Fox Lied to Colleagues

By Suzanne Smith
ABC - Lateline
May 13, 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-13/fox-lied-to-colleagues/4676078?section=nsw

[with video]

Detective Peter Fox told the Newcastle inquiry into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that he had lied to colleagues because he thought they lacked integrity, commitment and professionalism.

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: The New South Wales policeman at the centre of a special commission into the handling of sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church has admitted he deliberately ignored directions from his superior to cease contact with the media. Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox faced intense scrutiny on day two of the inquiry in Newcastle. Peter Fox said he lied to colleagues because he thought they were not police with integrity, commitment or professionalism. In one email read to the inquiry, he described his superiors as pricks who should shove it. As Suzie Smith reports, there was a total breakdown of trust between DCI Fox and some of his superiors.

SUZIE SMITH, REPORTER: Day two and new insights into the relationship between Peter Fox and his police bosses. Again, in sharp focus a critical meeting in early December 2010 at the Waratah police station in Newcastle. DCI Fox told the inquiry he intentionally disobeyed an order from the Newcastle commander Max Mitchell to bring all his investigation documents. Those documents included an explosive witness statement which he didn't hand over because he told the inquiry he didn't trust Commander Mitchell or his fellow officers. "So you lied to the police at the meeting?" she said.

PETER FOX (ACTOR'S VOICE): Oh absolutely yes, I deliberately kept them myself, but I realised there was other knowledge by police that I had them.

SUZIE SMITH: DCI Fox told the inquiry he handed over the outstanding documents the next day. Counsel assisting Julia Lonergan questioned Peter Fox about a number of directions he'd been given at the meeting at the Waratah station. DCI Fox said he was told by Superintendent Mitchell to hand the documents over, not to talk to his source, the Newcastle Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy and to stop talking to the witnesses.

PETER FOX (ACTOR'S VOICE): I said "these witnesses have been through hell." I sat with one woman for 28 hours to do her statement. You can't treat her as garbage.

SUZIE SMITH: After pleading for permission to contact witnesses to inform them he'd taken off the investigation, he was given the OK. But he deliberately disobeyed orders regarding the Newcastle Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy. Peter Fox emailed her that night saying:

PETER FOX (ACTOR'S VOICE): They're trying to effectively sabotage this investigation.

SUZIE SMITH: Counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, asked DCI Fox: "you were planning to keep breaching the directive?"

PETER FOX (ACTOR'S VOICE): Yes I would have.

SUZIE SMITH: Julia Lonergan read out parts of the same email sent to Joanne McCarthy that night. In it Peter Fox says:

PETER FOX (ACTOR'S VOICE): The pricks can shove it.

JOANNE MCCARTHY (REPORTER'S VOICE): Who do you mean by that?

PETER FOX (ACTOR'S VOICE): Some fit that description more than others.

SUZIE SMITH: DCI Fox named Wayne Humphrey the man most fitting of that title. He blamed Humphrey for him not being included on the new investigating strike force known as Strike Force Lantle. He told the inquiry he thought Strike Force Lantle was a sham. He said the three officers that had been assigned to it were junior. They are all now on sick leave. Suzie Smith, Lateline.

Editor's note: A suppression order was issued after the story was broadcast. This means that a small section of the original broadcast has been deleted.