The Anglican church body that presided over the Peter Hollingworth case has admitted it erroneously confused the identity of one of only two abuse survivors whose complaints it was considering.
Earlier this month, Guardian Australia revealed the church’s professional standards board had been forced to re-check its 78-page decision on Hollingworth for errors because, among other things, it had confused the identity of one of only two abuse survivors whose complaints were being considered.
The board’s decision was circulated to parties on 24 April after a convoluted, five-year process that took longer than the entire child abuse royal commission.
The decision identified two abuse survivors as complainants: Beth Heinrich and a second survivor, who was given the pseudonym “BYB”.
The use of the BYB pseudonym, however, was erroneous and created significant confusion between the actual complainant and another abuse survivor, who had not been directly involved in the professional standards board process.
The confusion led to representations directly to Kooyoora, the church’s complaints handling body.
The survivor who was erroneously referred to as BYB told the Guardian earlier this month: “I have not received an explanation of how the tribunal seems to have not bothered to get the facts straight of my relationship to the case. I was not communicated with for about two years prior to the hearing. I was not advised that the tribunal was finally coming to proceed.”
When approached about the error on 4 May, the professional standards board told the Guardian that it was re-checking the 78-page decision for errors. It would not confirm whether it was examining a potential error in the use of the BYB pseudonym.
On Thursday, the board confirmed that it had confused the survivor’s identity and released a corrected version of its ruling.
The corrected ruling acknowledged that “the second complainant was not in fact BYB but another person”.
“The misidentification was due to a misunderstanding on the part of the Board.”
An initial summary of the decision also erroneously named the other complainant, Beth Heinrich, as “Beth Shearman”, giving her the name of her abuser, Donald Shearman. That error has also since been fixed.
“They can’t get my name right, so what does that show you? They can’t get anything right,” Heinrich said at the time.
The professional standards board found Hollingworth to have committed misconduct by failing to act to remove two paedophiles while archbishop of Brisbane in the 1990s.
But its decision also recommended Hollingworth be allowed to remain in his role and continue to conduct priestly duties, because he posed no unacceptable risk of harm.
Hollingworth has since handed back his permission to officiate voluntarily, saying he wanted to end distress for survivors and division within the church.
Hollingworth is not accused of any abuse towards children. In a media statement after the ruling, he said he had “made some mistakes” but added he “committed no crimes”.
Survivors are still pushing for Hollingworth to be defrocked, despite his decision to hand back his permission to officiate.
