The Anglican Church of Australia Sydney Diocese

PSU v. Drew

Especially for Complainant 1 – the settlement and the announcement

By Louise Greentree[1]

This case has now settled without going to a hearing and the final steps are being taken to put right at least some of the many wrongs inflicted on Drew and Pippa and their children. These include, notably, an announcement in Drew’s and complainant 1’s former parish to correct the false information inserted by the director PSU Lachlan Bryant (without Drew’s agreement) in the first announcement in 2013 and steps to be taken by Lachlan Bryant to notify the Police and the Office of Children’s Guardian that nothing done by Drew constitutes reportable behaviour for which he could be barred from working with children. These were two things that were vital to Drew and Pippa.

It is now incumbent of all of us, you included Complainant 1, to consider the following:

MATTHEW 5:25-26

“When you are on the way to court with your adversary, settle your differences quickly.

Otherwise, your accuser may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 And if that happens, you surely won’t be free again until you have paid the last penny. (NLT)

This is what the rev. David Reay[2] writes about this passage:

‘Those who have great experience in our judicial system warn people against going to court too readily. It is not as if you won’t be treated justly. It is rather that getting justice might be time consuming and costly. And you can never be sure that the “justice” you receive will be to your liking. Better to nip things in the bud and sort things out before they get to the stage of needing judicial intervention.

Jesus urges a similar procedure. He has been talking about broken relationships and how they need to be put right. Here he is urging us to put them right as quickly as we can. If we don’t, we may end up worse off. In postponing what might be an uncomfortable encounter or humbling experience, we might open ourselves up to something far more damaging.

We are not to let wounds fester, we are not to chew the cud of our old resentments, we are not to relive ancient feuds. These will cripple us. In choosing not to face those from whom we are estranged, we are choosing a haunted and shadowed life. Of course it may be we can’t physically face such people…they may be dead or far away. In those cases, we deal with it internally, resolving to not let the wounds become septic.

Whether the other person settles with us or not can’t be our responsibility. We take the step, we make the attempt. We face the pain in order to avoid a deeper pain

Blessings

David’

Message to Complainant 1

You have caused, absolutely groundlessly, maximum pain and distress to your former mentor and friend and his wife and four children. You have caused, absolutely groundlessly, maximum pain and distress to the children’s grandparents and the parents’ families and friends. You have attempted, absolutely groundlessly, to strangle the flowering of Christian ministry among the many young people who passed through your mentor’s youth ministry.

Mercifully, due to God’s support of Drew and Pippa and their families and the many former members of Drew’s youth ministry, you have not succeeded. Now a great many people know about you, who you are, and how you have behaved. This has drawn great support for Drew and Pippa from many sources within the church and outside it.

You have been ordained as deacon in Christian ministry, indeed you were employed as a youth minister until the end of 2014. You have moved on to the field of academic theology. It is a matter for fervent prayer that you do not join the ranks of the many unbelieving theologians, but use your research to inspire people to turn to God and walk in his way.

An announcement has been made at Drew’s and your previous parish

On the evening of Tuesday 23 February 2016 an announcement was read out (twice) to all interested people in the Parish and supporters of Drew and Pippa. This announcement was negotiated as a part of the settlement to counter-act the poisonous, deceptive and untrue announcement that was made in 2013. The second announcement said that nothing in your complaint constituted behaviour that was reportable to the Police nor to the Office of the Children’s Guardian.

There was nothing in the behaviour you complained about that warranted the intervention of the PSU and there was nothing in the behaviour that warranted removal from youth ministry. This applies to both the law of the land and the ‘law’ of the church.

Drew and Pippa and some supporters attended along with some significant people in the parish, including the ministry team. Although barred from answering questions or speaking at all at the time, they were able to gather outside immediately afterwards and to answer questions and clarify the meaning of the announcement.

