The Anglican Church of Australia Sydney Diocese
Sydney PSU v Drew and Pippa
By accident or design?
Why is there no accountability for certain leaders in the Anglican Church Sydney diocese organisation?
Is it (still) a case of protecting someone from blame?
By Pippa
Introduction
Why are there no accountability structures within the Anglican Church, Sydney Diocese to hold the Diocesan Registrar, Mr Marr and the Professional Standards Unit (PSU) Directors, Lachlan Bryant and Peter Barnett (Director, Safe Ministry Resources employed by the Sydney Diocese for our case), accountable for their actions? This is both inconceivable and hazardous and therefore must be rectified.
When Drew and I met the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies in his office on 24 February 2015 we told him that we were appalled by this shocking situation.
The timeline
On 11 November 2013, after many weeks of analysis of what was done to us by Lachlan Bryant and the Rev. Peter Barnett in the first two meetings compared with what should have happened according to the Discipline Ordinance 2006 (without which Bryant has no jurisdiction to act) and what did happen, we submitted to both the Archbishop and to Dr. Keith Condie, Chairman of the Safe Ministry Board, our comprehensive complaint that Lachlan Bryant had failed to follow proper procedures in our case to an extent that voided all actions since taken by us and by the PSU and the PSC.[1]
On 24 February 2015 we told Archbishop Glenn Davies that for 15 months, nothing had been done about the complaint.
On 18 March 2015 the Archbishop told us that he had NEVER seen this complaint, having only recently looked through our file which, we presume, had been given to him by either Lachlan Bryant or Doug Marr. Lachlan Bryant was sent a copy of the complaint as well and clearly he and Doug Marr, hid the existence of the complaint from the Archbishop, even though he is the only person to whom Mr Bryant is apparently accountable.
The unacceptable intervention of diocesan officers to divert complaints from the Archbishop:
It was clear at our meeting with Archbishop Glenn Davies that there were many aspects of the situation about which he was unaware. While we understand that the Archbishop has many other pressing issues, he is the President of the Disciplinary Tribunal and is responsible for the actions of the Director PSU. On hearing the various elements of our complaint against Lachlan Bryant and the equally alarming issues surrounding the Disciplinary Tribunal, the Archbishop apologised numerous times “for the wrongdoing of his Office and the PSU” but then declared that he felt powerless to actually make a difference in the situation.
We are very grateful that the Archbishop did press Lachlan Bryant to remove the notification to the Office of the Children’s Guardian (OCG) which had declared that Drew was guilty of sexual misconduct. The Archbishop told us that he did not think the actions in the complaint rose to a level that required a notification. Our barrister had investigated and found a way for the notification to be removed with which Mr Bryant complied.
Lachlan Bryant misleads the OCG (and disobeys the Archbishop)
However, in the statutory declaration to the OCG, Mr Bryant wrote:
“The subject notification was made after Mr Patch made statements indicating that the allegations of misconduct detailed in the subject notification (“allegations”) were correct.
No findings have been made by a relevant reporting body in relation to the allegations at that time the notification was made, therefore the notification was both premature and wrongly made, and should be withdrawn.
The allegations are the subject of continuing disciplinary proceedings still on foot concerning Mr Patch by the Diocese of Sydney.”
It is still a major issue that Drew’s unqualified apologies, the “statements” to which Mr Bryant refers above, which were written at the behest of the Lachlan Bryant and rev. Peter Barnett after Drew was given the incorrect information that he had committed criminal offences and sexual misconduct, are still being used as his ‘confession’[2].
Further, the fact that that Mr Bryant has said that proceedings are continuing, indicates to the OCG that he as director of the PSU has not come to a conclusion as yet. Therefore Drew could still never apply for a Working with Children Check (WWCC) without difficulty. While Drew may never work fulltime with youth and children again as a result of the devastation of this experience, he must be able to qualify for a WWCC to be involved in other activities such as talking to adults in the parent’s tent at our church’s annual holiday program.
So while the notification has been ‘withdrawn’ for now, the situation remains a “cliff-hanger” depending on the outcome of the Disciplinary Tribunal if it ever does come to a hearing and the Tribunal makes recommendations to the Archbishop. This is entirely unacceptable.
Incredibly, the Archbishop asked Mr Bryant to remove this notification and either with intent or with continued incompetence, he has failed to do as the Archbishop instructed.
