Introduction:
This is a rather different response to the terrible anguish that has been inflicted on Drew and Pippa, first by utterly baseless complaints to the PSU Sydney diocese of the Anglican church made by an assistant youth worker who worked with Drew in the past (2002 – 2008), and, secondly, by the response to the complaint by Lachlan Bryant the director PSU Sydney in a manner that denied Drew his entitlement to defend himself and which heaped on him the totally undeserved label of serious sex offender, when there is nothing in the complaint that warrants such a description. Drew was suicidal.
This response differs from the more measured tone of other postings in this category, but it is important that in our attempt to wind back the major injustices that have been endured by Drew and Pippa, we also allow indignation a place in the discussion.
This was not written by Drew and Pippa, although they sought a softening of the tone, which I have done, and I think that it is an important addition to the discussion, which is why I am posting it again in its’ modified form.
“Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent
the Lord detests them both”
Proverbs 17:15
Please help us: Drew is indeed ‘the innocent’ . Sydney diocese are doing what ‘the Lord detests’ because they need easy scapegoats.
Have you read about the Royal Commission and other inquiries into child abuse in churches and their agencies? Sickening isn’t it! The worst part of all is the way churches failed to condemn known paedophiles, then further abused their victims to keep it secret. Church officials who acted like that surely have no fear of God!
Having failed to keep their sins secret, it seems that Sydney Diocese at least is trying to fool people into thinking that they have changed their spots. Drew is one trusting innocent they are leading like a lamb to the slaughter just so they can pretend they are really tackling abuse. They need to pretend because the reality is not good – for instance in October 2013 the Anglican General Synod wrote to Sydney Diocese complaining that they had not kept up to date putting names of offenders on the National Church Register, which aims at preventing paedophiles just changing dioceses. Apparently there were some 70 names they had failed to report!
‘Two wrongs don’t make a right’! The wrong of failing to act decisively to stop child abuse in the past is only compounded by the wrong of setting up unsuspecting innocents to be falsely accused, denied fair process and then chalked up as a successful prosecutions.
What they are trying to do to Drew
Their opportunity came when a former paid assistant to Drew in youth ministry, one AS, went to the diocese with an inexplicable complaint. Drew cannot understand AS’s passionate determination that he never wants to Drew in Christian ministry ever again.
Strong words but weak reasons. Does he allege any abuse by Drew? No he does not!
Look at the article ‘Honi Soit Qui Mal y Pense Shame on those who think evil of it[1] A Response to the Complaints by Complainant 1 and Complainant 2 against Drew’ on this website for a full list and discussion of what it is that Drew is supposed to have done including Drew’s response which until now he has been forcibly prevented from making.
The only complaint of any note is this: As a teenager AS asked Drew for counselling about AS’s addiction to pornography and other unhealthy sexual issues. Drew counselled him to resist this temptation. Drew used a reputable Christian programme. Drew had been trained by John Mark Ministries and used accountability guidelines from Promise Keepers in this sort of counselling. Even then, AS doesn’t allege any inappropriate counselling. So what is his problem?
The arm of the diocese which deals with such complaints is the Professional Standards Unit (PSU) and the current director is Mr Lachlan Bryant.
Mr Bryant should have dismissed the complaint as baseless. He didn’t.
AS sent emails and Facebook messages to try to winkle out other (equally baseless) complaints from members of the youth group from this time some 10 years ago. This trawling the youth group for supporting complaints is highly defamatory on AS’s part. Also, it was wrong because the only way in which a complaint to the PSU can be investigated is by a properly qualified investigator appointed by the director PSU. But after all that, there is only one other complaint on the table, that by AW – equally baseless.
PSU Director Bryant is bound by a church ordinance – the same one that gives him power to act at all – called the Discipline Ordinance 2006. This contains strict procedures which were put there by Synod to reduce the incidence of false accusations being acted on and innocent people being labelled or even condemned. Mr Bryant tore up this rulebook in Drew’s case!
First he tried ‘trial by ambush’: under the Ordinance he had to inform Drew of any allegations against him and tell him that he had a minimum of 21 days to prepare an answer. That is what even pagans regard as Natural Justice. He didn’t do this.
