Abusers may be at large, says church (AUS)
Some child sex abusers might still be among Uniting Church clergy because of poor record keeping and failure to investigate cases, the church conceded on Monday.
The Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled sex abuse instructed the church to investigate previous cases.
In other evidence, church spokesmen said it had no records of victims seeking compensation before 1998 because of inadequate record-keeping and that since then it had paid $2 million to 63 victims from the 1940s to 1986 but had not reported any cases to the police.
There have been seven cases of child abuse since 1998, all of which were reported to the police, the inquiry heard. When committee member Nick Wakeling asked if failure to report to police and to keep records meant some abusers might still be operating inside the church, church lawyer Philip Battye said it was ”theoretically possible”.
Read more: The Age, April 23, 2013