About Figtree Anglican Church
This is the House that Rod Built
Part 2 Helen Irvine
This is Rod’s wife who spread a lie who worshipped in the house that Rod built.
By Louise Greentree[1]
Introduction
In Part 1 I discussed how Rod Irvine built Figtree Anglican Church into a mega-church and how the traps and failings of a mega-church took over even when, or perhaps because, it was at the height of its’ popularity.
In this, Part 2, I will look at the initiating and continuing role of Rod’s wife, Helen Irvine in bringing into Figtree Anglican Church a Lie from the University of Wollongong which lead directly to the shameful persecution by members of that church of Dr. Scott Dobbs, his wife Machelle and their six children, all long-time enthusiastic parishioners of Figtree Anglican Church.
Background
In February 2007 Dr. Scott Dobbs was astonished, and angry, to be confronted by the Rev Bruce Clarke the Executive Minister of Figtree Anglican church in NSW, Australia and a warden of the church, both of whom accused him of child sex abuse and sexual harassment of an adult. The church had received a complaint from the mother of 20-year-old woman Emma Nicholls, which did not actually contain any evidence of any sexual contact or contact with the intent of initiating or hiding sex abuse of Emma either as a child or an adult. Emma Nicholls was a friend of Dr. Dobbs’ daughters and she frequently said how much she loved the vibrant Christian family life in the Dobbs’ home. She did not experience this at her home where there was continuing strife between her and her sister and her mother.
Emma suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, as does her mother Lee. Neither Lee nor Emma were parishioners at Figtree Anglican Church.
Scott, often away from home on business, did not in any event continue to attend the church while he prepared his defence to what were insubstantial and ludicrous complaints. But from before Scott had that meeting Scott’s wife Machelle and her six children were shunned in the street and on the beach by members of the church, and even by some teachers and children in the local Anglican school attended by two of the older children, all on orders from the Figtree staff and clergy. A member of the Figtree staff, Mrs. Yvonne Gunning as well as the rev. Bruce Clarke contacted ministers in other local Christian churches and warned them about the whole family, not to allow them to worship at their churches.
Ultimately, on the 1st and 2nd May 2007 the rev. Bruce Clarke, with the agreement of the Senior Minister the Rev Dr. Rod Irvine, banned not only Scott but also Machelle and all six children from coming to church and youth activities associated with the church. All of the family had attended Figtree Anglican Church for up to 12 years since they moved into the area. The two younger daughters, aged 10 and 12 it was the only church life they had known. The younger daughters were being home-schooled so that all their friends were other children they had met at Figtree Anglican Church[2].
Neither the Police nor DOCS[3] found any reason to investigate. Ultimately the case based on church law that was pressed by the parish church clergy and staff and the director of the Sydney diocese PSU[4] Mr. Phillip Gerber collapsed.
The Three Lies
There were three Lies involved in the persecution of Scott Dobbs and his wife and children: the first was the University of Wollongong Lie; the second, the Figtree Anglican Church Lie; and the third, the Clandestine Lie.
The first, the University of Wollongong Lie, was created in early November 2005 by two or three female former colleagues of Scott at the University of Wollongong in order to prevent him from gaining permanent employment as an academic there: it involved a transparently false complaint by a PhD student, made for the first time the day before Scott’s application for a permanent appointment was to be considered. The reason for this was because he had evidence of dodgy marking practices, attempted bribery and corruption in the Faculty and in its’ overseas courses in Dubai. Scott was never told about the existence of the complaint at the time and he was denied the chance to defend himself against it. His employment application was rejected, and he left the university at the end of that semester.
The second, the Figtree Anglican Church Lie, was another transparently false complaint by the mother of a 20-year-old woman to Yvonne Gunning, the Children’s Minister at Figtree Anglican Church in order to get the parish to pay to get the daughter, who suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and who was becoming increasingly uncontrollable, out of the family home into accommodation provided by the parish along with furniture and other necessities. Neither the mother nor the daughter were parishioners[5]. Lee Nicholls is the mother of Emma Nicholls. Lee made her complaint in early February 2006.
