AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN MAY 08, 2014
THE email appears to contradict much of what the policeman will go on to say. Sent several hours before NSW Police Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox goes live on the ABC claiming he was “ordered to stand down” from the investigation into a pedophile Catholic priest, it warns the detective has a “propensity to run investigations ‘in the press’.”
Its author, the close-cropped, combative crime manager of the NSW Police Newcastle command, Wayne Humphrey, is blunt in his assessment of his colleague.
“DCI Fox … does not have information (unless he has lied to investigators) that is either admissible or relevant,” the email says. “He has represented evidence from witnesses that has been found to be incorrect.”
This account, contained in an email exchange between senior police, is not passed on to the ABC, however, which interviews Fox later that night on its flagship Lateline program on television. Predictably, the November 2012 broadcast creates a storm and is widely seen as critical in the decision, four days later, to announce the royal commission into child sexual abuse. Lateline subsequently wins a prestigious Walkley award for the report.
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