AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail
By EMILY CRANE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
Hundreds of church child sex abuse cases dating back decades are being reported to police again because the victim’s names were never given to authorities to properly investigate.
The Catholic church in NSW has stopped a controversial procedure known as ‘blind reporting’, which meant police were never given the victim’s name when the church passed on a child sex abuse allegation.
The practice of blind reporting meant many abuse allegations could not be investigated.
Documents obtained under freedom of information by NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge show NSW Police has received 1,476 blind reports of child sex abuse in NSW since 2009 – many of which relate to the Catholic church.
The church is now going back over their blind reports and giving the names of victims to police.
‘By accepting the Catholic church’s practice of blind reporting, police allowed victims to be denied justice and abusers to escape conviction,’ Mr Shoebridge told Daily Mail Australia.
‘One of the key problems with blind reports is that the police’s own protocol says when they get a blind report they don’t investigate it. They just file it as criminal intelligence and that means perpetrators are not being brought to justice.’
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