The third, The Clandestine Lie, was one created by the Executive Minister of Figtree Anglican Church, the rev. Bruce Clarke and his wife Cathy, based on three lies told to them by their 16-year-old daughter Rebecca Clarke[6] from about late February 2006[7]. These lies were interpreted by the rev. Bruce Clarke to create a complaint of suspected child sex abuse within the Dobbs’ family home and, apart from attempting to implicate Dr. Dobbs in creating an inappropriate sexualised culture in the home, it was used to blacken Machelle Dobbs’ name as the mother who would have to have been aware of it, as well as the reputation of the Dobbs daughters.
What happened to the three Lies?
In the case of the Figtree Anglican Church Lie and the Clandestine Lie both were almost peremptorily rejected by both the Police and DOCS to whom the rev. Bruce Clarke and Yvonne Gunning had made complaints.[8]
The Clandestine Lie disappeared from formal investigation and the church had no power to prosecute, but no doubt it still lingers in some minds because no-one has ever told the parishioners the truth: that Rebecca Clarke had repudiated the main allegation and all the other salacious gossip built on that was false.
‘Charges’ under church ‘law’ laid against Scott in respect of the Figtree Anglican Church Lie were withdrawn and dismissed. But, again no doubt the Lie still lingers in some minds because of the failure of the current Senior Minister the Rev. Ian Barnett to carry out recommendations of the then Archbishop the most rev. Dr. Peter Jensen to inform all members of the congregation that the complaint had been disposed of by way of being withdrawn and dismissed. For this failure, the former Assistant Bishop of Sydney for Wollongong the very rev. Al Stewart has to bear equal responsibility as the recommendation involved him making a video to this effect to counter the defamatory one that he had made earlier.
Both clergy remain adamant in their refusal to put right the wrongs done to the Dobbs family.
And the University of Wollongong Lie still exists and Scott has never been given the opportunity to rebut the allegations and to call Corinne Cortese and her colleagues to account.
Helen Irvine, married to Rod Irvine, FAC Senior Minister
‘Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.’ James 1:26 (TNIV)
Professor Helen Irvine joined the Faculty of Business – School of Accounting, Economics and Finance at the University of Wollongong while her husband the rev. Rod Irvine was senior minister at Figtree Anglican Church in Wollongong, gaining promotion to Senior Lecturer. After her husband’s retirement from Figtree Anglican Church in 2008 they moved to Brisbane, where she joined the QUT Business School, School of Accountancy at the Queensland University of Technology as an Associate Professor, gaining promotion to Professor. Her research interests include qualitative research methodology.[9]
The kindest thing you can say about Helen Irvine and her involvement in this case is that she was gullible – willfully gullible perhaps – rather than malicious. However, in her interview with the diocesan-appointed investigator she makes an unprovoked verbal attack on Machelle Dobbs and the Dobbs daughters that does raise the suspicion that behind the ‘sweet’ expression on this lady’s face is the mind of a woman who was, perhaps still is, vindictive and malicious, but if not that then certainly non-too-careful to ensure that what she said was the truth and to refrain from spreading lies and malicious gossip.
The reader is invited to test this interpretation of Helen Irvine’s actions and words against the members of the Dobbs family in the following discussion.
Helen Irvine’s relationship with Scott Dobbs, Machelle and their six children
Helen Irvine was a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Business in the Accountancy School at the University of Wollongong at the time that Scott Dobbs was, at first, an undergraduate mature-age student in that Faculty and the Faculty of Law studying for the double degrees of Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) and Bachelor of Laws. After completing these he was accepted into the PhD program. He researched and wrote his thesis and obtained this degree while doing casual seminar-leading to try to keep family finances coming in. After obtaining his PhD he worked as a lecturer on contract at the university until the end of 2005.
