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A FORMER employee of Farragher’s removalist’s firm has told of finding a pornographic video with a boy of about 12 on the cover when packing up possessions of disgraced Anglican priest Peter Rushton in 1998.
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Rushton’s pornographic hoard at the Maitland rectory was discussed in evidence in the first week of the Anglican hearings of the Royal Commission in Newcastle.
On Wednesday morning, the removalist, Gary Askie, told how he was made to sign a statement promising not to say anything to anyone about the incident.
“The church knew he [Rushton] was gay and I wasn’t allowed to say anything to anyone about it,” Mr Askie told the royal commission.
He said he was about 28 years old at the time and was shocked and horrified at what he saw. Most of the videos he saw had naked adult males on the covers but one definitely had a boy, who he said was naked and aged about 12.
Mr Askie was then shown a letter from Farragher’s lawyers saying that the staff of the company now said they did not see any pornographic material in Rushton’s belongings.
Questioned by Peter O’Brien representing some of the church’s victims, Mr Askie agreed that the letter was untrue and that he did see child pornography at the time.
The commission then heard from the former registrar of the diocese, Peter Mitchell, who was jailed for fraudulently misappropriating almost $200,000 from the church.
Mr Mitchell was taken to his statement, in which he said he had looked at a large number of videos belonging to Rushton, and that a solicitor had advised that the material was not illegal and that an attempt to dismiss Rushton for possessing it was likely to result in an unfair dismissal case.
Mr Mitchell was shown a list of pornographic film titles, signed by him in December 1998, which he agreed was a large amount of material indicating a “serious addiction” to pornography.
Having previously said he had business relationships but not friendships with a number of church figures, Mr Mitchell described the priest CKC as a close friend.
He was shown a reference he had written for CKC who was the priest at the centre of a failed prosecution in 2001 that has been canvassed a number of times in these hearings.
Despite acknowledging his close friendship with CKC, Mr Mitchell said he made no contact with CKC despite knowing the police were looking for him.
He said he assumed that the chair of the Committee to Consider Allegations of Sexual Misconduct, Harrassment and Abuse (the CASM committee), Ms Lyn Douglas, was handling the matter.
He said CKC had been out of the diocese for five years at the time and that their telephone conversations had become less frequent.
Mr Mitchell was also shown various letters from 2000, when the police were looking for information about CKC.
A letter from Mr Mitchell to solicitor Keith Allen, dated February 17, 2000, included precise details of CKC’s postings over the years.
He was also taken to a letter written two days earlier, on February 15, in which the then dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence said: “Further to conversation today I attach a statement regarding the most recent telephone call in the sexual abuse matter.”
He was then asked why a police duty book would record dean Lawrence as being unable to assist with any dates of service of CKC.
Asked if he found that surprising or “amazing”, or whether he believed dean Lawrence was “obstructing” the investigation, Mr Mitchell said he could not speak for the dean.
He again denied speaking to CKC about the police investigating him.
Counsel assisting, Ms Sharp, then took Mr Mitchell to the register of church services that was central to the collapse of the case against CKC.
Mr Mitchell said he was unable to recall whether a subpoena had been served to produce the register.
He was shown a summary of the case written at the time by Paul Rosser QC – a significant lay figure in the diocese at the time as well defending CKC in the case.
Mr Rosser wrote: “I obtained the original of the register of services, I made this available to the crown prosecutor . . . as early as Tuesday afternoon I made the book available to her, setting in train the events that led to the director’s decision yesterday [not to continue the prosecution].”
Asked if he made any alterations to the register, Mr Mitchell said: “Certainly not.”
Ms Sharp also took Mr Mitchell to a letter that CKC’s victim, CKA, had written to then bishop Roger Herft expressing his unhappiness at the way the church had supported CKC and left CKA with a feeling of “betrayal and abandonment”.
Mr Mitchell had helped bishop Herft write a response to CKA saying that the church “did not in any direct way provide records to CDC’s defence except through compulsory court processes”.
Ms Sharp put it to Mr Mitchell that this was inaccurate because the CKC’s defence had been “given a preview” of the register before it was provided to the court.
Mr Mitchell said he didn’t know how the register got to the court.
He said he was aware that the police were re-investigating the CKC case but insisted, again, that he had not spoken to Mr Allen since 2002.
