Fox's Record of Malone Meeting Examined at Inquiry
By Ian Kirkwood
WEDNESDAY’S Special Commission of Inquiry hearing closed with a detailed examination of whistleblowing policeman Peter Fox’s record of a 2002 meeting with then Maitland-Newcastle diocese Bishop Michael Malone. Counsel for Mr Malone, Simon Harben SC, repeatedly took Detective Chief Inspector Fox to evidence he had given in other parts of the inquiry that appeared to give conflicting accounts of when Mr Fox had drawn up his record of their meeting. In private sittings of the commission in March and again in the opening days of the inquiry, Mr Fox said an account of their conversation – expressed in ‘‘I said, he said’’ form – was written a month or so after the event. But earlier this week Mr Fox gave evidence that he had written it ‘‘a day or so’’ after the meeting, which took place on June 20, 2002. On Wednesday, Mr Fox insisted it was written close to the event, but at one stage said this was ‘‘two or three days’’ after the meeting. The context of the meeting was Mr Fox’s concern that Bishop Malone had told paedophile priest the late James Fletcher that a victim, AH, had gone to police. Mr Fox said Bishop Malone’s visit to Fletcher had removed ‘‘the element of surprise’’ from police investigations. But Mr Harben, for Malone, asked Mr Fox to show where Fletcher’s knowledge of the complaint against him had had any impact on the police case. In other evidence, Mr Harben suggested to Mr Fox that he was a ‘‘crusader’’ and that his crusading had impacted on his objectivity, a proposition that Mr Fox rejected. Time and again Mr Harben’s cross-examination of Mr Fox returned to the ‘‘I said, he said’’ document, as he put it to Mr Fox that the longer the period of time between the events it described and his writing it, the less accurate it was likely to be. Mr Fox agreed that his evidence had been inconsistent – and he apologised for it – but he said a simple check of a computer disc he had supplied to the NSW Ombudsman in 2003 would show the first version of the statement was indeed produced within days of the meeting with Bishop Malone. Mr Fox said there were three versions of the document; the original electronic version, a copy made for his police work and a third hard copy presented to the Ombudsman. Evidence opened on Wednesday with Mr Fox asked about a 1998 incident at Nelson Bay when Fletcher victim AH was allegedly drunk and threw a bottle at the Nelson Bay presbytery. Counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, had asked Mr Fox about differing accounts of events that night. Mr Fox said a priest he had spoken to during his initial investigation in 2003 had said AH’s outburst was perhaps understandable ‘‘in the light of what we now know’’. Mr Fox said the priest, Father Robert Searle, had told him AH had spoken about ‘‘the filthy things priests did to young boys’’. But soon after, when Father Searle made a formal statement to another officer, Father Searle said AH’s complaint was that ‘‘nobody loves me’’. In the pre-lunch inquiry session on Wednesday, attention swung from Mr Fox to the Church itself, as a series of letters concerning paedophile priest the late Denis McAlinden was tendered as evidence. These letters between the late 1990s and 2005 revealed elements of the Church’s Canon Law processes to defrock McAlinden. They also showed McAlinden attempted to practise as a priest in the Philippines even though the Church had told him he could not do so. These letters also revealed the involvement of the Vatican’s man in Australia, the Apostolic Nuncio based in the ACT. Questioned by Ms Lonergan, Mr Fox said all of these documents would have helped the police in their investigations had they known about them much earlier than they did. Mr Fox said some of the documents came from Newcastle Herald reporter Joanne McCarthy while others came from a search warrant executed on the diocese headquarters in Newcastle West.
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