Not long after the Dobbs’ family had moved to a suburb of Wollongong on the New South Wales south coast, two of the Dobbs children started attending activities for young people at Figtree Anglican Church. It was Helen Irvine who invited Scott, Machelle and the rest of their children to come to services and activities there. At the time of the creation of the three Lies, Scott and Machelle and all but one of their children had been parishioners for about 12 years, and the youngest for 10 years, the whole of her life. This fact alone makes it particularly poignant that the FAC leadership of the rev. Rod Irvine and the rev. Bruce Clarke decided to ban ALL of them from coming to church simply on the basis of their connection with their father and the three Lies.
At the time that they were all banned both the Rev. Rod Irvine and the Rev. Bruce Clarke were aware that the Figtree Anglican Church Lie was collapsing. Therefore it had to have been on the basis of the University of Wollongong Lie and the Clandestine Lie that these two reverend gentlemen made their decision, just after a conciliation meeting which had been scheduled to lay to rest the Figtree Anglican Church Lie had been derailed, as discussed below.
Helen Irvine brings the University of Wollongong Lie into
Figtree Anglican Church
The lie was that Scott had sexually harassed a woman student Corinne Cortese. Helen Irvine was not involved in the creation of the University of Wollongong Lie.
The lie, having served its’ purpose at the university to block Scott’s application for permanent academic employment, was not expected to surface again. In fact it was important that it NOT surface again. The damage to Scott’s reputation by the insubstantial and unsubstantiated complaint had been completed in secret, without giving him the opportunity to defend himself; if it had come to his attention at the time he could have instituted court proceedings against the University and the individuals involved.
However, another member of the Faculty at a dinner party attended by Helen and Rod Irvine in the middle of 2006 told them, and the rest of the dinner party guests, that Corinne Cortese had complained to him that Scott Dobbs had sexually harassed her[10].
Neither Rod nor Helen approached Scott at that time to seek to verify this. This would not only have been an appropriate thing to do – for two tertiary-trained and qualified individuals to check the information and to obtain the other persons’ response – it would have been not unexpected between a long-term parishioner and the senior minister of the parish and/or a former colleague at the University of Wollongong. Had they done so, they would have found out that Scott had not been told of the complaint at all and so he was not given the chance to defend himself. Further investigation might have disclosed at this stage that the complaint had no substance and that clearly it was created to cause his application for permanent employment to fail. By their inaction, they deprived him not only of the chance to defend himself but also to obtain legal advice concerning grounds for a review of his application or, failing that, a claim against the university through civil law. But perhaps they were alert to this and that Helen in particular was concerned to protect the university and some of her colleagues as well as Corinne Cortese who was her PhD student at the time.[11]
Instead, while Rod Irvine remained silent, Helen Irvine set in train the importation of the University of Wollongong lie into FAC where it was engineered to become the springboard for the creation of the Figtree Anglican Church lie.
First: Helen Irvine spoke to Yvonne Gunning towards the end of 2006 to report this to her.[12]
Then Yvonne Gunning initiated two threads: the first thread started with her passing Helen Irvine’s account of the University of Wollongong lie to Lee Nicholls, mother of Emma Nicholls, the main protagonist in the Figtree Anglican Church Lie, and through Lee Nicholls to Lance Wearmouth (Emma’s internet friend, a devout member of the Seventh Day Adventist church, the denomination of Emma’s parents). Lance then repeated a version of this lie in an email to Emma, to whom it was like water off a duck’s back while she continued in her ecstatic delusion that Scott loved her.
The second thread was started after Yvonne Gunning had brought Lee Nicholls to the point of making a complaint on behalf of Emma (without Emma’s knowledge) so that the parish could justify finding accommodation and other necessaries to get Emma living away from her parent’s home. At least as soon as Lee Nicholls made the complaint in two formal interviews with Yvonne Gunning at the end of January 2007, all the FAC staff and other clergy, the FAC wardens and members of the parish council knew about it. No doubt many of these told in confidence their spouses, children and their ten best friends. One person who told all three was the rev. Bruce Clarke, the FAC Executive Minister.
