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Police may have 'encouraged' church to withhold information on child abuse, commission hears

By Paul Bibby
Sydney Morning Herald
October 13, 2014

http://www.smh.com.au/national/police-may-have-encouraged-church-to-withhold-information-on-child-abuse-commission-hears-20141013-115ew9.html

NSW Police Force officers may have "condoned" and even "encouraged" the cover-up of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, the Police Integrity Commission has heard.

The allegations emerged on the first day of the commission's hearing into the involvement of police officers in the Professional Standards Resource Group (PSRG), set up by the Catholic Church as part of Towards Healing, its response to child sex abuse within the church.

In her opening address, counsel assisting the commission, Kristina Stern, SC, said the group had been set up in 1997, was responsible for dealing with complaints of child abuse within the church, and involved the participation of police at regular meetings.

One of these officers was Elizabeth Cullen, now an inspector, who was part of the group from 1999 to 2005.

Ms Stern said there were several issues with the processes of dealing with complaints within the group. 

These included the procedure known as "blind reporting", which involved some aspects of an abuse complaint being reported to the police by the group, but without all information, and without any information identifying the complainant. 

These blind reports were effectively filed away and not investigated by police, the commission heard. 

Police did not investigate whether victims who were the subject of blind reports knew that this meant there was unlikely to be an investigation. 

The commission heard that police officers who participated in regular PSRG meetings might have been aware the group was withholding information about serious criminal offences from other police, such as tapes of interviews with victims and medical evidence of abuse.

"It must have been apparent to the PSRG members, including [Inspector Cullen], that a variety of different forms of documentation and information was held by the Catholic Church by reason of the Towards Healing processes," Ms Stern said.

"One question to be considered ... is whether or not, to the knowledge of officers of the NSWPF, information which may well have been of material assistance in securing the apprehension or conviction of an offender was withheld by the Catholic Church from the NSWPF, and whether or not the NSWPF in fact encouraged or condoned this state of affairs." 

Ms Stern said the commission needed to consider whether Inspector Cullen's actions constituted police misconduct or whether she might be guilty of concealing a serious indictable offence.

She said the public hearing would also examine whether various police officers condoned or helped establish procedures whereby important information about abuse was not communicated to the police force and whether this amounted to misconduct. 

The hearing continues.

 

Contact: pbibby@smh.com.au




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