AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX From: The Australian May 07, 2013
NATIONALS MP and former policeman Troy Grant will directly contradict evidence given by whistleblower Peter Fox about alleged police cover-ups of child abuse in the Catholic Church, an inquiry has heard.
Detective Chief Inspector Fox told the NSW special commission of inquiry into child abuse yesterday that Mr Grant once used the phrase “Catholic mafia” to describe serving officers who were interfering with his own investigation of a pedophile priest.
Mr Grant, a former police inspector, “was referring to what he perceived to be police who he felt to be aligned to the Catholic Church, who were attempting to discourage investigations into clergy”, Mr Fox said.
During the 2002 conversation between the then-serving officers, Mr Grant was also “highly critical of some senior police at Newcastle (whom) he perceived to be hindering his investigation”, he said.
But counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan SC, said Mr Grant, who will give evidence tomorrow, had signed a statement directly contradicting this claim. In this sworn statement, the member for Dubbo, in western NSW, denied using the phrase “Catholic mafia”, or that the conversation took place as Mr Fox described.
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