Beth Heinrich sits on a battered, brown suitcase, sifting through the scores of "love letters", photographs and trinkets that make up the patchwork of her life.
"I'm not ready to put them on a bonfire yet," she tells Australian Story. "They remind of something nice that could have happened that didn't."
She studies each item before carefully filing it away.
Everything has its place — even the suitcase full of clothes belonging to the man she still hopes loved her above all else.
Donald Shearman sent it to her in early 1984 before he resigned as Anglican Bishop of Grafton and left his wife and children to live with Beth.
However, 10 days after moving into her Wagga Wagga home, his then-junior, Bishop Richard Hurford, flew down from Grafton and insisted Shearman return home.
Now-Bishop Hurford would later tell the ABC's Australian Story program in 2005 that it was "hugely embarrassing".
"I remember thinking: 'What if people knew that this was all happening?'," the bishop said.
For Beth, it felt like it was her reputation that had suffered: she was the seductress who had tempted a man of God and torn apart a Christian family.
What the church didn't know then was that Shearman had repeatedly sexually abused her when she was 15 years of age.
Beth had been a minor in his care at an Anglican-run boarding house in Forbes, NSW. He was a married man, twice her age.
The abuse continued for 18 months, until Shearman had Beth expelled, putting an end to her schooling, ruining her relationship with her parents and shattering her confidence.
For almost two decades, Beth had no contact with him.
Then, as a mother of five in her 30s, she turned to Shearman for help in escaping a violent relationship.
Shearman soon proclaimed his undying love for her, writing to her that she was “no longer the young girl, but the mature woman, bearing the honourable scars of the last 21 years”.
He moved in with Beth and her young son, promising within a year she would be his “Easter bride". Beth was ecstatic.
However, Shearman left her for good, and the scars of his abuse have remained.
Beth is now the public face of a battle to see the Anglican church admit its failings in its handling of child sexual abuse claims.
The focus of her campaign is Peter Hollingworth, whom sex abuse survivors allege re-traumatised them in the way he dealt with their complaints when he was archbishop of Brisbane for 11 years, before becoming the nation's governor-general in 2001.
“Peter Hollingworth shattered my belief in Jesus’s teachings because of his standing in the church,” Beth says.
“You expect more from leaders. They’re there to set an example.”
Since resigning as governor-general in May 2003, Dr Hollingworth has lived in Melbourne where he is still able to preach, which has infuriated abuse survivors such as Beth.
Anglican primate says it would be 'a good thing' for Hollingworth to resign
For the past five years, the Anglican professional standards unit in Melbourne, called Kooyoora, has investigated complaints about Dr Hollingworth's handling of sex abuse complaints during his time as Archbishop of Brisbane.
However, the length of time the process has taken — and a lack of transparency — has raised concerns in the wider Anglican church hierarchy.
"I do wonder why Peter Hollingworth continues to have permission to officiate," Anglican Primate of Australia, Archbishop Geoffrey Smith, tells Australian Story.
Since he became national head of the Anglican church in Australia in 2020, Archbishop Smith has received complaints about the investigation, but has no say in what happens to Dr Hollingworth.
The church is a federation of 23 autonomous dioceses that are loosely connected through the national synod, but each diocese is able to make decisions on a range of issues, such as the hiring and firing of priests within its auspices.
Some follow the investigative processes set up by the national body to decide if a priest is not fit for ministry.
Others, like the Diocese of Melbourne, go their own way.
In an interview with Australian Story in the lead up to the inquiry's findings being released, Archbishop Smith called for a review of the church's professional standards processes, including those concerning bishops and former bishops. And he has some advice for Dr Hollingworth.
"I would say on the basis of all that I'm aware of, it would be a good thing to step back and resign his orders. I think that would be a reasonable thing," Archbishop Smith says.
"For the good of the people who've been impacted, for the good of the reputation of the church, even though that's very much secondary."
Two weeks ago, survivors' hopes the board would recommend Dr Hollingworth be defrocked were dashed.
It found he had committed misconduct but was still fit to be a priest.
However, Beth Heinrich is not giving up.
"What we've seen is the metamorphosis of a country girl into a very sophisticated campaigner," former school friend Wendy McCarthy says.
"And, basically, I'd advise them all not to mess with her."
How 'the system' failed Beth's pursuit of justice
Beth first met Peter Hollingworth in 1995 when she attended a mediation session in Brisbane with Donald Shearman.
