Foi Reveals Church Attempt to Conceal Crimes

ABC News
October 3, 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-03/foi-reveals-church-attempt-to-conceal-crimes/4997784

Police records accesssed under Freedom of Information laws have revealed that the Catholic Church tried to strike an agreement with NSW police to allow it withold information about paedophile priests.

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Police records obtained under Freedom of Information laws have revealed that the Catholic Church was trying to strike an illegal agreement with the New South Wales Police, damaging to investigations of child sex abuse.

The police say the memorandum of understanding was never signed and never in force. But a senior official of the Catholic Church has told Lateline the agreement was in fact operational and the Catholic Church dealt with the police under its provisions. Under the draft agreement, the Church could withhold personnel files from police. That and other provisions were found to be in breach of the Crimes Act.

Steve Cannane has this exclusive report. The producer was Sashka Koloff.

STEVE CANNANE, REPORTER: In recent years the Catholic Church has been accused of covering up child sexual abuse committed by its own clergy.

Now they're being accused of trying to co-opt NSW Police to help them suppress evidence against paedophile priests.

This draft agreement between police and the Church contains clauses that would allow the Church to withhold evidence from police.

(female voiceover): "Church authorities shall make available the report of an assessment and any other matter relevant to the accused's account of events only if required to do so by court order."

GEOFFREY WATSON, BARRISTER: The point is that under our law, you must report it if you become aware of a serious criminal offence and you've got to give all the particulars of that. You've got to tell the police. When I looked at the MOUs, they were really in effect trying to get the police to condone the failure to comply with that law, or even perhaps worse, get the police to participate in it.

STEVE CANNANE: This file, accessed under Freedom of Information by NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge, documents communications between the Catholic Church and NSW Police over the agreement.

On June 18, 2003, Michael McDonald, executive director of the Catholic Commission for Employment Relations, wrote to the Child Protection Squad seeking confirmation the agreement was still in place.

MICHAEL MCDONALD, CATHOLIC COMM. FOR EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS (male voiceover): "I, therefore, seek your confirmation that the unsigned Memorandum of Understanding with the police remains in place."

STEVE CANNANE: In response, Kim McKay from the Child Protection Squad makes it clear that no agreement exists.

KIM MCKAY, CHILD PROTECTION SQUAD (female voiceover): "Please note that his draft unsigned MOU has not been approved by the NSW Police Service, and the arrangements proposed by the MOU are not currently in place. The arrangements proposed by the draft MOU appear to be in direct conflict with the explicit legislative requirement of section 316 of the Crime Act."

DAVID SHOEBRIDGE, NSW GREENS MP: Well it appears that the police didn't sign the MOU, but that's only one very small part of it. It's clear from these documents that the Church believed it was in force, at least until the middle of 2003, and its very clear that the police were aware of its existence for that entire period and either knew or would have been culpable in not knowing that the Church were operating under the terms of this MOU. And let's be clear about it: the MOU said that the Church would not provide crucial documents to the police.

STEVE CANNANE: Michael Salmon was the Catholic's Church's point of contact for police. He would not be interviewed on camera, but he confirmed to Lateline the Church operated under the agreement, even though it was not signed.

MICHAEL SALMON, DIRECTOR, PROF. STANDARDS OFFICE, CATHOLIC CHURCH NSW (male voiceover): "The Church assumed it was operational. We were practising the provisions of the MOU and dealing with the police under those provisions. We had an understanding from police it was approved. We had a line of communications with the police and all indications from the police were that the MOU was approved from their end."

STEVE CANNANE: No-one from NSW Police was available to be interviewed. In a statement, a spokesman said:

STATEMENT FROM NSW POLICE FORCE SPOKESMAN (male voiceover): "The Church continued to cooperate with NSW Police, but it did so without any protections assumed in an MOU, as such protections would not have been valid given the requirements of Section 316 of the Crimes Act. As stated in the letter to the Catholic Church, dated 20 August 2003, the MOU was not approved. The letter also made clear that the proposed arrangements had never been operational at any point."

STEVE CANNANE: But the Church assumed the agreement was operational and David Shoebridge says it's unclear how many abuse cases were dealt with under this assumption.

DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: We don't know how many sanitised complaints were made by the police under the terms of this MOU and we don't know the extent to which police were involved in that process for the better part of the decade. But it's likely that hundreds, if not more than that, cases were processed through this MOU and processed in a way that didn't protect victims, didn't assist the police in prosecuting for crimes, but protected the good name of the Church and effectively prevented the police from getting the key evidence to prosecute any accused priest.

STEVE CANNANE: In 2004 another agreement between the police and the Church was drafted, despite previous advice from police that it would breach the Crimes Act. If signed, this agreement would have given even more protection to accused clergy.

DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: And in that MOU, the Church wanted to effectively give the accused priest a veto power about whether or not to provide crucial information to the police. Utterly extraordinary when you think that that's less than a decade ago.

STEVE CANNANE: This agreement was prepared by NSW Police, but a police spokesman says it was never considered a workable document and never endorsed.

Steve Cannane, Lateline.