AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)
Stephen Crittenden
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 June 2013
The Maitland-Newcastle diocese has been described as the probable epicentre of Catholic clerical abuse in Australia. There are 400 known victims. Seven priests have been convicted, the church has paid compensation to the victims of eight others, and four are currently facing abuse or concealment charges. Four religious brothers and six lay teachers have also been convicted, and two brothers are facing charges.
But on Monday, after three frustrating weeks of public hearings in Newcastle, a New South Wales special inquiry into child sex abuse within the Catholic church is finally expected to begin to get to the heart of the matter.
The NSW premier, Barry O’Farrell, convened the inquiry in November last year, after Chief Inspector Peter Fox, a detective with years of experience investigating clerical sex abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, turned whistleblower in an interview on the ABC’s Lateline program, claiming he had evidence that the Catholic church covers up abuse and hinders police investigations.
The special inquiry, chaired by Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC, centres on a sheaf of internal church documents, obtained by Newcastle Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy in 2009, that reveal a group of senior clergy allegedly attempted to conceal the crimes of one of Australia’s worst paedophile priests, Denis McAlinden.
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