THE former Archbishop of Perth, Western Australia, Roger Herft, has been deposed from Holy Orders for failing to deal appropriately with allegations of child sexual abuse when he was Bishop of Newcastle, in regional New South Wales, from 1993 to 2005. There is no suggestion that Mr Herft himself committed any child sexual abuse.
The recommendation for deposition was made by the Episcopal Standards Board, a disciplinary tribunal of the Anglican Church of Australia, which found that Mr Herft was unfit to remain in Holy Orders. Now living in Melbourne, he chose not to appear or be represented at the Board’s hearing.
The tribunal decision was based on findings by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, held from 2013 to 2017, which strongly criticised him (News, 15 December 2017). The Royal Commission said that “there was a substantial failure in risk management” during his episcopate, which “left children at risk”. There were no disciplinary processes against clergy against whom allegations of child sexual abuse were made; other dioceses were not warned of allegations when alleged perpetrators moved; and survivors were not offered timely or compassionate pastoral care and support.
The Commission said that Mr Herft had mishandled allegations of child sexual abuse made against a senior priest of the diocese. “His response was weak and ineffectual and showed no regard for the need to protect children from the risk that they could be preyed upon,” the Commission said. “It was a failure of leadership.”
A former Dean of Newcastle Cathedral, Graeme Lawrence, was sentenced to a maximum of eight years in prison in 2019 for the sexual abuse of a 15-year-old boy in the deanery in 1991. He had been deposed from Holy Orders in 2012 after the diocese of Newcastle’s Professional Standards Board found him guilty of sexual misconduct in the 1980s (News, 14 September 2012).
Sri Lankan-born, Mr Herft, aged 73, was Bishop of Waikato, New Zealand, before his appointment to Newcastle in 1993. Appointed Archbishop of Perth in 2005, he resigned in 2016 after the Royal Commission hearing into Newcastle diocese (News, 23 December 2016).
The Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Peter Stuart, said: “The survivors of abuse within the diocese before the Royal Commission, and in their engagement with the diocese, confirm the Board’s observation that the consequences of the allegations of childhood sexual abuse going unchecked over a period of years is profound. I again offer them our sincere apologies.”