Anglican church (of which he was also director PSU) of covering up cases of real and horrific child abuse particularly in children’s homes by members of the clergy, and the culture of denigrating any victim who complained, and offering, eventually, risible sums in compensation on the fabricated representation that the diocese could afford no more. Yet while this was happening he was harassing innocent people, like the Dobbs’, like John and Cathy and others, with false claims of child and adult sex abuse or adultery by a church worker.
Basically, the PSU appears to have learned nothing from previous bungling, and it is just as much dedicated to harassing the innocent.
Louise 31 January 2014