These persons had various reasons to dislike Scott and, as it transpired, also to hate Machelle and their children. Almost immediately, the clergy, staff and office-holders initiated a program of shunning not just Scott but also Machelle and the six children. Yvonne Gunning and the rev. Bruce Clarke informed other churches in the area to have nothing to do with the whole family.
The lie was quickly spread and it was gossiped about, gaining poisonous details as the gossip viciously spread. By the time that it was acted upon in Figtree Anglican Church the original birth mothers were not mentioned. It had taken on a life of its own.
Second, Helen Irvine brought the University of Wollongong Lie into Figtree Anglican Church a second time when the Figtree Anglican Church was collapsing.
The Figtree Anglican Church Lie was quickly discredited by concerns raised by the director Sydney PSU[13] Mr. Gerber. He pointed out that if anything it was more a misunderstanding of boundaries and he did not intend to pursue it. He proposed that there be a conciliation meeting between Emma and her supporters on the one hand, and Scott and his supporters on the other hand.
It was time for Helen Irvine to act, again.
It was Helen Irvine who derailed that meeting.
What she did was to contact Corinne Cortese a week or so before the scheduled meeting and get more ‘details’ together with Corinne’s permission to pass these on to her husband and the rev Bruce Clarke.
She also canvassed other people for gossip about Scott, actively seeking scandal without any apparent regard for the truth of the gossip and scandal. Armed with this she, first, telephoned Scott and had a conversation with him, telling him she had ‘evidence’ of his sexual harassment of four students at the university. She told him, according to Scott, that if he did not withdraw his defense to Emma Nicholls’ complaint she would bring these up at the meeting. When he refused, especially as he was hearing about these University of Wollongong allegations for the first time, she went to the Rev. Bruce Clarke and gave him the details[14].
However, when these details given by Helen Irvine were investigated only Corinne Cortese gave an interview. In that interview she strongly indicated that two colleagues in the Faculty, Mary Kaidonis and Jane Edward were involved in actively creating her complaint with the clear intent to ‘get something on Scott’, to stop him from obtaining permanent employment at the university.
What happened next?
Once the conciliation meeting was derailed Phillip Gerber was compelled to order an investigation.
When Helen Irvine was interviewed it was clear she had nothing to say about the allegations concerning Emma Nicholls, indeed she did not even know her. Anything she had to say about the Figtree Lie was only her attempt to link it up with the University of Wollongong Lie. When Corinne Cortese was interviewed her account differed in a number of significant ways from the Record of Interview she signed the day before Scott’s employment application came before the committee. It was also clear that she had nothing to say at all about the Figtree Anglican Church Lie which was the only complaint that the PSU had any authority to investigate and bring charges about, by virtue of a church ordinance.[15]
Mr. Gerber was now pushed along the path to a disciplinary tribunal hearing (despite the absence of jurisdiction)[16]. On its’ first day the hearing collapsed and he had to ask for a tribunal recommendation to the Archbishop that the charges be withdrawn and dismissed.
Helen Irvine’s involvement in the third Lie: the Clandestine Lie
The Lie was that Scott had been guilty of abuse within his own family, and that within the Dobbs’ household there was a culture of nudity and permissiveness. The major allegations to support the Lie were these: firstly, there were no doors on bathrooms in the Dobbs home, and, secondly, that one of the Dobbs’ daughters had tried to self-harm by cutting herself. The first allegation in particular was spread far and wide.
These allegations were based on what the Rev. Bruce Clarke says that his daughter Rebecca Clarke had told him or his wife Cathy Clarke. Both allegations were lies.
Scott was never made aware of this Lie either, because it was so highly defamatory. But it was the motivating force behind the shunning and banning of Machelle and children from the church. Cathy Clarke even forbade her younger daughter Sophie from having anything to do with one of the Dobbs’ daughters who was her closest friend.
However, by the time that Helen Irvine was interviewed by the diocesan investigator others in the parish were furiously back-pedaling about these allegations. Rebecca Clarke was interviewed (but otherwise refused to be involved) and explained that she meant that in the basement bathroom there was a sliding screen door that you pushed right back or forward. When it was pushed back it could not be seen from the outside. Even Emma Nicholls said that all the bathrooms had doors on them.
