The Anglican Church of Australia

Sydney PSU v Drew

Especially for Complainant 1: You can (and should) stop this persecution now.

You have sabotaged the process:

As I wrote in my article ‘The Disciplinary Tribunal Part 3’, you yourself have sabotaged the ability of the Disciplinary Tribunal (as presently constituted) to hear the case. Whoever advised you to write direct to the Deputy President of the Tribunal on 26^th March 2015 (unless it was your own great idea) has led you into an act of breath-taking stupidity.

• You purported to ‘dob in’ the Archbishop of Sydney to the Deputy President for meeting Drew and Pippa; how can this be consistent with your vows of obedience that you took when ordained a deacon?
• You rejected his offer to mediate the dispute, calling it ‘distressing at so many levels’ and you rejected it repeatedly; what sort of distress and at what levels you did not specify.
• You blamed that meeting for bringing about the idea of postponing the tribunal hearing to allow for settlement discussions. (In fact, this was not true: the Archbishop of Sydney had been seeking a way to bring the case to a proper conclusion for some time, including meeting Drew and Pippa.)
• You labelled yourself as a victim of the process over the then 18 months since the PSU became involved, displaying an extraordinary self-centredness, considering the distress and devastation you have brought on your mentor, his wife and their four children by the way you have gone about this, let alone the triviality of your complaints.
• You called the proposal for a mediated resolution ‘an insult to everything I have endured over the past year and a half’ although how a Christian-based process such as mediation could possibly be an insult to anything you did not specify.
• Having complained about the introduction of a ‘new process’ (mediation) you then proposed a new process yourself – sole arbitration – instead of the tribunal process.
• You nominated the Deputy President as the sole arbitrator: perhaps you agreed with us that his displays in the directions hearings indicated that he had abandoned any pretence of impartiality and was wedded to seeing the diocese (i.e. you) ‘win’ or, at least, vindicated in same way.
• Having rejected a process that would have enabled the case to be dealt with promptly – a mediation could have concluded the case before the then date for commencement of a ‘hearing’ by the Disciplinary Tribunal – you complained about the delay!

You have rejected settlement in favour of the inadequacy of the disciplinary tribunal process within the Anglican Church Sydney diocese established by ecclesiastical law.

• By rejecting your Archbishop’s proposal to find a Christian process (mediation) to resolve the many complex issues in the case you also rejected any control over the way the case could be ‘decided’.
• You have left yourself at the mercy of a tribunal process, governed by a very flawed piece of church legislation, that does not have the power or authority to address your concerns, which cannot make decisions but can only make recommendations (which can be overruled by the Archbishop of Sydney), and which can only make so-called ‘findings’ on a very narrow definition of what actions might constitute misconduct.
• You have pinned your faith, misguidedly, on the process that will have no concern to address your needs, whatever they may be but which, I’m guessing, range from a desire to be justified in the extraordinary way in which you handled your complaint to satisfying your apparent anger, if not so much because of Drew’s conduct but because of the way the diocesan representatives so completely bungled your complaint. Not that their bungling makes any difference to the essential wrongness of your complaint.

You have rejected reconciliation between Christians

But this is wrong and places eternal life at risk –

• You have been ordained as a deacon: you have vowed to live the Christian life. In rejecting the opportunity to actively seek reconciliation you are (again) in breach of your vows, which after all are not just made to the Archbishop, bishops, and congregation but to God.
• You have not been abused, sexually or otherwise: Mr. Eaton, barrister for the diocese (as well as a deputy chancellor of the diocese) has informed the tribunal members that the case is one of allegations of ‘conduct that is disgraceful if performed by a youth minister and which caused or, if known at the time, would have caused a scandal’. As you well know, the conduct was known about at the time and did not cause a scandal. At least 19 former youth group members have already said so in statutory declarations.
• Also as you well know, to the extent that any part of that conduct could (perhaps in a very diseased mind) be considered to have a sexual import, in this case Drew did not have any sexual intention: you have made this admission to your family and to another person who has made a statutory declaration to that effect.
• Because you have not been abused, you are not considered a person who might be ‘re-victimised’ by meeting the person he has accused, even in the highly controlled environment of a mediation: therefore you cannot claim this as an excuse to duck out of your obligations as a Christian and as an ordained deacon.

You have done yourself a grave disservice in so many ways.

• You have rejected the opportunity to maintain privacy both as to the terms of a mediated settlement and in relation to this website.
• You have rejected the opportunity to have all your concerns open for discussion and resolution, opting for a process that does not have the power to deal with these: by choosing the ‘strictly legalistic’ path you have already lost the case as far as your pressing and real concerns are.
• You have committed yourself to an appearance in a witness box where only concerns that the tribunal has the authority to consider will be the subject of examination-in-chief and cross-examination. You will have to face Drew, but this time in the hostile environment of a tribunal hearing rather than in the reconciling atmosphere of a mediated discussion in which you can talk about whatever concerns you.
• You have lost control of the outcome even if the tribunal finds that there has been behaviour disgraceful in a youth minister because the tribunal does not have the power to make orders, only a recommendation to the Archbishop, whose views on this case are already well-known: that is, that it should never have been referred to the tribunal in the first place. That there was a serious abuse of the process in the way in which it was handled in the early meetings between Bryant and Barnett and Drew and Pippa has been acknowledged and apologised for.
• You have stated that you want to make sure Drew never works in ministry again, but this is not within the power of the tribunal to order nor for the Archbishop of Sydney to say, even if he were disposed to do so. The Anglican Church, as you should be aware being an ordained deacon, is organised on the basis of autonomous diocese. There is no chance that Drew’s name could be placed on any register of child sex offenders because he has not even been charged with sex abuse of a child.
• Because of the acknowledgment that there was a serious abuse of process in the initial meetings, Lachlan Bryant is in the position that he has to advise the NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian that the initial ‘notification’ was wrong and is withdrawn. His wrongful notification to the NSW Police Sexual Assault Unit appears to have died, perhaps because there was no allegation of sexual assault.

What can you do?

In a way the whole case now far transcends your original concerns, overwhelmed by the need of the diocese to protect itself from civil action. Any ‘finding’ by the tribunal will have no force or effect in civil proceedings, therefore it is imperative from the point of view of the diocese that it gains a settlement including a clause that Drew agrees not to sue the diocese.

I and others are concerned that you, alone or with advice from your lawyers, are inter-meddling with the settlement ‘discussions’, for want of a better word for the desultory exchange of draft documents that has now been proceeding for about 1 year. Strictly speaking you have no standing in the case: you are a witness, but Mr. Bryant is the party to the charges. However, we can understand that the diocese will want to secure your agreement, especially to prevent you bringing civil action against the diocesan representatives and their consultant for their bungling and the distress you say in your letter you have been caused (whether such an action would succeed is another matter and not for me to comment on).

Also, we are concerned that you still harbour in your heart of hearts (where it can be read by God) a desire for revenge and that this is driving you (and you are driving the diocesan representatives) in the continued unsatisfactory way in which it is still bungled on their part.

This is something you need to abandon so as to place yourself in a right relationship with God. We pray that you will allow God to enable you to do this and that you will be able to seek a God-honouring resolution. If our prayers are answered (and God will not force you), then you can simply withdraw your complaint and seek a reconciliation meeting with Drew and Pippa with the assistance of a mediator. A great many good people would be very glad to see you do this and are supporting you in this endeavour with their prayers.

 

Post filed under Drew & Pippa.