Paedophile victim Daniel Feenan speaks out in support of Inspector Peter Fox: video, by Joanne Mccarthy, Newcastle Herald (June 01, 2014)

Paedophile victim Daniel Feenan speaks out in support of Inspector Peter Fox: video

A PAEDOPHILE priest victim, whose evidence at the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry reduced people to tears, is ‘‘hurt’’ and ‘‘disappointed’’ by findings that he believes lack balance about Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox and what he represents for child sexual abuse victims.

‘‘I gave evidence to give a balanced view on what Peter has done. I hoped it would be reflected in the findings and it hasn’t been, which is why I’m speaking now,’’ said Daniel Feenan, of Maitland, who contacted the Newcastle Herald after the release of the commission’s final report on Friday.

Mr Feenan’s statements to Detective Fox in 2003 led to the conviction of paedophile priest Jim Fletcher, one of two priests who were the subject of the inquiry.

‘‘Peter needed to be made to account for what he put out there, but knowing the man, the reasoning behind what he did, I’ve got nothing but admiration for him,’’ Mr Feenan said.

‘‘He was the shock we needed to get a royal commission.’’

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen, SC, found that the church first knew about Fletcher’s offending in 1976, the year Mr Feenan was born.

But findings that Detective Fox was ‘‘deliberately untruthful’’, had ‘‘exaggerated’’ evidence, and developed an ‘‘obsession about the Catholic Church and alleged conspiracies involving senior police’’, were the overwhelming messages from the inquiry, in part because of how NSW Police conducted its case, he said.

‘‘I don’t think the police in general come out of the commission of inquiry well,’’ he said.

‘‘They could have made the points they wanted to make about Peter but they went much further. They attacked a man who represents good for a lot of people because we know his motivations were good.

‘‘He wanted police to investigate who protected the paedophiles in the Catholic Church and he was frustrated when he couldn’t do that, and he’s been saying police should investigate that for 10 years. The police didn’t acknowledge that at all and they should have.

‘‘In my statement to Peter in 2003, I said, ‘I believe there’s a ring of paedophiles in Maitland’, and we had to take it out of my statement because it couldn’t be put to the court during the trial.

‘‘He could have shut the book in 2005 when my case was finished and said, ‘Well, that’s it, Daniel, I’ve done my bit’ and gone back to being a police officer doing other duties, but he kept running with it because he knew there was more to be uncovered.

‘‘I will be forever grateful to him for that.’’

The potential prosecution of a senior Catholic Church official for concealing Fletcher’s offences was ‘‘validation of what Peter and I have been saying all along, and should have been reflected in the findings to provide some balance’’, Mr Feenan said.

‘‘Without Peter pushing so hard to the extent of writing to the Premier and going on Lateline, that information might never have come to light.’’

Mr Feenan was called to appear at the inquiry last year, but said he had already indicated he wanted to give evidence because of his ‘‘agitation’’ about the ‘‘attacks’’ on Detective Fox during the inquiry. Any anger he felt after the report’s release was reserved for the Catholic Church.

‘‘On Saturday, after reading that the church knew about Fletcher the same year I was born, I actually felt violated again. I haven’t thought about the actual physical sexual abuse for four or five years, but that made me go right back to the court case.

Mr Feenan received a reduced compensation pay out from the Catholic Church because he could not prove the church had known about Fletcher’s offending.

He ‘‘eyeballed’’ church representatives and said, ‘‘You’ve got to have something on this bloke’’, and they said, ‘‘You’re the first and only victim’’.’