But Helen Irvine was still keen to give details of what she wanted to be interpreted as the alleged sexually permissive culture in the Dobbs’ home and the possibility of abuse of the daughters by their father. She attacked the daughters, saying that they wore suggestive clothes and dyed their hair blond. This was a sideways attack on Machelle Dobbs for allowing this and therefore being complicit in what was ‘going on’ in their home. Helen Irvine’s attack on the family was just plain wrong and outrageous in its’ details and shocking in its’ ferocity.
Helen Irvine’s ‘sins of commission and omission’[17]
One: failure to check the hearsay report:
Helen Irvine demonstrated throughout her involvement in the matter a grave inability to properly research and to ensure that she told truth supported by evidence and only that truth. Instead she passed on all the scurrilous gossip that was generated when she involved herself in the matter, including gossip generated by her, and which was mostly attributed to anonymous sources. This is particularly concerning in any Christian person, let alone a senior academic. However, given her lack of courage in the face of well-recognised concerns that there were corrupt practices in the Faculty and cheating among the students, particularly overseas ones, perhaps this is not so surprising[18]. It would have been so simple to check with Corinne Cortese whose PhD research she was supervising and who was occupying an office on-campus. Had she done so she would have found out from her, and Mary Kaidonis and Jane Edward that this should under no circumstances come to Scott’s attention, and a fair-minded person surely would have smelled a rat.
Two: failure to check with Scott immediately after she and her husband heard the story:
As Scott was a long-standing parishioner his contact details were in the parish records, justice demanded that she consult with him about it BEFORE she told Yvonne Gunning.
Three: the active spread of an anonymous allegation[19] that she acknowledged had no substance to it
Not only did Helen Irvine pass on the complaint by a named person she passed on into gossip details she obtained from a woman hysterically concerned to remain anonymous[20]. On the one hand, she told the investigator that the woman’s repeated statement that Scott would kill her if he found out she had made the complaint was a bit ‘over-the-to’, and also saying that the substance of the woman’s complaint was not that Scott had kissed her but that she thought that he might (!), she still passed on the gossip.
Four: demonstrated hostility to Scott without reason nor factual support:
In her interview with the investigator she embarked confidently on giving ‘evidence’ against Scott. Firstly, she expanded on how he was paranoid about sealing up exam papers so that they would not be leaked to the students of the Dubai courses and he kept a tight control over the exam papers that students on the Wollongong campus would sit. One would have thought that this was praiseworthy, but apparently not in Helen’s assessment of what doing the job, the same as hers, entailed in terms of preventing corruption and cheating. She lashed him for being unwise in his dealings with students, especially female ones (closing his door on an interview with one, only) but she had no evidence that he had behaved inappropriately with any of them, and certainly no evidence that he had sexually harassed anyone at all whether at the university or elsewhere.
Then, when passing on information about the anonymous complainant she is dismissive of Scott’s correct identification of the woman and his explanation that she, an Australia born of Asian descent who called herself Anika Rose (after the Afro-American singer) had approached him seeking to have an affair with him, a proposition he had rebuffed.
Five: involvement in the case despite her complete ignorance of anything relevant to the complaint by Emma Nicholls
She knew nothing about the allegations as a direct witness. The only relevant thing she said to the diocesan investigator was that she did not know Emma Nicholls. She was all too obviously clutching at straws in the interview to try to justify her involvement at all: she clearly passed on whatever she thought would support the University of Wollongong Lie and the Clandestine Lie, neither of which could possibly be used in the diocesan disciplinary action in relation to Emma Nicholls’ complaint (and nor were they).
