AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JASON GORDON June 24, 2013
NEWCASTLE Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy has taken the stand at the Special Commission of Inquiry into how police and senior clergy handled allegations of child sex abuse within the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese.
Ms McCarthy told the inquiry that she was handed information concerning disgraced priest Denis McAlinden by a victim of abuse in late 2009.
Some time later, Ms McCarthy forwarded the information to police, with the consent of the victim known only as AL.
Ms McCarthy said the significance of the information only dawned on her later when she was investigating how the church had handled its own investigation into McAlinden.
She also said she had had no contact with Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox aside from a brief phone call in 2007.
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