A school psychologist who complained about former governor general and Anglican archbishop Peter Hollingworth’s handling of child abuse allegations says she has “lost faith” in the protracted and secretive complaints process relied on by the church.
Hollingworth is facing a secret hearing that could defrock him over his handling of abuse allegations while archbishop of Brisbane. The hearing is taking place more than five years after complaints were made to the Anglican church’s complaints body, Kooyoora.
The Anglican response in this single case has already taken longer than the entire child abuse royal commission, which held 8,013 private sessions with survivors and made 2,575 referrals to authorities.
Joy Conolly, a psychologist who worked with teenage girls abused at the Toowoomba preparatory school in the 1990s, is one of the complainants against Hollingworth, claiming he mishandled complaints about the now-dead paedophile housemaster Kevin Guy, an episode retold in the 2017 film Don’t Tell.
Conolly said the repeated delays to the Kooyoora complaints process – the hearing was meant to take place in December 2021 – have been frustrating and hard on already traumatised survivors.
“It’s been put off so many times. And I’ve written so many reports, and they’re all exactly the same, and nothing has changed. These girls … they haven’t gone on to lead good lives, not at all. And it’s heartbreaking,” she told the Guardian.
“Where’s the justice in this world? How can these kids walk around and think that life’s fair? They don’t.
“I’ve lost faith in it [the complaints process]. It doesn’t do the Anglican church any good, and all churches are in trouble these days.”
The child abuse royal commission found that Hollingworth, as archbishop of Brisbane in 1993, failed to act to remove a lay preacher, John Linton Elliot, despite Elliot having admitted to him that he had abused two boys. One of the survivors had also told him he had been abused by Elliot and a psychiatrist, tasked with assessing Elliot, told Hollingworth the teacher “was a paedophile and that his personality type was untreatable”.
Despite this, Hollingworth kept him on until he retired five years later, a decision the royal commission found to be a “serious error of judgment”.
The current hearing could see Hollingworth defrocked, though the conduct of the proceedings is cloaked in secrecy.
Hollingworth was the Anglican archbishop of Brisbane for 11 years from 1989 and served as governor general from 2001 to 2003.
He was forced to resign as governor general over his handling of abuse complaints and his comments about survivor Beth Heinrich.
The complaints about Hollingworth are now before a professional standards tribunal, another step in a convoluted, protracted process, which included an investigation in 2018.
Child protection expert and advocate Hetty Johnston said on Friday that the complaints process must end this week and said it was “beyond belief that this process has dragged on for this long”.
“The churches need to remember the adage ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. The same applies to the tribunal just as it does to the courts.
“The best interests of justice and that of survivors is being denied by the current tribunal processes. It is cruel, ignorant, unaccountable and pompous.”
Kooyoora did not respond to Conolly’s criticisms directly, but has previously said it cannot comment on specific cases.
Kooyoora’s chief executive, Fiona Boyle, told the Guardian that the organisation’s aim generally was to support a “just, quick and inexpensive resolution of complaints”.
“Complaints we handle are typically resolved in anything from six weeks to 12 months,” Boyle said. “In complex matters, this can take longer. We acknowledge delay can be upsetting and frustrating for those involved in the process.”
Boyle said support was also offered to complainants.