Six: demonstrated hostility to Machelle and, especially, to her daughters:
She embarked on a tirade of criticism of Machelle postulating that she was very insecure and that she was like this because she probably had knowledge of previous problems with Scott’s sexual behaviour with other women – about which she, Helen, knew nothing; this was a total fabrication and a nasty piece of invention by this self-described Christian woman. She followed this with stinging criticism of the Dobbs daughters for having blond hair (which Helen thought was bleached, which it is not) and their style of dressing which Helen thought was provocative (which is not, just what was available for and appropriate to their ages). Helen is particularly vicious about the eldest daughter, accusing her of getting onto the laps of male Sunday School teachers when Helen was the Sunday School Superintendent. The eldest daughter would have been very young at that time. Helen was implying that this was provocative sexualised behaviour.
The reason for this soon becomes clear. She answers questions from the investigator that clearly spring from the Figtree Anglican Church Clandestine Lie, as they have nothing to do with Scott’s personal relationship, or rather, lack thereof, with either Corinne Cortese or Emma Nicholls.
Seven: Disobedience to her husband’s request.
In a modern married relationship a wife’s obedience to her husband would not represent something to be expected; however in the context of the marriage of an Anglican priest in Sydney diocese the concept of male headship of the family and the church is so strongly entrenched that this does constitute a departure from church teaching. Had she heeded his request Yvonne Gunning would not have been given ammunition to encourage Lee Nicholls to make a complaint which had no substance to it; the conciliation meeting arranged by Phillip Gerber after chracterising the complaint as a simple misunderstanding of boundaries would have laid the matter to rest; the Dobs family would not have sufferred the agonies and humiliations over a period of two-and-a-half of shunning, separation from their friends, an investigation, spurious tribunal proceedings; and she would not be the subject of this article.
Conclusion
All of these wrong actions and failures on Helen Irvine’s part were in support of the University of Wollongong Lie, and the Figtree Anglican Church Clandestine Lie. The University of Wollongong Lie created a complaint and dealt with alleged events outside the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church Sydney diocese disciplinary process. And given that it had been created for a specific purpose – to stop Scot blowing the whistle on dubious marking practices, among other things – and was never intended to see the light of day beyond the APC[21] meeting, she did a massive disservice to those of her UOW colleagues who had been complicit in creating the University of Wollongong Lie by bringing it out into the open.
As for the Figtree Anglican Church Clandestine lie: that she should have lent her reputation to that indicates a very poor sort of personal religion. It is surely a not unreasonable conclusion that she has demonstrated that she would stop at nothing to try to ‘save’ the Figtree Anglican Church Lie, and in particular her husband’s reputation, when towards the end of April 2007 it was apparent that it was not going to be used by the PSU to bring down the Dobbs family.
What did Helen Irvine have against Scott, Machelle and their children?
Why attack Scott in this fashion? And his wife and children?
Deep in her psyche it maybe that Helen was jealous of the intellectual and teaching gifts that Scott has, superior to hers. She may have been jealous of the obvious love that exists between Scott and Machelle. Perhaps she envied the clear Christian devotion demonstrated by each of them and each of their children, but this is all speculation.
What is clear is that the collapse of the Figtree Anglican Church Lie meant trouble, deep trouble, for her husband Rod Irvine and for the Executive Minister Bruce Clarke and for others on staff including Yvonne Gunning for totally inappropriate and abusive behaviour in the handling of the complaint, for their disgraceful treatment of the whole of the Dobbs family and for the aftermath of having spread lying gossip throughout the parish and out into the area, through the other local churches, and even interstate and overseas.
What has Helen Irvine done about her entirely improper involvement in this matter?
In short: nothing. My letter to her asking for her response to my analysis of her behaviour in this case was unanswered. Nor has she contacted the Dobbs family direct for any purpose let alone an apology.