The most irksome aspect of the above statutory declaration is the fact that Lachlan Bryant has admitted that the notification was premature and wrongly made. He has also admitted[3] that in 2012 his belief that the Discipline Ordinance did not apply to Drew, was erroneous. Yet, his barrister, Mr Michael Easton still insists that the Church has done nothing wrong! It would appear that Mr Bryant can ruin the lives of others when he rightly or wrongly accuses them of “making mistakes” but he can make any number of mistakes without being held accountable for the consequences of his actions. This is reprehensible.
But wait: is it dependent on the outcome of the Tribunal? It should not be!
The “continuing disciplinary proceedings” have nothing to do with a charge of sexual misconduct.
From the moment that Lachlan Bryant promoted the current charge, he found that as none of the actions complained of contained any sexual intent let alone any sexual actions he could not bring charges in terms of either child abuse or child sex abuse which are set out in full in the Discipline Ordinance 2006[4] . At this point, the notification to the OCG that declared that Drew had committed sexual misconduct should have been removed! And consequently, there should have been another announcement to Drew’s former church, declaring that the first announcement was in error, that Drew did not commit grooming behaviour and no notification to the OCG was necessary. Oh … and an apology to Drew would have been appropriate too, don’t you think?
Why will the Church not admit that Mr Bryant has made mistakes and seek to make amends with us?
Well, the Archbishop did tell us that Lachlan Bryant had admitted to him that he had made mistakes. But perhaps it is because Louise Greentree and Drew and I write these articles that the Diocesan solicitors feel they must not give in to us in any way or else others may follow suit and of course they don’t want us to say “We were right and they were wrong.” Unfortunately for everyone, there is no other way to hold these men accountable. If we could pass the baton to someone who was capable of investigating our complaint and dealing with it through normal accountability processes, we would.
So go to the Supreme Court, you say? The complications of this situation are the content of another potential article. For now I will simply say, firstly, “Are you offering to pay for that?” and secondly, “Before I treat the Diocese as “a pagan or a tax collector” (Matthew 18: 17), I will continue to tell of the situation to those of you who are followers of Christ (the Church) and invite you to stand with us, pray with us, as we ask our brothers to repent of their sins.”
It is an immense oversight at best or deliberately evasive and deceptive at worst, that the members of the diocesan hierarchy cannot be held accountable. All clergy and church workers are subject to the accountability structure of the PSU but there are no similar structures for the hierarchy. Of course these church workers should be accountable under the Discipline Ordinance like any other church worker. But as our situation reveals, even the Archbishop has no real power to make them comply with the very ordinance to which they would hold others.
We have tried to press the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church to provide an avenue for accountability for the Director PSU to no avail.
When our complaint was first received by Keith Condie, he proposed that a sub-committee of the SMB would be appointed to investigate it. That never happened in spite of the assurance the Archbishop via Doug Marr gave us on 6 December 2013 that:
“You have made certain complaints about process and these complaints are being investigated.”
We have sent multiple letters to Keith Condie begging him to process the complaint and claiming that Lachlan Bryant is a “church worker” who had engaged in:
“conduct, whenever occurring –
(i) which would be disgraceful if committed by a person holding the position held by the person against whom the allegation is made or in which the person acts, and
(ii) which at the time a charge is preferred is productive, or if known publicly would be productive, of scandal or evil report,” (Discipline Ordinance 2006)
Therefore, firstly, according to the Discipline Ordinance 2006, Lachlan Bryant should be subject to exactly the same process as Drew. He is a “church worker” not clergy, like Drew, and has engaged in conduct that falls under the jurisdiction of the Discipline Ordinance. And secondly, when we made known our complaint about Lachlan Bryant’s actions on the churchdispute.com website, it did cause a scandal and numerous people wrote to the Archbishop about this. Extraordinarily, the Archbishop was not given many of these letters to read, he told us.
We are still at a loss to understand what Dr Phillip Selden was thinking on September 9, 2013 when he appeared at the meeting we had scheduled with Lachlan Bryant, and told us that the appropriate person to whom we should send our complaint was Keith Condie, chairman of the Safe Ministry Board? In a later email Dr Phillip Selden told us not to send it to the Archbishop.
The problem with the above advice from Phillip Selden is that firstly, Lachlan Bryant is not accountable to the SMB. Keith Condie has confirmed this for us in an email. Secondly, when we pressed Doug Marr and Keith Condie about providing information about the process by which the complaint would be investigated, our request was resolutely ignored. When we pressed again for an answer, and suggested that an outside, unbiased party would be the most appropriate, we were told by Doug Marr that he would not answer any more of our questions as the most important matter was the allegations against Drew. He said that therefore our complaint (that improper processes had brought the matter to Tribunal) would not be processed until after the Tribunal was finished. Justice denied, once again!
