“Diocese knew of possible concealment charges: inquiry ” & related files

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BISHOP MICHAEL MALONE

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.

Bishop Malone was asked about a file note that he agreed was in his handwriting that showed he had been told about abuse of a boy by paedophile priest Denis McAlinden that ran for about 10 years from the time the boy was seven years old.

In the note, Bishop Malone wrote that he advised the person – a relative of the victim – to go to the police, although the note showed he told the person that other victims had not.

Bishop Malone said he did not know if the complainant went to the police.

He said he did not invite the person to come to the diocese, saying: ‘‘Once I’d referred her to the police I thought that would be the end of the matter from my point of view.’’

Asked if the matter would be on the McAlinden file, he said ‘‘it would be’’.

Although he did say in earlier evidence today that he had looked at some priest files – although not in depth – Bishop Malone said he could not recall accessing the file of a jailed priest, Father Vince Ryan.

Asked whether he had accessed the file, Bishop Malone said: ‘‘Subsequently I would have addded huge amounts of paper to it.’’

Bishop Malone agreed his early handling of child sexual abuse by his priests was not ‘‘not adequate’’ early on, although he had what Ms Lonergan called ‘‘an epiphany’’ later on.

Bishop Malone said ‘‘the lights went on for me’’ at about the time the NSW Ombudsman became involved in 2003.

In another section of evidence, Bishop Malone was asked whether he thought of contacting the police directly about McAlinden, rather than leaving it in the hands of a person at the Catholic Professional Standards Office, as he said he had.

Bishop Malone said he also rang the professional standards office, as well as having a letter sent.

Asked why statements of victims AK and AL were not provided to police, Bishop Malone said there was ‘‘no need’’ for this, because they could have subpoaened documents or looked through the files at the diocese office, had they wanted to.

Ms Lonergan asked: ‘‘The file in your office? The one you hadn’t looked through?’’

Bishop Malone: ‘‘Yes.’’

The hearing continues this afternoon.

EARLIER TODAY:

BISHOP Michael Malone has continued to justify a decision not to go to the police in 1995 over the McAlinden case, even though  the laicisation or defrocking of McAlinden was doomed to failure.

Bishop Malone said he knew McAlinden was operating as a priest in the Philippines and was taking confession after he admitted his paedophilia to Church figures.

He said with hindsight it would have been better to go to the police but two victims who had made complaints to the Church about McAlinden, AK and AL, had not wanted the police involved.

After justifying his decision to stick with Canon processes at the time, Bishop Malone then said that McAlinden’s claim he could deal with his paedophilia by prayer was “quite ridiculous”.

“It’s a psychological condition,” Bishop Malone said of McAlinden’s tendencies.

This morning’s session has also canvassed the arrest of another paedophile priest, Vince Ryan.

This happened in late 1995 as Bishop Malone was taking over from his predecessor Bishop Leo Clarke.

Bishop admits looking at McAlinden’s file

BISHOP Michael Malone has now acknowledged looking at Denis McAlinden’s personnel file although not in depth.

Resuming his evidence at the special commission of Inquiry in Newcastle on Thursday, Bishop Malone said he had looked at the paedophile priest’s file in the early days of his time as Bishop from 1995.

On Wednesday Bishop Malone said he had not looked at any of his priests’ files despite repeated questions from counsel assisting, Julia Lonergan.

Today, Bishop Malone acknowledged looking at McAlindens file but he said more than once that he could not recall what he saw, or that he was a little vague about what it was that he saw at the time.

This morning’s session has heard that the catholic church’s insurers had written to all bishops in the mid 1990s asking them for information about any sex cases involving priests.

Bishop Malone believed he had also made efforts to contact the police about McAlinden in 1999 by going through the Catholic Church’s professional standards committee which had offered to act as a conduit in such matters.

Counsel for the police Pat Saidi objected to this evidence, arguing that Bishop Malone could not know that the police had actually been informed.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen allowed it to stand, saying that was the bishop’s understanding of events.

The hearing continues.

