AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By IAN KIRKWOOD July 11, 2013
A LETTER tendered to today’s Special Commission of Inquiry hearings shows the Maitland-Newcastle diocese should have known police in two states were considering ‘‘misprision of felony’’ charges over the concealment of child sex offences by priests.
The letter, dating from January 1996, was addressed to senior diocese figure Monsignor Allan Hart.
Bishop Michael Malone, whose 16 years at the head of the diocese began the year before, agreed with counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, that such a letter should have been drawn to his attention, but he ‘‘didn’t remember’’ seeing it before the current investigations.
This letter was one of a number tendered to the commission on Thursday that concerned the investigation of priests accused of child sexual abuse.
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