Our experience is that Lachlan Bryant, Doug Marr and Keith Condie have all avoided responding to many of our straight forward questions and well-argued complaints and there is no one to whom we can turn to complain about their behaviour.
Now Archbishop Glenn Davies did verbally apologise for the wrongdoing of these people and we were very appreciative of this, the first recognition by someone in the diocesan hierarchy that we have been wrongfully treated. In fact, both Drew and I became very emotional when the Archbishop apologised. Unfortunately nothing more has transpired from this apology apart from the Archbishop’s request to Lachlan Bryant to remove the notification to the OCG.
The Archbishop did try to suggest better processes through which to proceed with the whole situation. He firstly suggested mediation as a way to deal with the allegations against Drew and secondly, he suggested that the Tribunal could hear our complaint against Lachlan Bryant.
Unfortunately, Complainant 1, an ordained minister in the Diocese, refused to comply with the Archbishop’s suggestion of mediation preferring a more adversarial approach. Similarly, Lachlan Bryant refused mediation as well.
We also expressed our concern with the current Tribunal hearing our complaint since this particular Tribunal is not constituted to be able to make any recommendations to the Archbishop concerning Lachlan Bryant. It can hear certain elements of the complaint but not the entirety and is therefore not the most appropriate Body to deal with our complaint.
Instead of doing the right thing by us Michael Easton and the Hon. Acting Judge Peter Young AO QC set up retrospectively a new ‘offence’.
Archbishop Glenn Davies did assure us that changes were being made to the Discipline Ordinance in order to make sure that no one else could be caught in the situation in which Drew has been caught i.e. labelled as one who has committed sexual abuse or grooming when they have not. The change to which he was referring was the inclusion of the new offence “inappropriate pastoral conduct involving a child”. This was created to enable the PSU Director to place complaints in this category where no grooming behaviour or sexual intent could be proven. We didn’t have time (or the heart) at our meeting to tell Archbishop Glenn Davies about the many issues surrounding this new offence, which are the subject of a five part series of articles by Louise Greentree on this website, “Inappropriate pastoral conduct involving a child”[5] .
And so, two examples of the lack of accountability for the hierarchy and diocesan lawyers occurred at SYNOD 2014:
First: an attempt to muzzle considered comment and discussion. Michael Easton proposed the new offence on a minimum of notice to the Synod representatives who had to vote on it. It was almost an ambush. Synod was not given sufficient notice to be able to properly examine these important issues. This case is not unusual and things do get passed through without any proper opportunity to debate anything. This indicates a culture of contempt for Synod representatives by those who are proposing certain church legislation.
Second: the appearance of collusion between the deputy chancellor and barrister for the PSU in our case Michael Easton and the deputy President of the Disciplinary Tribunal who is actually on our case (and the unconcern that this might appear to be the situation).
A number of people asked questions about the proposed amendment or stated reasons as to why they opposed it.
It was argued that the ‘offence’ should not be applied retrospectively. It was Michael Easton who said he had no problem with it being applied retrospectively. It is very concerning that a lawyer would support retrospectivity (especially in relation to actions that are not criminal or illegal in any way, nor immoral nor against Biblical teaching) when it is a fundamental part of justice that a person should never be convicted of something that was not unlawful at the time it was done.
Another concern expressed was the fact that the Faithfulness in Service document was to be used as the bench mark by which “inappropriate” would be determined. It was argued that this document was not proscriptive and was not written for this purpose and was therefore inappropriate in this context.
It was Acting Judge Peter Young AO QC, Deputy President of our Disciplinary Tribunal, who made a response to these statements. He told the gathering at SYNOD 2014 that common sense was to be used to determine whether an action was inappropriate or not in cases where the Faithfulness in Service was not proscriptive. The reflection of one of our friends, an Anglican Minister attending this SYNOD, was in essence: “Once the Judge has spoken, no one is willing to go against his word on the subject.”
It is difficult for us to believe they are providing an unbiased, ethical process in the Tribunal when Michael Easton and the Hon. Acting Judge Peter Young AO QC were clearly working together behind the scenes re-examining the Discipline Ordinance 2006 and coming up with the proposed amendments especially when the changes being proposed were in direct response to our situation, as the Archbishop said to us.
And so the new offence was passed. But not as a protection against incompetent and unethical behaviour by those administering it.
