The Anglican bishop who took on sexual abuse in the church

Australia Broadcast Center

10-05-2025

When Greg Thompson became the bishop of Newcastle, he refused to turn a blind eye to the decades-long child sex abuse scandals in the diocese.
For him, it was personal. He was himself a sexual abuse survivor.
But speaking out came at huge personal cost — and left Greg wondering where he fits in the Anglican Church.
Warning: This story contains themes which may be upsetting for some readers.
For a man who made the decision to become a priest at the age of 16, it's been a devastating experience.
"I was seen as an outsider and they were telling me I'm an outsider," Greg told ABC TV's Compass.
"I am a cynic now of the Anglican institution because of what I've seen and experienced.
"But I look back and think, 'I've invested my life in people, and the institution was the framework for me to do that.'"
Growing up around Newcastle region of New South Wales, church was a place of refuge for Greg, who was taken along to Sunday School by his elder sister.
"You don't realise what kind of family you're in until you leave it," he said, reflecting on his childhood.
"Growing up with a dad who was on the railway away a lot, a mum who had eight kids by the time she was 30, 31, and often struggled to manage."
One of the ways Greg's mum managed was by taking in boarders to bring a little extra money into the house.
But that decision had tragic consequences for Greg.
"It meant that I was exposed to really dysfunctional behaviour, and at an early age, was sexually assaulted," he said.
On one occasion, Greg recalled running to the home of his minister and sitting in his garden. For Greg, it was a sanctuary.
"He didn't know I was there, but I had this idea of being in a safer place," he said.
'In some ways I was propelled towards God and propelled towards ministry through that experience of being loved and cared for by people outside my family.
"And I suppose that led me to university and then that moved me in the circles of the Anglican Church."
Those early experiences of church as a place of safety were turned on their head when, at the age of 19, Greg was sexually abused by the senior priest at the cathedral, Canon Eric Barker.
Barker, aware of Greg's ordination aspirations, had taken the young man under his wing.
He introduced him to the then-bishop of Newcastle, Ian Shevill, and Greg couldn't believe it when the two men invited him to see a film with them.
"I didn't realise it was going to be a kind of R-rated, X-rated film that he was taking me to," Greg said.
"But it was one of those alternative venues and people who were interested in sex films would go there."
Greg was sexually assaulted at the cinema by the men.
"You can't say anything, and these are powerful, privileged people," Greg recalled.
He said the abuse by Barker escalated later, at the priest's house.
"The whole grooming was associated with making [an] invitation to become a priest if I entered into a relationship," Greg said.
"And he'd make sure I'd get ahead in the diocese.
Greg fled Newcastle — but he did not leave the church.
Rather, he trained to become a priest independently, a decision that eventually took him and his wife Kerry to Darwin, where he became the Anglican Bishop of the Northern Territory.
"My survival response was to get away, and it was a long way to Darwin in those days," Greg said.
"And a great adventure it was, and that's where we had our kids."
Years later, in 2014, Greg found himself back in the Hunter region — this time, as the Anglican bishop of Newcastle.
Shortly after taking on the role, Greg learnt the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse would be looking into the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle.
"One of the things about the summons that the royal commission sent, is they give a list of persons of interest," he said.
"I had two pages of names in this diocese, and one of them was my perpetrator.
"I knew my personal story was captured in the summons, three months into the role, so that was a bit overwhelming."
Greg hadn't told many people about his history of abuse, much less about who his abusers were.
But he felt compelled to testify.
"I took myself down to the royal commission because I thought, I need to tell my story," he said.
"I felt I had to be true and be vulnerable at the same time. I was also a survivor. And I [knew] it was a risk.
"The courthouse was a place where I was examined, and my own personal journey was examined. So that was difficult, but I felt validated."
However, Greg was unprepared for just how great a risk testifying would turn out to be.
In the lead-up to and during the royal commission, Greg, his family, and his staff were subject to intimidation.
"I had personal security to accompany me even when going to the toilet," Greg recalled.
Powerful people in Newcastle, including some parishioners, turned on Greg, writing letters to the royal commission and the archbishop of Sydney questioning his mental health and his ability to lead the diocese.
"I remember them coming forward to receive communion from my hand. The same people," Greg said.
"So they'd take the communion from me, but they would write these poisonous letters behind my back."
Things got worse when he made a public apology to survivors of sexual abuse.
"The community within the cathedral would turn away from me, they refused communion to my wife Kerry," Greg said.
"Betrayal is always intimate, you know, the power of betrayal is in its intimacy. And that's what sexual abuse is — a deep betrayal of trust."
The royal commission unveiled just how intricate these webs of betrayal were.
