Child Sex Abuse Royal Commission: Catholic Church Insurance Group Given Week to Produce 2,000 Documents

ABC News
July 10, 2015

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-10/catholic-church-insurance-group-given-week-to-produce-files/6610640

PHOTO: Counsel assisting Gail Furness said the delay was causing issues for the commission's work. (Supplied)

The Catholic Church's insurance company has been given a week to produce almost 2,000 files to the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

In February, Catholic Church Insurance (CCI) was issued with a subpoena to hand over documents about the Church's response to child sexual abuse allegations.

CCI initially said it would take two months to produce them, but that deadline has well and truly passed, and today the royal commission held a special hearing to find out why.

The commission has heard CCI has gathered 1,960 files — some containing hundreds of pages — relating to more than 60 perpetrators the Church may have known had a propensity to offend.

But they have not yet been provided to the inquiry, and counsel assisting the royal commission, Gail Furness, said the delay was causing problems in the commission's work.

"Given that we now understand that 1,960 files have been identified of child sexual abuse claims relevant to that, a new notice could be issued seeking production of each and every one of those files," she said.

"And given that they have been identified those files could be produced very quickly."

Commissioner Peter McClelland was inclined to agree.

"The commission needs the files in order to understand what the history, overall history has been in relation to denial of claims," he said.

"I'm quite happy to issue a new summons in terms which provide the quickest way home."

Counsel for CCI, Peter Gray, at first argued it would be too difficult to produce the right documents within a matter of days, but Mr McClelland insisted.

"Mr Gray, this has been going on for months. The commission has a limited life span," he said.

"We have a schedule going forward of public hearings and we have to now face up to the fact that everyone has to work very hard to achieve what we promised the Government we would do and that is finish by the end of 2017."

The documents are due to be produced by next Friday at the latest.