Category Archives: The Figtree Affair
Whispers and Lies – An Inappropriate Response Part 2
‘And as always when someone has given a lead, there were gratuitous followers. (If someone invented a story and wrote to the press that they had seen a green lion in the sky at 5.30 the previous evening, at least six people would have seen it retrospectively.)’ Josephine Tey ‘Miss Pym Disposes’. In sociology and
A Cautionary Tale – the Cover-up Begins (revised 2018)
In the article ‘A Cautionary Tale’, I wrote about how a 20-year-old young woman Emma Nicholls, a sufferer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and with other mental and physical issues, had been abused by her mother Lee Nicholls, by parishioners, staff and ordained and lay leadership of Figtree Anglican Church and by the then Senior Minister’s
The First Stone Revisited (2018 2nd edition)
In 1995 noted Australian feminist and author Helen Garner published her book ‘The First Stone’. In this she examined the case of two charges of indecent assault that were brought by the Victorian Police against the then Master of Ormond College, Melbourne University. She tried to understand why the complaints were brought and why events
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PSC Figtree Anglican Church v the Dobbs family.
On 12 April 2008 I wrote to Archdeacon Deryck Howell, who was Chair of the Professional Standards Committee (PSC) of the Anglican Church, Sydney diocese. This was after Phillip Gerber, Director Sydney PSU, had referred the case of the complaint by Lee Nicholls on behalf of her adult daughter Emma Nicholls to the PSC in
Emma’s Remaining Allegations
Ten years later, and there is still no resolution of the case of Lee Nicholls’ complaint ‘on behalf of’ her adult daughter Emma Nicholls. In 2009, the Anglican church Sydney diocese Disciplinary Tribunal was forced to recommend to Archbishop Jensen that all the ‘charges’ be withdrawn and dismissed because no-one had jurisdiction to bring the
Open Letter to the Disciplinary Tribunal
SETTING THE BOUNDARIES ON CHURCH DISCIPLINE. This article was sent to the Deputy Chair of the Disciplinary Tribunal of the Anglican church Sydney Diocese in November 2008. In response, the director PSU Mr. Phillip Gerber telephoned the writer one morning and treated me to a 45 minutes abusive harangue, to which I listened with some
Trial by Committee: the Professional Standards Committee of the Anglican Church Sydney diocese
In 2006, Sydney diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia adopted the Discipline Ordinance 2006 (‘the 2006 Ordinance’) as a replacement for the Church Discipline Ordinance 2002 (‘the 2002 Ordinance’). Both versions set up the Professional Standards Committee (the PSC) which exercised certain functions in the process of dealing with complaints to the Professional Standards
A Mother’s Story: Figtree Anglican church and the Dobbs family.
A Mother’s Story: this Machelle Dobbs’ story of the ruthless abuse of herself and all her family by clergy, staff and parishioners of Figtree Anglican Church, in Wollongong, NSW, Australia by inflicting shunning and disfellowship on this mother and her six children because of a complaint fabricated by a Lee Nicholls about her OCD-affected adult