By then, Shearman was retired and living with his wife in Queensland, where he was doing locum work as a parish priest.
Beth had decided the diocese needed to know the truth about him.
As Archbishop of Brisbane, Dr Hollingworth wanted to sit in as an observer and agreed to meet with her privately afterwards.
Ahead of the mediation, Beth had sought help from a psychologist and a social worker, who wrote reports outlining the ongoing impact that the abuse had on her. She forwarded them to the diocese.
In a subsequent letter to Beth, the archbishop confirmed he had received them.
Beth's estrangement from the parents she adored — who had died years earlier — still gnawed at her, but she felt she had found a way to make peace.
So, she wrote them a letter from Shearman's point of view, explaining what had happened and reassuring them she'd done nothing wrong, which she wanted him to sign.
That was of paramount importance to Beth.
During the mediation, Shearman confessed to abusing her as a minor. But he refused to sign the letter. And then-archbishop Hollingworth later cancelled his promised meeting with her.
"I wanted him to hear my side of what had happened," she says.
When Dr Hollingworth allowed Shearman to continue as a priest, Beth was furious.
She wrote to the archbishop, demanding he prevent Shearman from preaching.
Hollingworth wrote back saying, "… having listened to and absorbed the stories of both yourself and Donald Shearman and his wife, there is a very wide discrepancy in your respective recollections of events and their outcomes … their life, too, has been racked with much pain and suffering".
"That's where the system, the people who ran the system, failed her," Wendy McCarthy says. "He was responsible and accountable for his priest's behaviour."
Hollingworth said it's 'in nobody's best interests' to remove paedophile priest
Beth was not the only survivor to feel shunned by then-archbishop Hollingworth.
A Queensland family approached him in 1993 after their two sons told how a priest called John Elliot had sexually abused them for years as children.
When Elliot admitted the abuse to Dr Hollingworth, the archbishop sought a psychiatric assessment.
It determined that Elliot's paedophilia was untreatable and likely to occur again, but Hollingworth kept him in the ministry, regardless.
He wrote to Elliot that his departure "could cause unintended consequences that would make things worse for you and the church … an act of removing you would place you in an impossible situation at your age and stage in life".
In a letter to one of the brothers, Dr Hollingworth wrote he had "made the judgement that [Elliot] is now getting close to retirement and the disruption and upset that would be caused to the whole parish, as well as to him and his family, would be in nobody's best interests".
Four years later, then-archbishop Hollingworth wrote to Elliot again.
''Events of the past months have simply served to highlight the delicate and invidious situation the church is in and the potential for legal action on the part of the aggrieved individuals, some of whom may feel it is now open season to do so."
In early 2002, Elliot pleaded guilty to sex offences against five boys. The number of victims eventually rose to seven.
Hollingworth's 2002 on-air comments spark outrage
By February 2002, with calls for Dr Hollingworth to resign as governor-general mounting, Beth decided enough was enough and rang a journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald.
She didn't want her name used, but was willing to tell her story. It made the front page.
"I thought, 'Well, that's that', and I was pleased," Beth says. "But I didn't know what was to happen next."
In response to questions by the ABC's Australian Story about the anonymous woman in the article, Dr Hollingworth said: "The great tragedy about this situation is that the genesis of it was 40 years ago, and it occurred between a young priest and a teenage girl who was under the age of consent. I believe she was more than 14. And I also understand that, many years later in adult life, their relationship resumed. And it was partly a pastoral relationship and it was partly something more."
He also said: "My belief is that this was not sex abuse. There was no suggestion of rape or anything like that. Quite the contrary. My information is that it was rather the other way around, and I don't want to say any more than that."
What went to air sparked calls for his sacking.
The then-governor-general told the media his comments on Australian Story were taken out of context, a view he still holds today.
"I thought I was talking about an adult relationship, and I want to make an unreserved apology to the woman concerned and the Australian public."
He contacted Beth to discuss what had happened and invited her to Yarralumla, the governor-general's residence in Canberra. Beth went, but remained upset.
“I was still annoyed and not happy with the way he had dealt with me. It wasn't satisfactory … He hadn't made a decent apology to me.”
The new Archbishop of Brisbane, Phillip Aspinall, called an inquiry into past handling of sex abuse allegations.
This included Dr Hollingworth’s response to the Shearman and Elliot cases.
Late in proceedings, the board said it had “fortuitously received” a letter from Peter Hollingworth to Beth dated March 2002, that Dr Hollingworth’s legal team had not submitted, and that Beth said she never received.
