The Queen's man in Australia resigns amid relentless child abuse controversy

The former Anglican archbishop who represented the Queen in Australia resigned in ignominy yesterday amid a relentless stream of allegations that he had been soft on child sex abusers.

Dr Peter Hollingworth's vice-regal position as governor general was made untenable by mounting pressure, much of it from republican factions and sex abuse campaigners, which often resembled a witch-hunt.

The controversy, which has raged for 15 months of his two years in the job, reached a peak when a woman, who subsequently committed suicide, took civil court action against him alleging he raped her at a church camp 40 years ago.

Dr Hollingworth stepped aside to fight the rape case, which was dismissed last week. He said that those unfounded charges and the row over decisions he made in the church years ago meant he had to resign. The controversy would otherwise undermine the office representing the Queen as head of state in Australia, he said.

"Despite the misplaced and unwarranted allegations made against me as governor general, it is clear that continuing public controversy has the potential to undermine and diminish my capacity to uphold the importance, dignity and integrity of this high office. I cannot allow that to occur."

The affair is the biggest scandal surrounding a "GG", as the largely ceremonial figurehead is usually referred to, since 1975 when Sir John Kerr dismissed the Labour government of Gough Whitlam.

John Howard, the Prime Minister, did not comment. He will contact the Queen to make transitional arrangements. A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: "The Queen will await the Australian Prime Minister's recommendation."

Simon Crean, the leader of the opposition Australian Labour Party, said the resignation was a welcome end to what amounted to a crisis for Australia. "The decision of the governor general to resign is the correct decision. The great tragedy is that it's a decision that was not taken long ago," he said.

But the Labour frontbencher Wayne Swan protested: "The governor general has had to be dragged kicking and screaming from office."

And from the other side, Ross Lightfoot, an MP for the ruling Liberal Party, said the GG had been unfairly hounded from the position. "The pursuit of him was relentless and I felt terribly sad for him and the opprobrium that this will bring to his family."

Mr Howard's 2001 appointment of a churchman was controversial and Dr Hollingworth also suffered from republican disgruntlement over the loss of the 1999 referendum to replacing the "Queen's man" with a president.

But his troubles really began when an Anglican church inquiry found he had failed to act against paedophile priests in the 1990s when he was Archbishop of Brisbane. Dr Hollingworth admitted making an "error of judgement" in allowing one known paedophile, now jailed, to remain a priest, but denied any wrongdoing.

Terry O'Gorman, president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, recommended Dr Hollingworth go to court. "He's really been the subject of trial by media in respect of a series of media reports that have been so one-sided and so slanted," he said.