AUSTRALIA
The Australian
AUGUST 20, 2014
Pia Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne
THE ‘‘independent commissioner’’ heading the Melbourne archdiocese’s response to clergy sex abuse has admitted providing the church’s media adviser with suggested answers about a notorious abuse case.
Peter O’Callaghan QC, who has spearheaded the Melbourne Response since it began in 1996, has been repeatedly challenged on his independent status from the archdiocese while giving evidence at the royal commission investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse.
Today it was revealed that he had given the archdiocese’s communications director extensive answers in response to questions from a journalist about the church’s handling of the Foster family after two of their daughters were abused by a priest.
Mr O’Callaghan accepted his action had not been “strictly speaking” any of his business, but said he still believed it was reasonable.
The commission has heard Mr O’Callaghan refused to provide one of the daughters, Katie Foster, with his report on the abuse because her family was considering suing the church.
Mr O’Callaghan has said he believed he had acted appropriately by denying the Foster family his written findings, even though he had verbally confirmed to them that their daughter Katie was abused by one of Victoria’s most notorious priests, Kevin O’Donnell.
Mr O’Callaghan yesterday said he had based his 2000 decision on a 1976 judicial ruling, prompting criticism from NSW appellate judge Peter McClellan as chair of the royal commission investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse.
“The law has moved quite a bit,” Justice McClellan told Mr O’Callaghan, who was called to the Bar in 1961 and took silk in 1974.
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