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Newcastle dean defrocked: The Church of England Newspaper, September 16, 2012 p 7. September 20, 2012

Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.
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Graeme Lawrence

The Bishop of Newcastle (Australia) has defrocked three priests for misconduct, including the former Dean of Newcastle, the Very Rev. Graeme Lawrence.

On 10 September 2012 Bishop Brian Farran announced he had accepted the recommendation of the diocesan Professional Standards Board and removed Dean Lawrence, the Rev. Bruce Hoare and the Rev. Andrew Duncan from the ministry.  The Rev. Graeme Sturt was suspended from the ministry for five years, while cathedral organist (and Dean Lawrence’s partner) Gregory Goyette was banned from working in Anglican churches.

“There will be people in Newcastle who will be extraordinarily angry with me, but unfortunately the processes must be followed,” Bishop Farran told the ABC. “The Professional Standards Board considered some very disturbing material and determined that some of the respondents engaged in sexual misconduct, including misconduct when the complainant was a child,” he said.

The five men had been brought up on charges before the Professional Standards Board for sexual abuse and misconduct and on 15 Dec 2010 the board found that Dean Lawrence and Mr. Goyette had engaged in sexual relations with a 17 year old man at a church camp in 1984, and that Mr. Sturt had observed the act and recommended their dismissal.

Dean Lawrence and Mr. Sturt asked the New South Wales Supreme Court to review the proceedings, charging the standards board failed to observe procedural fairness.

On 27 April 2012 NSW Justice John Sackar held the civil courts did not have the authority to intervene in the church’s internal deliberations by issuing an order granting a permanent stay on the proceedings of the standards board, as the standards board was not a statutory tribunal subject to government oversight.  His ruling dismissing the cleric’s appeal did not address the merits of the charges of abuse brought before the standards board, but held the board’s proceedings had not been arbitrary or capricious.

Dean Lawrence, who served as Dean of Newcastle for 25 years until his retirement in 2008, was a member of the Anglican Church of Australia General Synod Standing Committee task force that in 2003 created the recommendations for the current professional standards proceedings.

The 2003 Sexual Abuse Working Group recommended that the church change clergy disciplinary proceedings from an adversarial procedure involving a prosecution for an offence before a tribunal, to panel review process that looked at the fitness of the church worker to hold office.  The Standing Committee subsequently accepted these recommendations, which were subsequently adopted by the 2004 General Synod.

First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.