After leaving Figtree Anglican Church, Rod and Helen Irvine returned to live in Queensland. Rod Irvine has set up a consultancy offering coaching in ministry and running a church, and Helen Irvine took a position as Associate Professor at the University of Queensland in the Faculty of Business. Neither of them have apologised or expressed regret for their actions and involvement in the development and dissemination of the University of Wollongong Lie, the Figtree Anglican Church Lie and, in Helen Irvine’s case, her scurrilous gossip to try to support the Clandestine Lie.[22]
More fallout from Helen Irvine’s involvement
Once Helen had spoken to Yvonne Gunning passing on unverified gossip, she set in train an avalanche which has tarnished the original reputation of Figtree Anglican Church as a powerhouse of evangelical Christianity, brought into question the reputations of a number of FAC personnel including that of her husband and started a re-assessment of her husband’s ‘achievements’ at FAC. Yvonne Gunning picked up the ball and ran with it, having been given the opportunity to bring down Scott and his family by the OCD-fuelled fantasies of Emma Nicholls and her OCD-affected mother even though neither of the Nicholls women were parishioners and the Anglican church had no jurisdiction because Scott was not a church worker.
Helen Irvine told the diocesan investigator that her husband had asked her not to become involved in the spread of the University of Wollongong lie into the Parish, but she said that she felt she should ignore his husbandly advice. By this smug assumption of ‘virtue’ she directly caused catastrophic harm to people, mainly the wife and children, of a man who had in fact not done anything wrong, but was the victim of a vicious, lying campaign orchestrated within the UOW Faculty and spread from there solely due to Helen Irvine’s intervention.
What is particularly distressing here is that she had a responsibility to the children of the Dobbs family, having served as the Superintendent of the Sunday School during their early years at that church, a position of leadership to which the Discipline Ordinance 2006 of the diocese applies.
However, no-one is going to succeed in having her brought to account for the wilful damage she has done to these young lives, let alone their parents. That will have to be left to God.
June 2015
This is the house that Rod built.
This is Rod’s wife who spread a lie who worshipped in the house that Rod built.
This is the woman who believed Rod’s wife who spread a lie, who worked in the house that Rod built.
This is the mother who believed the woman who believed Rod’s wife who spread a lie, who did not worship in the house that Rod built.
This is the man who believed the mother who believed the woman who believed Rod’s wife who spread a lie, who worked in the house that Rod built.
This is the wife who believed the man who believed the mother who believed the woman who believed Rod’s wife who spread a lie, who worshipped in the house that Rod built.
[1] Louise Greentree BA LLB LLM(Hons) ProfCertArb. Admitted as a legal practitioner to the Supreme Court of NSW and the High Court of Australia. Now non-practicing as a legal practitioner but a consultant in respect of disciplinary church ‘law’ of the Anglican Church of Australia.
[2] For an account of the anguish this caused this family please see my article ‘A Mother’s Story’ on www.churchdispute.com
[3] The NSW government Department of Community Services, as it was known at the time.
[4] Professional Standards Unit of the Anglican Church of Australia.
[5] New Readers: For a ‘starter kit’ of information about the lie generated in the University of Wollongong Faculty of Business new readers should look at my article published on this website ‘The First Stone Revisited’ on www.churchdispute.com
For an examination of the incorporation of the University of Wollongong Lie into the Figtree Anglican Church Lie created by Lee Nicholls, mother of Emma Nicholls, and by Yvonne Gunning, Children’s Minister at Figtree Anglican Church, new readers should look at my article ‘A Cautionary Tale Unmasked’ on www.churchdispute.com
[6] This assessment is based on the Rev. Clarke’s report to the diocesan interview quoting what Rebecca had said, and what his wife had said that Rebecca said. Later, Rebecca repudiated what came to be the main accusation which was spread around the parish: that the bathrooms (plural) in the Dobbs’ home did into have doors on them.
[7] That the rev. Bruce Clarke should have disclosed this confidential, as yet untested, complaint to his 16-year-old daughter was reprehensible. His excuse was that as Rebecca attended the same school and same classes as the eldest Dobbs daughter he wanted to warn Rebeca in case talked to her about it.
[8] All Readers: Please read first my in-depth discussion of these two lies and the third lie developed in Figtree Anglican Church, the Clandestine Lie, in ‘Figtree Anglican Church: Three Lies about the Dobbs Family’ on www.churchdispute.com (shortly to be published)
The discussion in this and the following articles in this series is built on this analysis of what happened in Figtree Anglican Church to victimise not just one man but his whole family.