Out of the blue, Drew received the utterly bewildering text message from AS, stating the concerns he had, in vague generalisations, and which he had passed on to the PSU. Drew rang up Bryant and asked to come in and find out what was going on. Hardly the action of a person who was guilty of child sex abuse. What Bryant should have done was to refuse to meet and instead (1) to post him details of the complaint, plus a copy of the Discipline Ordinance 2006, advising him he had not less than 21 days to respond and (2) to advise him to take legal advice.
Did Bryant do this? No of course not. He let Drew come in, telling him that he should not bring anyone with him (only reluctantly did he agree to Pippa coming also) and firmly discouraging him from bringing anyone else, such as a lawyer. He ambushed Drew with allegations Drew had no inkling existed and then demanded answers on the spot.
Next, Bryant was required to advise Drew to seek legal advice before saying anything that might be construed as an admission. This is the same condition as is required of Police in the secular world. Not only did he not do that but actually told him not to seek legal advice at all saying there were no legal issues. Then having tried to prevent Drew from bringing anyone who would be a witness or support for Drew to the meeting, he himself brought in the Director PSU of another NSW diocese Peter Barnett. It was indeed fortunate that Pippa did go despite Bryant’s efforts and so can vouch for what took place. The pair of them swept aside Drew’s protestations of innocence and that he had done his job as he had been trained to do with neither sexual intent nor actuality, and bullied him by calling him guilty and talking about his attempts to defend himself as simply the way a paedophile reacts to accusations. This was infamous behaviour by the two ‘experts’.
Then Bryant and Barnett carried out their piece de resistance: they persuaded Drew to apologise to AS and AW.
Now Drew still did not suspect foul play, and thought a Christian should make apology for AS’s feeling that he had been abused even when the supposed abuse did not exist in fact, only in AS’s perception. Drew felt he should do the same for AW .So Drew made, as Bryant insisted, an ‘unconditional apology’. AW responded strangely saying that if they met again they should not talk about this at all. AS rejected it out of hand. Then Bryant, completely in defiance of ethical obligations and in breach of his duties as set out in the Discipline Ordinance 2006, showed his true colours by trumpeting this abject apology as a ‘confession’. Even pagans do not tolerate this behaviour by a prosecutor!
Bryant then sent this apology to the police. There was no allegation of anything that could remotely be considered a legal offence – Bryant himself had assured Drew of this when he told him he didn’t need a lawyer. So why report it to the Police (who did not act on it)? A numbers game surely – church authorities didn’t report real crimes in the past, so here they can notch up one more in their “reports to police” tally.
All this gives rise to the strong suspicion that he was just after an easy scalp.
Having seen that Drew was indeed a ‘lamb to the slaughter’ Bryant went on. No, he did not commission an investigation of the facts as required by the Ordinance. That would have uncovered the very inconvenient truth of Drew’s complete innocence. Instead he sent Drew’s apology to his committee, falsely claiming it was a confession! And, no, he did not, despite Drew’s protestations, allow Drew to submit a defence, even though he was required to do so by the Ordinance and also as part of the basic notion of Natural Justice.
His Committee have now decided that after all Drew should be put on trial before a church Tribunal. Let me repeat, they are not alleging any sexual acts of any degree whatsoever.
So now, although they were ‘too busy’ to let the National Church have the names of sex offenders so that children can be protected, they have time and money in abundance to stage a show trial of an innocent man so that they can boast they are ‘doing something’.
And for Drew to clear his name, he will face financial ruin: he has scarcely enough to feed his family let alone now bear the heavy burden of fees for a barrister to represent him at the hearing. All this to ‘put right’ the many injustices committed against him by Bryant and Barnett. Drew has written to the Archbishop seeking greater financial assistance up front so he can even afford to have a preliminary conference with a barrister. No reply!
Shame on them!
Please help: remember “all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing”
1) Pray that God will deliver Drew from the mouths of these lions
2) Check the facts of these incredible complaints – and then write to the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney and demand justice for Drew and his wife and family.
Archbishop Glenn Davies
St Andrew’s House, Sydney Square, PO Box Q412, QVB Post Office NSW 1230
Lawyers, and those just interested in justice (and what Christian who worships the God of justice and truth is not) should also look at the article ‘For the Lawyers: how Drew and Pippa have been denied justice by the PSU Sydney diocese’