Last Words from Abuse Inquiry Players

Newcastle Herald
September 23, 2013

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1796657/last-words-from-abuse-inquiry-players/?cs=303

TO clergy abuse victims, he is the serving officer who risked his career to speak out on Catholic Church cover-ups and inadequate police investigations, precipitating a NSW inquiry and then a national royal commission.

But to the NSW Police Force, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox is the officer who went rogue, who conspired with a Newcastle Herald journalist, leaked sensitive information, tried to undermine a strike force he was excluded from and then attacked personally anyone who challenged him.

Wayne Roser SC, barrister for Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, put that assessment of Mr Fox to the Special Commission of Inquiry on Monday, as its public hearings into abuse by priests James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden, and the police and Church's handling of their offending, draw to a close.

Summing up for police, Mr Roser said Mr Fox was never ordered in late 2010 to cease investigating clergy child sex abuse - only to stay out of matters assigned to Strike Force Lantle.

Mr Fox was "at liberty" to pursue abuse matters unrelated to the investigations surrounding McAlinden, but set about trying to undermine the strike force that he was never a member of, Mr Roser said.

Even when he knew a brief of evidence had gone to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Fox "was still advocating to anyone who would listen to him that the investigation . . . was a sham set up to fail".

Police had "total commitment" to pursuing abusers, which could be seen in the arrests and convictions of Strike Force Georgiana and the evidence of eminent criminal barrister Ian Lloyd QC that the Lantle brief was as good as any he had seen.

But Mr Fox disobeyed orders not to contact Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy, and claimed former police officer turned Dubbo MP Troy Grant had warned him a "Catholic mafia" was operating within Newcastle police.

When Mr Grant denied using the term, Mr Fox submitted Mr Grant had a weather eye on "political considerations", Mr Roser said, showing how he "goes for the throat" when challenged.

The assessment was rebuked by Mr Fox's barrister, Mark Cohen, who said the Police Commissioner appeared to live in a world that was "not complicated and messy", where NSW Police "didn't do anything wrong, DCI Fox is the problem, aided and abetted by Ms McCarthy".

"It is not enough to assert that DCI Fox is the devil incarnate and that the Northern Region of NSW Police is as pure as the driven snow," Mr Cohen said.

There was not a "skerrick of evidence" Mr Fox was a liar or of a conspiracy between Mr Fox and Ms McCarthy.

Instead, police had taken the legal approach set out in comedy film The Castle, of arguing "it's the vibe".

For her part, Ms McCarthy's lawyer, Alex Irving, said Ms McCarthy was responsible for alerting police to important evidence that the Church had tried to conceal McAlinden's offending.

She did not agree Strike Force Lantle was a sham - rather it had gone "off the rails", with police leaving the McAlinden matter in the "too hard basket" for 12 months.

There was also evidence of a culture within the strike force that was not conducive to dealing with victims of historic abuse.

But it got back on the rails and was ultimately a thorough investigation.

Ms McCarthy had complained to the Police Integrity Commission in 2011 of the stalled investigations out of concern for the public interest rather than "kicking police if they were down".

She had effectively documented the matters before the inquiry through notes and articles and was "a person of credit and I would suggest a most impressive witness", Mr Irving said.

The inquiry is continuing.