Former Head of Nsw Police's Child Protection Unit Accepted "Blind Reporting', Commission Hears

By Paul Bibby
Sydney Morning Herald
October 16, 2014

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/former-head-of-nsw-polices-child-protection-unit-accepted-blind-reporting-commission-hears-20141016-1176b1.html

The former head of the NSW Police Force's child protection command has admitted she knew the Catholic Church's practice of "blind reporting" child sex abuse to police was against the law but she accepted it because "it kept the conversation going".

Kim McGee made the comments during a emotional day of evidence before the NSW Police Integrity Commission on Thursday.

The police regulator is examining allegations police were complicit in the covering up of allegations of child sex abuse by the Catholic Church.

The former chief of the force's Child Protection Enforcement Agency broke down as she spoke of the difficulties she faced in trying to get victims of child sexual abuse to come forward.

"We worked so hard to encourage them to report the crimes," Ms McGee said, crying.

"Particularly women in Aboriginal communities."

But the retired officer defended her acceptance of the practice of blind reporting, where the Catholic Church would report the details of an alleged sex abuse offence, but not the name of the alleged victim.

It generally applied when a victim had refused or expressed reluctance to come forward, and made it very difficult for police to effectively conduct criminal investigations into the allegations of abuse.

However the commission has heard police condoned the practice, and rarely demanded further information from the church about specific allegations.

This was despite the fact that blind reporting contravened the NSW Crimes Act, which requires that all pertinent information be supplied to police when there is evidence a serious criminal offence has been committed.

"You knew that reports were being made by the Catholic Church without identifying the victim and that it amounted to selectivity," counsel assisting the commission, Kristina Stern, SC, said.

"I guess so, yes," Ms McGee replied.

"You received legal advice regarding the problems of selective reporting. Did you do anything to change the practice with the Catholic Church?" Ms Stern continued.

"No," Ms McGee said.

She said that there were "real problems with [laws requiring full disclosure]" because of the need to protect victims who did not want to come forward while still obtaining some information about child sex offences.

"It kept the conversation going," she said of the blind reporting practice.

"It opened up a lot of things that the law made problematic in this area.

"I didn't think I needed to change any processes because I was happy with them at the time."

Ms McGee said that in addition to the largely historic reports of child sexual abuse coming to her command via the Catholic Church, there were another 3,600 reports of current child sex abuse.

The hearing continues.