[9] The following is adapted from Wikipedia: Qualitative researchers collect data to analyse and formulate hypotheses which finally provide the basis of the research statement. . The most common method is the qualitative research interview, but forms of the data collected can also include group discussions, observation and reflection field notes, various texts, pictures, and other materials.
[10] This is based on what Helen Irvine told the investigator appointed by Sydney diocese, and her signed statement.
[11] There is some reason to think that it is possible that she had heard about it earlier than this, if not in detail at least in some broad way. This is because after Scott left UOW at the end of 2005 Machelle Dobbs was telling people at Figtree that Scott’s application for permanent employment had failed because he had evidence of dishonest marking practices and student corruption (which he did have). However it was Helen Irvine who was telling these people that Machelle was not correct; that Scott’s application had been refused for entirely other reasons. On the other hand the ostensible reason given by the Faculty was that he had not published scholarly articles (given his huge workload of teaching, mentoring and supervision of overseas courses this is not surprising) and it may be that she was referring to this.
[12] In her interview with the diocesan investigator Helen Irvine said she told Yvonne Gunning about this at the Figtree staff Christmas function and asked her: ‘Have we got a problem?’ To which Yvonne Gunning replied: ‘Yes’. Why? Scott had been attending FAC with his wife and family for about 12 years, and as the various FAC clergy and staff members were forced to say in their interviews with the diocesan investigator there had been not even a whiff of impropriety in his behaviour nor any complaints whatsoever made against Scott in all that time. And the University of Wollongong Lie had not involved (other than Scott) any parishioners of or persons associated with Figtree Anglican Church.
[13] PSU: Professional Standards Unit of Sydney diocese of the Anglican Church.
[14] She seemed to get a bit mixed up in her details, but she said there was: one, Corinne Cortese; two: an anonymous woman, whom Scott correctly identified and named as one who called herself Anika Rose, and about whom he said that she had offered to have a sexual relationship with him which he refused; three, another woman not named, who eventually disappeared from the allegations when they were investigated by the diocesan investigator; and four: a woman, named who had been upset when Scott asked that she not share a PhD students office at UOW, which was already occupied by three other PhD students. This woman student at first lodged a complaint of sexual discrimination (not harassment) but she quickly withdrew it.
[15] In this case the only ‘law’ applicable was church law contained in the Church Discipline Ordinance 2002. Church law has only very limited recognition, if any, in proceedings in State and Federal Courts applying civil and criminal law.
[16] Readers interested in this aspect of the case should read my article ‘‘Leadership, Ministry & an Espresso Coffee Machine’ on www.churchdispute.com
[17] A reference to the General Confession in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England.
[18] In her interview with the investigator appointed by the PSU she admitted the problems in the Faculty with cheating and passing students who had failed, particularly overseas students. She admitted agreeing to give a take-home (which means an unsupervised) exam to a student who had failed so badly that the student did not qualify for a supplementary exam under the University rules. This was giving the student an unmerited second exam ‘under the radar’ so that there was no official record of it. The fail mark could be adjusted in the Faculty.
[19] As far as the various Sydney diocesan Discipline Ordinances are concerned, the director PSU is prohibited from taking action on an anonymous complaint. It is also a matter of natural justice that a person is given details of who has brought a complaint, and details of that complaint so that they can defend themselves.
[20] This was the student calling herself Anika Rose. See footnote 14
[21] APC Academic Probation Committee
[22] Quite the contrary: Rod Irvine, when approached recently (April/May 2015) about his involvement in the disgraceful treatment of the Dobbs family, with the intent of trying to arrange Christian reconciliation, told a respected member of the FAC congregation that he had put all that behind him. Would that it was the case that Scott, Machelle and their six children were able to do so also. This response speaks volumes about the lack of evidence of true Christian ‘fruit’ of the Holy Spirit in Rod Irvine, at least in this case.