AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Thomas Oriti, Jessica Kidd
13 Oct 2014
The police corruption watchdog in New South Wales has been told an intelligence-sharing arrangement with the Catholic Church potentially allowed the clergy to withhold information from officers.
In the late 1990s, New South Wales police agreed to have a serving officer from the Sex Crimes Squad involved in the Professional Standards Resource Group (PSRG).
The internal panel was established by the Catholic Church to respond to complaints of child sexual abuse.
The arrangement between police and the church continued until 2005, despite internal police legal advice warning the arrangement was “illegal, nonsensical and undesirable”.
As part of Operation Protea, the Police Integrity Commission is now investigating whether that involvement amounted to police misconduct.
Counsel Assisting the Commission Kristina Stern SC told the hearing the officer, Inspector Elizabeth Cullen (then a Senior Sergeant), played a key role in the internal church panel.
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