Former police office Troy Grant has denied claims that he warned Peter Fox about the “Catholic Mafia” – senior police who deliberately hindered investigations into paedophile priests.
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But Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, during his cross-examination at the Commission of Inquiry into a cover up of sex abuse by the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic clergy, maintained that corrupt police sabotaged his investigation.
Inspector Fox said he had passed on a six-page report to the state Sex Crime Squad about numerous clergy who had allegedly abused hundreds of children and was told by Superintendent Charlie Haggart the division would be attending a meeting he was summonsed to in 2010.
The squad was a no show and Inspector Fox was ordered to cease investigations into any allegations of paedophilia within the church.
“I had by this time formed the belief there were some police not fully intent on investigating the matter and were failing to notify senior police and the state Sex Crimes Squad,” Inspector Fox told the inquiry.
“I believe the conduct of those officers was corrupt.”
Concerned the investigation would fail, Inspector Fox breached an order from Superintendent Max Mitchell and contacted Newcastle Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy.
He admitted to emailing her documents he had gathered through his own investigations on the church.
State MP for Dubbo Troy Grant, who also gave evidence yesterday, said he vaguely remembered two conversations with former colleague Inspector Fox in 2003 regarding investigations into the Catholic Church.
The inquiry heard Mr Grant led investigations that resulted in the first prosecution of a Hunter priest, Father Vincent Ryan, in 1995 and Inspector Fox telephoned him for information that might help his own investigation.
In his evidence on Monday, Inspector Fox said that during those conversations Mr Grant told him some Newcastle police had hindered the investigations into Ryan.
“I can’t recall the specifics of our conversation or any references to a phrase such as the ‘Catholic Mafia’. It is not a phrase that I recall having ever heard or used,” Mr Grant said in a written submission to the inquiry.
Despite describing his former supervisor at Cessnock as a “meticulous investigator” Mr Grant rejected his claims of corruption.
“Given that I had no hindrance or obstruction from police concerning my investigation I had no reason to discuss that with Peter Fox, nor do I recall him disclosing to me any hindrance or obstruction regarding his investigation from police.”
Mr Grant denied suggestions he was deliberately shying away from the comment that could have adverse ramifications for his political career.
Commissioner Margaret Cunneen is investigating the circumstances in which Inspector Fox was asked to stop probing certain matters.
The inquiry is concentrating on two priests – serial sex offender Father Denis McAlinden and convicted paedophile Father James Fletcher, both now dead.
