Police 'Unfair' in Their Evidence to Child Abuse Inquiry

By Barney Zwartz
The Age
November 19, 2013

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/police-unfair-in-their-evidence-to-child-abuse-inquiry-20131119-2xt0k.html

Victoria Police evidence about child sexual abuse that savaged the Catholic Church was unfair and an attempt to distance itself from its own failures, a state government report says.

It took 16 years – and problems becoming public – before police paid attention to the fundamental problems in the way the church in Melbourne dealt with complaints – a process to which police had originally agreed, the report says.

Betrayal of Trust, the report of the parliamentary inquiry into how the churches handled child sexual abuse, was tabled last week.

In testimony to the inquiry last October, police accused the church of deliberately impeding their investigations into child abuse, dissuading victims from reporting to police, failing to engage with police, protecting sexual offenders and alerting suspects of allegations against them.

Police also attacked the Melbourne Response independent commissioner, Peter O'Callaghan, QC, and complained that not one case had been referred to them.

However, Mr O'Callaghan defended himself vigorously when he gave evidence, saying the church and police had signed an agreement on how the Melbourne Response church protocol would work before he was appointed, and police had not told him of any dissatisfaction until the inquiry was announced.

The church consulted both police and the state government before it introduced the Melbourne Response in 1996, and on October 30 of that year police welcomed it in a media statement.

Mr O'Callaghan said he was independent of the church that paid him in the same way a judge was independent of the state that paid him, and that he had found in favour of the victim in 97 per cent of claims.

The report says: "It is clear that Victoria Police paid inadequate attention to the fundamental problems of the Melbourne Response arrangements until relatively recently in April 2012 [when the inquiry was announced].

"When they did become the subject of public attention, Victoria Police representatives endeavoured quite unfairly to distance the organisation from them."

It notes that although some individual police were frustrated by difficulties the church protocol caused, nothing suggested that Victoria Police had told Mr O'Callaghan or the church or had even seen any problems.

However, the report also attacks the Melbourne Response and says "criminal child abuse cannot be treated as a private matter to be resolved between the perpetrator or organisation involved and the victim".

It says that although there is no evidence that Catholic leadership ever influenced Mr O'Callaghan, he could not be seen as independent.

It also criticises church responses as lacking support for secondary victims, paying apparently arbitrary compensation, not encouraging victims to get legal advice and being reluctant to discipline abusers.

A spokesman for the Melbourne Archdiocese said the church was pleased the report had vindicated Mr O'Callaghan.

"We believe that we are rebuilding a constructive working relationship with Victoria Police at its senior levels and with taskforce Sano," he said. The report said the taskforce had launched 135 new investigations from the inquiry.

Mr O'Callaghan declined to comment on Tuesday, while a Victoria Police spokeswoman said police would comment in detail once they had had time to reflect on the report's findings.

She said police strongly supported the inquiry, and were pleased that the issues had been given the prominence and scrutiny they demanded.