Whose common sense? Surely not Lachlan Bryant in view of his incompetence in dealing with us?
I have a question for Mr Young about his response at SYNOD 2014: “Whose common sense will be relied upon to make this decision as to whether the actions, the subject of a complaint, are inappropriate or not?” Will it be the Director PSU, Lachlan Bryant? The very same director who incorrectly labelled Drew’s actions as sexual abuse and grooming? Who was erroneous in his view that the Discipline Ordinance did not apply to Drew? Who ‘made a mistake’ of wrongly and prematurely making a notification to the OCG accusing Drew of sexual misconduct and who made a wrongful announcement to Drew’s former church that Drew was guilty of grooming behaviour?
Could anyone be safe while Lachlan Bryant’s incompetence is ignored and his ‘common sense’ relied on?
Is anyone safe while this man, Lachlan Bryant, is allowed to continue in his position as Director PSU now with increased opportunities to destroy people’s lives on the basis of his ‘common sense’?
Whose common sense? Surely not the rev. Peter Barnett in view of his incompetence – to the point of malice – in dealing with us?
At this point, I will mention that Lachlan Bryant invited the rev. Peter Barnett, Director PSU Bathurst and Riverina in 2012 and Director, Safe Ministry Resources, to conduct the majority of the first meeting on 23 November 2012. The rev. Peter Barnett told us that he had 13 years’ experience in Safe Ministry practice and it was his opinion that the actions in the complaints constituted sexual abuse and grooming behaviour, irrespective of the intention behind the actions. Lachlan Bryant, the less experienced director of the two, concurred with the rev. Peter Barnett.
This was nonsense and dangerous lies. The rev. Peter Barnett’s conduct will be the subject of another article on this website.
So the question remains: why are there no accountability structures within the Anglican Church to hold the Diocesan Registrar and the Professional Standards Unit (PSU) Directors accountable for their actions?
The conclusion to which we have come and which we presented to the Archbishop is that powerful lawyers actually run the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church.
Now this becomes a problem for the same reason that Phillip Jensen[6] presented, at a recent leadership training program, as the reason musicians should not be in charge of the singing in Church. “Musicians” he said, “are not theological.” Now while I have a problem with the generalisation of this comment, there is an important truth in it which could well be applied to the above situation. It is immensely clear from our interactions with the Diocesan hierarchy that the lawyers who instruct them are far more concerned about protecting the reputation of the Church than about justice, truth, mercy, faithfulness and following the Lord. They are NOT theological. Is it possible that they can regard the way that they carry out their work as Christ-centred? And the senior clergy either allow them to continue or have been prevented from taking charge of the spiritual business of the church which includes ensuring that ALL servants of the church behave in a Christ-like manner.
Anyone who stands in the way of the church exercising its’ Christ-centred mission and who brings the church into disrepute by the kind of behaviour that we have been writing about should heed the words of Paul:
“They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.” Titus 1:16
End Notes
[1] See ‘For the Lawyers’ for a shortened version of this complaint on www.churchdispute.com/2014/02/11/for-the-lawyers-and-others-concerned-about-justice-how-drew-and-pippa-have-been-denied-justice-by-the-psu-sydney-diocese-by-pippa-and-louise-greentree-2/
[2] See https://www.churchdispute.com/2014/02/11/acquitting-the-guilty-and-condemning-the-innocent-the-lord-detests-them-both-proverbs-1715-please-help-us-drew-is-indeed-the-innocent/
[3] On 14 July 2014 Mr Easton wrote to Dr Dobbs “Mr Bryant did indicate on 23 November 2012 that the Discipline Ordinance did not strictly apply to Mr Patch’s situation. This reflected Mr Bryant’s view at the time. Upon subsequent consideration this view was erroneous.”
[4] See https://www.churchdispute.com/2014/08/19/what-is-happening-now-in-the-case-of-the-sydney-psu-v-drew-pippa/
[5] See https://www.churchdispute.com/2014/10/05/inappropriate-pastoral-conduct-involving-a-child-a-new-offence-courtesy-2014-synod/
https://www.churchdispute.com/2014/10/13/inappropriate-pastoral-conduct-involving-a-child-part-5/
[6] Over the last year, I have enjoyed attending talks by both Peter Jensen and Phillip Jensen. Further, our interactions with Archbishop Glenn Davies reveal to us that it is not in the area of basic biblical theology that we differ with the leaders of the Anglican Church; it is the lack of this theology being applied to our situation.