The final report found "a group of perpetrators was allowed to operate within the diocese for at least 30 years".
The royal commission unveiled up to 30 alleged Anglican perpetrators, who had been protected for decades by a network of bishops, clergy and lay people.
Identified among this group were Father Peter Rushton, and former dean of Newcastle's Anglican cathedral Graeme Lawrence.
Rushton abused and shared boys with other paedophiles, and was outed in 2010 by the Anglican Church's Professional Standards Ordinance — though he died before facing any charges.
Lawrence was defrocked in 2012 over allegations of abuse and is now a convicted child sex offender.
For Greg, realising just how far the networks of paedophilia reached in Newcastle — and the level of protection around them — was devastating.
"I thought it was individuals, you know, this is the narrative 'There's a few bad apples, bishop, we've all moved on'," Greg said.
"It was being blindsided, that's what I felt.
"I was being groomed not to pay too much attention to those things ... which was a way of minimising the harm and ignoring the survivors that were coming forward."
Anne Manne, author of Crimes of the Cross, researched the Newcastle Anglican case during the royal commission. She said the city's "power elite" were intertwined with the church, which allowed the network to flourish.
"It was the working class kids who were picked off by and were abused by middle class priests, who had access to some of the best lawyers.
"When people came forward with complaints, they were frequently threatened with defamation and to people of ordinary means, that's a very frightening thing because they knew they could lose their house. So they backed off."
It's a situation all too familiar to Steve Smith, a sexual abuse survivor who became the central figure of Manne's book and was part of Newcastle's Anglican Diocese during this time.
Steve was repeatedly abused by Father George Parker in the 1970s, when he was serving as an altar boy.
"The church was an integral part of our family life," Steve told Compass.
"We had church on every Sunday. The priests were part of our family life."
When Steve told his mother about the abuse, she went straight to Bishop Ian Shevill — the very same bishop who had abused Greg.
He threw Steve's mother out.
"Shevill was very narcissistic, he was quite a powerhouse," Ms Manne said.
"He would blast anyone who made a complaint from one end of Bishop's Court to the other, he would just savage them.
"And he was outed by the royal commission as an abuser himself."
The royal commission findings brought validation for survivors, like Steve.
"To have an authority like the royal commission say to you, 'We believe you, what you are saying did happen, and there's evidence to that effect,' was incredibly powerful for me," he said.
Steve Smith fought for years for justice, but his abuser George Parker died in 2017, just weeks after child abuse charges were reinstated against him.
Steve's message to other survivors is don't give up, get help.
"Talk to your family. Talk to your doctor. Talk to a psych. Get yourself into a good place," he says.
Though the royal commission shone some light on issues hidden for far too long in the shadows, for Greg and other survivors, the ordeal had taken its toll.
At the royal commission's conclusion in 2017, Greg resigned as bishop of Newcastle.
Peter Stuart took over as the diocese's 14th bishop in 2018, with a big job ahead of him.
"We've changed our volunteering policies, we've changed our safeguarding audits, so it's really a whole culture change," Bishop Stuart said.
"We recruited another professional standards director, who's got extensive experience with NSW Police and child protection.
"We're safer than we were, but I think even more importantly, we are now more vigilant than we ever were."
But Steve is skeptical about the church's reforms.
"I think the potential to slide back is extraordinarily real," he said.
"I have huge concerns that the church and the community think that these issues have been dealt with, and that's the end of it. It's not."
Greg, meanwhile, can't help but feel like he's been left "in the cold".
"I remember having one of the commissioners at the end of the royal commission saying to me, 'Greg, you realise you will never be asked to help the church in this. And that's because you know too much,'" he said.
"Neither the theological colleges nor bishops have asked me to provide any advice about how to make church safer and how to be alert to the practices of people who are predators.
"I think for many church leaders, I'm a risk figure for them, because I can speak a language about institutional misconduct and institutional corruption."
Anne Manne thinks it's "a terrible shame" Greg is not working as an advisor to the Diocese.
"He should be regarded as one of the greatest resources in the Anglican Church," she said.
"I think this avoidant response is … not only disappointing, but really destructive to the enterprise."
So where does that leave Greg, and his faith?
"I suppose the question on me, is whether I'm loyal to the church now," he said, from his new home in Adelaide.
"I'm on the fringe. I attend a parish, I take my grandkids, too. I teach them the Lord's Prayer. I encourage them to enjoy church as best they can.
"So I keep a relationship, but that's really at the parish level.
"I think one of the problems for any church is it has to acknowledge the past in order for it to be shaped by something new."
Watch The Bishop Who Knew Too Much on Compass at 6:30pm Sunday 13 April on ABC TV and stream free anytime on ABC iview.