Drew is now free to apply to work in youth ministry:

He has agreed not to apply to work in Sydney diocese of the Anglican Church, but he had already said in a statutory declaration that he had no intention of doing so because of the trauma he had suffered because of the fraudulent handling of your complaint by the current director Sydney PSU Lachlan Bryant and the self-promoting child abuse ‘consultant’ the rev. Peter Barnett and the abuse of process that followed. It seems to me that this does not prevent him being ‘headhunted’ by a parish or church organisation, clergy or Archbishop in Sydney diocese. And he is free to work in youth ministry anywhere else.

So you have got part of what you said you wanted in your scandalous messages to former youth ministry members in which you falsely accused Drew of child abuse and sought a bar to his working with children ever again anywhere. As I pointed out this was not going to be achievable because there was no foundation in civil or criminal law for your complaint to be accepted as child abuse and the processes of Sydney diocese under ‘church law’ have no effect outside the diocese.

Your complaint was doomed to failure right from the start.

              The announcement merely rounds off what so many people have known from the start, and what I have been publishing, that there was never any foundation for your complaint.  Therefore many people, myself included, have sought an explanation for your cruelty to a man and his whole family who have never wronged you and for your failure to follow Scriptural directions for the resolution of conflict.

They and I have wondered how you could ally yourself with the director PSU Lachlan Bryant and Peter Barnett in such an enterprise marked by harassment and bullying, deceit and incompetence on their part. Whether you were their victim also or taking the role of a willing colleague in their abuse of Drew and Pippa and their family has yet to be established, although you have objected (via your solicitor) to my attempt to give you the benefit of the doubt.

However, now, instead of focusing your resentment and hostility on Drew and his family, why do you not refocus it on the ones who truly deserve it: notably, Lachlan Bryant and Peter Barnett who misled you? And then find a way to forgive them so you can have peace with God.

Your reputation is in tatters among many people who know you:

Former members of the youth ministry as well as others from your former parish and from Christian ministry generally have supported Drew against your complaint, many with statutory declarations in support of his ministry, with prayer, and with financial aid or a combination of these. They realised right from the start that there was no foundation for your complaint either at law or morally. They are bemused and perplexed at your involvement. They would be interested to hear why you initiated this attack on Drew, Pippa and his family.

What can you do?

I am hoping that you understand your need to restore your relationship with God to the full freedom of walking in obedience to him, as demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ particularly in his words recorded in Mathew 5: 25-26.

Now is the time for you to distance yourself from those of the Sydney diocesan organisation who landed you in this position, encouraged you with false information and burdened you with three years of the longest running case brought ultimately to the disciplinary tribunal, a sham of a process that I have fully documented in my writings, culminating with the series ‘Drew’s Adventures in Wonderland’.

You should acknowledge the extent of your involvement in bringing such a baseless complaint and repent of it, and forgive those others who misled you.

Now is the time for you to seek reconciliation, something that has been offered before, both by Drew and the Archbishop of Sydney, which you have rejected.

Why not take part in reconciliation?

Yes, it does involve deep and searching examination of your own motives that you would bring a complaint without asserting any harm except your own subjective ‘feelings’ of being ‘uncomfortable’. Not that you could assert harm from Drew’s actions which were only ever for your benefit.

It involves repentance not only for bringing the complaint in the first place but also for refusing any and every attempt to resolve it over those three long years of devastation that Pippa writes so feelingly about.

It may, certainly  will, involve ‘an uncomfortable or humbling experience’ as David Reay says, but for Drew and Pippa they also will be required to seize hold of the divine imperative to forgive others in the same way as God forgives them, which is also an uncomfortable or humbling experience.

Please do not put this off.

How can you draw on God’s inspiration as a theologian when you carry such a burden?

None of those who know you wish to see you open yourself up to ‘something far more damaging’. As David Reay says:

‘We are not to let wounds fester, we are not to chew the cud of our old resentments, we are not to relive ancient feuds. These will cripple us. In choosing not to face those from whom we are estranged, we are choosing a haunted and shadowed life.’

There are a great many people praying for you to seek God’s will and his help to take the steps to reconciliation that will set you free.

Post filed under Drew & Pippa.