Drew and Pippa: Tribunal hearing set down for 23 and 24 April 2015
By Louise Greentree
Hullo Dear Readers and a Happy New Year to you all.
A hearing date has been set.
After the Deputy President of the Anglican Church Disciplinary Tribunal (Sydney diocese) had been forecasting a hearing of the case to be set down for a date in February 2015 (a mere 2 years 2 months after Lachlan Bryant, Director Sydney PSU, unwisely accepted a complaint from complainant 1) in fact the hearing date has been set – for 23 and 24 APRIL 2015 (a mere 2 years 4 months after complainant 1 made his unwise complaint to Lachlan Bryant).
Unless the case is settled beforehand.
Put the dates in your diaries, those who intend to come and those who intend to create a network of prayer for the protection of Drew, Pippa and all of the members of their team. We will give you prayer points for this event and keep you advised of developments in the case.
The December directions hearing and what documents we have filed in support of Drew.
Those of you on our email list for our Prayer Report will know that the last directions hearing was a shocker which left Pippa breaking down in tears at the end as she and Drew and their legal team had to confront their barely expressed fears that there will be no justice to be obtained from the three people sitting in their private capacities as members of the private tribunal even after, or even especially after, we were able to file another 20 statutory declarations from people who know Drew well and who know at least complainant 1if not both. If anything, our filing of our investigator’s report that is a model of clarity and discernment of the issues with the 20 statutory declarations has riled those who for various reasons are supporting ‘complainants 1 and 2’.
What is the effect on the complainants, especially complainant 1?
These materials will certainly make for interesting reading by the complainants.
I wonder whether complainant 1 realises how many people already know who he is and who deplore his ill-founded complaint and the manner in which he has brought it and roped in complainant 2. These are people of Christian integrity and maturity who completely deny any foundation for the claims from their personal experience and observations. What complainant 1 has brought upon himself (and complainant 2) by his behaviour has been a reappraisal of his Christian maturity and his reputation by a number of those who in the past have had a friendly relationship with him.
I suspect that he does realise these things: later last year he announced his resignation to the congregation of the parish he has been serving for many years. He was vague about his plans for the future. Apropos of nothing at all he included in his public announcement to the whole congregation the statement that he had been ‘hurt’ by someone a long time ago. ‘Hurt’ in the absence of any abusive behaviour is a matter of subjective assessment coupled with a willingness to be a victim. It invites the response: big deal, grow up, stop wasting the time and the resources of the diocese; read the transcripts of the evidence of the many witnesses to the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Sexual Abuse (see the website) for examples of real abuse.
Then, surely, he will have to know and understand why so many who have known him find strange, pathetic and unsustainable his claim to be ‘hurt’ in respect of actions that are not criminal, not immoral, not sexual, not prohibited by civil or ecclesiastical law, which are not prohibited by the Bible nor are by any stretch of the imagination any form of abuse of a child. Instead, they were beneficial, backed by scientific research in the case of some actions and all consented to by someone on the very threshold of adulthood, where his consent is a factor in favour of Drew because there are no allegations of abuse.
How are the needs for justice for Drew and compassion for the complainants to be reconciled?
However, what is clear is that no decision of this tribunal nor settlement beforehand is ever going to undo the harm that complainants 1 and 2 have done to themselves in the Christian community of which they are or were members. They forfeited sympathy when the true nature of their complaints, the triviality and fatal flaws, became known and any later evidence they give will only reinforce this. Writing as an expert on alternative dispute resolution I find it difficult to see how justice for Drew and compassion for complainants 1 and 2 in their present predicament of being forced to give evidence face-to-face with Drew and subjected to cross-examination at a formal hearing can ever be reconciled in a way that honours God’s character as the God of truth and justice.
How did it come to this?
It need not have come to this, had there been wisdom and integrity in the way in which Lachlan Bryant dealt with the case from the very beginning. This would include, firstly, his failure to advise complainant 1 that Faithfulness in Service only came into existence after the events complained of and in any event it does not contain ‘offences’ of this nature, merely advice to assist the avoidance of false claims; secondly, that the events in themselves did not involve sexual intent or sexual activity nor disgraceful nor scandalous behaviour, especially as they were widely known about and there was no scandal at the time; thirdly, that for these reasons the complaint did not come under the Discipline Ordinance 2006; and, fourthly, therefore not only did the PSU not have jurisdiction to deal with the complaint Lachlan Bryant himself should not even have tried to deal with it.
Having formed the view (as he admitted) that the Discipline Ordinance 2006 did not apply Lachlan Bryant had no power or authority to even meet with Drew and Pippa. Had he not ignored his lack of authority in this he and his side-kick Peter Barnett would not have been involved in the disgraceful and scandalous behaviour of their own which drove Drew to the very brink of suicide by their (false) rejection of his response to the accusations, the lies and misrepresentations and the bullying.
Even now: when it is all too apparent that it is only if the tribunal members ignore fundamental principles of truth and justice that they can conclude that the behaviour was disgraceful if performed by a youth minister (a bit difficult considering the actions were not illegal or immoral etc. as detailed above) AND, if known (which it was) caused a scandal (which it didn’t), these representatives of the diocese are still locked into forcing complainants 1 and 2 further into their present predicament of censure by people who know them in order to protect and/or exonerate Lachlan Bryant from proper criticism and censure and the consequences that in all justice should flow from that.
If I were advising complainant 1 or 2 I would have to tell them that if they are going to blame anybody for their ‘hurt’ and their present predicament, Lachlan Bryant and the lawyers involved in their various capacities in the case on his instructions or as appointed, and the diocesan officers supporting him including the Archbishop to whom he is responsible, are persons who have a lot to answer for.