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Bishop never looked at files: inquiry 

BISHOP Michael Malone says he never looked at confidential files about his priests despite the paedophilia controversy that raged during his 16 years in charge of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese of the Catholic Church.

In an extraordinary afternoon of evidence before the Special Commission of Inquiry sitting in Newcastle, the retired bishop agreed that some of his evidence “defied belief”.

But he insisted it was true, and repeatedly said he had never seen a trove of documents obtained by the commission’s investigators, even though they all came from the diocese headquarters and some came from filing cabinets in his own office.

Some of Bishop Malone’s early evidence yesterday about the circumstances of his taking over the diocese from Bishop Leo Clarke in 1995 drew sympathetic laughter from many in the 50-strong gallery.

Bishop Malone said Bishop Clarke was ‘‘was out of there like a rocket’’ once he  had relinquished control.

Asked why he had been moved from Gosford to run Maitland-Newcastle, Bishop Malone said: ‘‘I’m scratching my head about that still.

‘‘It was completely out of the blue. I had no idea.’’

He said dealing with paedophile priest Denis McAlinden was his first duty in charge but the only thing that Bishop Clarke would say when he asked him about it was that McAlinden had ‘‘behavioural issues’’.

Bishop Malone said that when he asked about the ‘‘secret’’ matters he knew would exist under church canon law, Bishop Clarke’s answer was that he would ‘‘find out about’’ them in time.

Asked to describe his feelings at the situation that confronted him, Bishop Malone, who served as head of the diocese until 2001, said: ‘‘Shock would be the right word.’’

But the gallery mood seemed to change as counsel assisting the commission, Julia Lonergan, asked Bishop Malone at length about the files recovered earlier this year from the diocese headquarters.

Some of the answers elicited audible gasps from paedophile victims and their families and supporters in the gallery.

Asked about checking the file of McAlinden,  Bishop Malone said ‘‘I didn’t think to do that because I had enough already to act on’’.

Ms Lonergan said it ‘‘defied belief’’ that he would not familiarise himself with the history of McAlinden, who was eventually stripped of his priesthood.

Malone: ‘‘In hindsight, yes, but I thought there was enough to go on.’’

Later, Bishop Malone said: ‘‘I don’t know where your investigators found all these documents.

‘‘Presumably they accessed the archives of the diocese. That’s a luxury I didn’t have. I was in charge of a big diocese. Most of my days were planned beforehand.

‘‘I didn’t have time to go trolling through the archives, especially if I didn’t know what I might try to find.’’

He knew each priest had a personnel file and he presumed these would have contained confidential information.

Asked if he was telling the commission he had not opened any confidential file about any priest in his 16 years in charge, Bishop Malone said: ‘‘No, I don’t think I did.’’

Asked where the confidential files were kept, Bishop Malone said at least some were kept in filing cabinets in Bishop Leo Clarke’s office, which he acknowledged, when asked by Ms Lonergan, had become his own.

He said the only ‘‘secret’’  documents that Bishop Clarke had alerted him to were in a ‘‘rather large briefcase in the corner of his office’’.

Bishop Malone said he could not  recall if the briefcase had information about McAlinden or paedophile priest Jim Fletcher, but he did remember a ‘‘fairly lengthy’’ file about a woman who claimed to be ‘‘a visionary’’.

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Bishop didn’t know about paedophile evidence

Transcript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: A retired Catholic bishop has told the NSW inquiry into child sexual abuse that despite being bishop of his diocese for 16 years he’d not acquainted himself with a substantial amount of documentary evidence about a known paedophile priest held in his own files until the documents were released three weeks ago.

The internal Church letters and documents on father Denis McAlinden were released last week, showing the Church had information about his paedophile behaviour as far back as 1953.

Bishop Michael Malone, who headed the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese from 1995 until 2011, said he’d been the bishop of a busy diocese and hadn’t had the luxury to go trawling through personnel files.

Suzie Smith reports from Newcastle. The producer is Stephen Crittenden.

