The former Anglican dean of Newcastle, Graeme Russell Lawrence, has been granted conditional bail after he was charged with historical child sex offences.<\/p>\n
The 82-year-old faced an online bail hearing on Tuesday, with the court told he was on parole after serving a custodial sentence for similar matters.<\/p>\n
The police prosecutor opposed bail and indicated an application would be lodged to put a hold on the bail decision.<\/p>\n
Mr Lawrence was arrested at a home in the Newcastle suburb of Kotara on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
He was later charged with five counts of sexual assault, indecent act with a person under 16 years of age and two counts of sexual assault person under 16 years.<\/p>\n
Bail opposed<\/p>\n
Police allege the offences occurred between 1982 and 1984 at a church in the northern Riverina region of western New South Wales.<\/p>\n
The police prosecutor told the court the alleged victim was seven at the time.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor said there was an unacceptable risk to the community if Mr Lawrence was released on bail as his “record shows like matters”.<\/p>\n
She told the court Mr Lawrence was in a position of trust and authority at the time of the alleged offences.<\/p>\n
“He was trusted by the boy and his family,” she said.<\/p>\n
The court heard Mr Lawrence faced a maximum of 10 years in prison if he was convicted of two of the charges.<\/p>\n
In applying for bail, Mr Lawrence’s Legal Aid solicitor Haydn McDuff said his client was “quite an elderly man” and took daily medication for diabetes.<\/p>\n
He said Mr Lawrence spent “some time in custody not too long ago” and had trouble with falls.<\/p>\n
The court also heard he experienced verbal aggression during his time in custody.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Graeme Lawrence was a senior figure in the Newcastle Diocese of the Anglican Church. (Facebook)<\/p>\n
Mr McDuff said the case against his client was not particularly strong and detention was not justified.<\/p>\n
He told the court Mr Lawrence reported to his parole officer monthly and was on the child protection register, so could not have contact with children.<\/p>\n
Accused on parole<\/p>\n
Magistrate Elizabeth Bushby said Mr Lawrence had no criminal record at the time of the alleged offences.<\/p>\n
But she noted he was now on parole for serious sexual offences.<\/p>\n
The court heard Mr Lawrence wore an electronic monitoring device as part of his parole conditions.<\/p>\n
Magistrate Bushby said his parole conditions and his inclusion on the child protection register mitigated his risk to the community.<\/p>\n
In granting bail, she said Mr Lawrence must report to a local police station once a week.<\/p>\n
He was also not to be in the company of a person under 16 years and was not to engage in written or electronic communications with a person under 16.<\/p>\n
The case has been adjourned to Griffith Local Court later this month.<\/p>\n
Mr Lawrence has been excused from attending if he is legally represented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Anglican dean of Newcastle, Graeme Russell Lawrence, has been granted conditional bail after he was charged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[45663,64,63,2025,90968,1108,50885,90967,44,6671],"class_list":{"0":"post-131054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-anglican","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-charges","12":"tag-child-sex","13":"tag-court","14":"tag-dean","15":"tag-graeme-lawrence","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-sexual-assault"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}