It said: “What happened to you as a girl was wrong and you were in no way responsible for it, I am deeply sorry for the words I used on Australian Story that suggested otherwise. I cannot try to explain or excuse them.”
The board was critical of Dr Hollingworth, but did not sanction him.
As public outcry reached a crescendo in May 2003, Dr Hollingworth resigned as governor-general.
However, that wasn’t to be the end of the story.
Inquiry into Hollingworth's handling of sexual abuse complaints takes five years
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Sex Abuse closely examined Dr Hollingworth's handling of the John Elliot case.
During a hearing, the former archbishop apologised to the victim complainant.
In 2017, the commission found he had made a serious error of judgement in allowing Elliot to remain in ministry.
Soon after, the Melbourne and the Bendigo Anglican dioceses set up an independent professional standards unit called Kooyoora with the power to recommend whether clergy could continue to hold their licenses.
After receiving complaints about Dr Hollingworth, it launched an inquiry that would drag on for five years.
The proceedings were shrouded in secrecy.
Anglican Primate, Archbishop Smith is critical of how long the process has taken.
"It does seem to have been a very long process to get to where we finally arrived at the moment," he says.
"People have been very concerned and on the face of it, I'd have to say I think those concerns are completely reasonable."
Both Beth and one of Elliot's victims submitted complaints. But neither were party to proceedings.
"The prosecutor never spoke with me, before or since the hearing," Elliot's victim told Australian Story.
Beth was given special permission to read her victim impact statement aloud at a closed hearing in February.
As she entered the room and sat at the table, she realised she was sitting next to Peter Hollingworth and his legal team.
"And then I saw his big bishop's ring on his hand, and I thought, 'Isn't this strange. Here I am and I've got all this stuff to talk about you, and you're sitting beside me, and it's come to this'," she says.
In its decision on April 24, the board found Dr Hollingworth's remarks on Australian Story were "unsatisfactory, insensitive and that he should have foreseen was likely to be distressing", and that this was the case irrespective of how it was edited.
Despite finding Hollingworth had mishandled abuse claims and allowed Shearman and Elliot, whom he knew to be paedophiles, to continue as priests, it concluded he was "fit for ministry".
One of the conditions of retaining his ministry is that he apologise to Beth and the survivor of Elliot's abuse who brought a complaint to Kooyoora.
"It's a disappointment," Beth says.
"And I just wonder what I can do and what the other survivors can do who were re-traumatised by Peter Hollingworth when they went to him for help and support.
"I don't know what the next chapter will be. But it's not over yet."
"Beth broke through shame and the silence we can impose on ourselves," Elliot's victim who wants to remain anonymous says. "She has shown extraordinary strength in leadership."
Peter Hollingworth declined a request for an interview with Australian Story, but in a letter to the program, his lawyer said his client had already offered his apologies four times to Beth, and again claimed the program had misrepresented his comments in its 2002 broadcast.
He also says, "I would like it to be a matter of public record that I would never blame a child for sexual abuse."
In a separate statement released to the media, Dr Hollingworth wrote: "I made mistakes, and I cannot undo them. But I committed no crimes … The board found the level of misconduct was not of such a level that makes me a risk of harm to anyone … Like other church leaders, I was unduly influenced by the advice of lawyers and insurance companies."
The complainants don't have the right to appeal the Kooyoora decision, but Beth has written to the board detailing her objections to the findings.
She is also progressing with a civil case against the Anglican church.
'My parents would be proud': Beth's search for peace
Back home in rural Victoria, Beth still keeps the suitcase with Shearman's clothes in her spare room.
From time to time, her thoughts return to the letters he wrote promising a bright future.
Over the years, she has wondered if she'd have rejected him if he had returned to collect his things.
"Would I have grown enough to realise that he wasn't good enough for me?" she asks.
"That what he did to me as a minor was unforgivable, that what he did to my parents was unforgivable, and said it's not for me? I don't know."
But his death in 2019 was a reckoning for Beth.
"There isn't a part of me that still cares about him or loves him, because you don't do that kind of thing to people you care about."
And she hopes by telling her story she's helping other survivors have the courage to come forward.
"My parents would be proud," she says.
"I don't think I cause chaos in the Anglican Church, but if I did, I'd like the idea."
Watch Australian Story's 'After the Storm', 8:00pm (AEST), on ABCTV and ABC iview.
