AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By IAN KIRKWOOD July 10, 2013
BISHOP Michael Malone says he has never seen files obtained by the Special Commission of Inquiry even though some had been in his office for all of his 16 years at the head of the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese.
In an extraordinary afternoon of evidence, Bishop Malone told the inquiry he eventually ‘‘tipped off the police’’ about paedophile priest Denis McAlinden in 1999 but that at no time did he look at McAlinden’s personnel file, or that of any other priest in his diocese.
This was despite the files being contained in an office he inherited from his predecessor, Bishop Leo Clarke, sitting in filing cabinets until their discovery by the commission’s investigators.
Late on Wednesday afternoon, counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, said to Bishop Malone that it ‘‘defied belief’’ that he ‘‘did not familiarise’’ himself with McAlinden’s file during the years the diocese was battling to defrock him.
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