Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Anglican and Episcopal Newcastle, NSW, Australia · 2011

Australia: Anglican lay figure James Michael Brown convicted on 27 counts against 19 boys

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

senior lay figure at St Alban's Anglican home and church-connected youth settings, Newcastle diocese

Organization

Anglican Diocese of Newcastle, St Alban's home

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

Brown held a position of trust within Anglican parish and residential-care networks in the Newcastle diocese; that position, and the diocese's protection of him despite complaints reaching bishops directly, is what gave him unrefusable access to the boys he abused.

Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2011-01-01 · conviction

District Court of New South Wales, Australia. James Michael Brown pleaded guilty to 27 charges of child sexual abuse against 19 male victims and was sentenced to a maximum 20 years' imprisonment with a 12-year non-parole period. He was in a long-term sexual relationship with fellow Anglican offender Peter Rushton; both abused boys and male teenagers met through the church and St Alban's home. Brown was charged with further offences in 2019 after the Royal Commission's 2016 Newcastle hearing exposed decades of diocesan inaction.

Documented coercion mechanisms

position of trust within Anglican parish and residential-care settings
protection by diocesan clergy who failed to report known allegations

Cited record

Sources

regional newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report Newcastle Herald, 'Hunter child sex offender who should have been stopped.': Reports the 2011 guilty plea, 27 charges, 19 victims, 20-year sentence, and Brown's relationship with Peter Rushton.
official statutory inquiry report inquiry report Royal Commission, 'Case Study 42: Anglican Diocese of Newcastle.': Corroborates the diocese's decades-long failure to report Brown despite direct admissions.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/6618999/hunter-child-sex-offender-who-should-have-been-stopped/ Corpus classification: regional-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-and-sentencing-report. SHA-256 1eb18d8df8d22c02e9a2bc4fe2846f7185464b341514cb780e0921d5edb98862
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/case-studies/case-study-42-anglican-diocese-newcastle Corpus classification: official-statutory-inquiry-report; evidentiary role: inquiry-report.
Retrieval: 2026-07-27 · Retrieval failed; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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