Detective challenges O’Farrell over Catholic abuse claims

AUSTRALIA
Radio Australia

By Suzanne Smith

A top cop challenges NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell to call a Royal Commission, alleging the Catholic Church covers up for paedophile priests, silences investigations, and destroys crucial evidence to avoid prosecutions.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox has spent more than 30 years as an investigator and has been at the centre of major police operations in the Newcastle-Hunter region of New South Wales.

He has written a letter to Mr O’Farrell, published in the Newcastle Herald, calling for a Royal Commission into child sex abuse within the Catholic Church.

Mirroring police evidence given to the Victorian inquiry into the Catholic Church launched this year, he says in his letter: “Many police are frustrated by this sinister behaviour which will continue until someone stops it.”

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