Evidence by a whistleblower, Peter Fox, about the alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church’s Maitland-Newcastle diocese should be investigated by the federal royal commission, the NSW Greens and survivor advocates say.
The NSW special commission of inquiry found that Detective Inspector Fox, who made allegations of a cover-up, was an unsatisfactory witness.
A small band of Fox's supporters, who are challenging the inquiry’s findings, including abuse survivors’ families, rallied outside NSW Parliament House on Saturday.
The four-volume report, delivered on Friday, uncovered no evidence to show that senior police officers had tried to block investigations into child abuse.
It found that Fox was not a credible witness and it was appropriate for police to instruct him to cease his own investigations.
An advocate for survivors of child abuse, Carol Clarke, said there were flaws in the way Fox’s evidence had been treated, and the royal commission needed to examine that.
A fellow advocate, Nicky Davis, echoed the call for the royal commission to get to the bottom of what had gone on in the diocese.
“We believe Mr Fox's reputation will be restored when the full truth is known,” she said at the rally. “The narrow terms of reference of the commission of inquiry really didn’t allow the full truth to be known.”
A NSW Greens MP, David Shoebridge, who attended the rally, said Fox had been prevented from presenting large parts of the evidence he wanted to give to the inquiry.
“The federal Royal Commission [into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse] is really the only avenue to get that full, that balanced, understanding of the actions of the police and the church,” Shoebridge told ABC Radio.
The special commission of inquiry was announced by the then NSW premier, Barry O'Farrell, in November 2012, following explosive allegations made by Fox to the media.
He alleged the Catholic church had covered up evidence about paedophile priests in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese in the Hunter region of NSW.