SUZIE SMITH, REPORTER: Michael Malone was nominated to succeed the Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle Leo Clarke in November, 1994.

He told the inquiry the appointment was a “complete shock” and that he was still, “scratching his head about why he was appointed.”

A year later, Bishop Clarke suddenly resigned.

Bishop Malone said he was only given a day or two’s notice of the resignation and there appeared to be nothing wrong with Bishop Leo Clarke’s health.

He said the handover took five minutes and then, “Bishop Clarke was out of there like a rocket.”

Bishop Malone says during that meeting, Bishop Clarke slid a large pectoral cross across the desk and said, “This is yours,” but he wouldn’t answer any of his questions.

MICHAEL MALONE, RETIRED BISHOP (male voiceover): “I said, ‘Aren’t you going to show me where the skeletons are, where the secret things are?'”

LEO CLARKE, BISHOP (male voiceover): “Oh, you will find out about that.”

SUZIE SMITH: Bishop Malone said Leo Clarke then pointed to a rather large briefcase sitting in the corner of his office. He assumed some of the secret files were in the briefcase.

MICHAEL MALONE (male voiceover): “I think it is common knowledge around the traps that in any diocese you would have some confidential files on priests.”

SUZIE SMITH: Bishop Malone says when he first arrived in Maitland-Newcastle in late 1994, he knew nothing about any allegations of paedophile activity in the diocese.

A year later, Bishop Malone’s first duty was to continue a secret defrocking process started by his predecessor a few weeks earlier. This was following allegations by two key witnesses, known as AL and AK, who were also victims. Michael Malone told the inquiry he didn’t go to the police at this time because he was told those victims did not want to press criminal charges.

But in 2010 one of those victims appeared on Lateline and said Church officials had told her the police would be brought in.

VICTIM (June 18, 2010, Lateline): I just presumed there would be jail because other clergy had been jailed for offences against children and he just seemed to skip around the countryside and never got caught, never got the police investigating him. I don’t understand how he got away with it for so long.

SUZIE SMITH: Asked whether he considered he had any responsibility to report McAlinden to the police himself, Bishop Malone replied that hadn’t crossed his mind at the time.

Bishop Malone says even though he was engaged in a process of formerly defrocking Denis McAlinden, he never accessed or read the extensive files on McAlinden held in the Church archives which contain evidence from many victims going back over four decades.

Last week the inquiry released many of those documents which had been obtained under subpoena, but Bishop Malone told the inquiry he only became aware of the details of those files three weeks ago.

JULIA LONERGAN, SENIOR COUNSEL ASSISTING THE COMMISSION (female voiceover): “Are you able to assist the Commission as to why it is that you have never seen those documents given they, it seems, lived on a file that was present in the diocese of which you were Bishop for 16 years.”

MICHAEL MALONE (male voiceover): “I don’t know where your investigation team found these letters. Presumably they would have accessed the archives of the Diocese and that is a luxury I didn’t have.”

JULIA LONERGAN (female voiceover): “It does seem strange, and some would suggest defies belief, you wouldn’t acquaint yourself with his history given the matters that AL and AK have alleged; would you agree with that?”

MICHAEL MALONE (male voiceover): “In hindsight, yes, but at the time I thought there was enough to go on.”

SUZIE SMITH: The Catholic Church’s professional standards’ committee eventually did pass on information about McAlinden to the police in 1999. However it was revealed earlier today that this did not filter down to a police officer trying to find Denis McAlinden in 2002.

Detective senior constable Jacqueline Flipo also failed to follow up information given to her by Bishop Malone’s secretary Elizabeth Doyle about the Church’s knowledge of his last-known whereabouts.

Denis McAlinden died in 2005 and was never brought to justice.

Suzie Smith, Lateline.

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Abuse inquiry examines possible collusion within Hunter Valley Catholic Church

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

By Dan Cox

Updated Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:37pm AEST

A detective involved in the arrest of a paedophile priest has told an inquiry into child sexual abuse he has no evidence of collusion within the Catholic Church in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

The inquiry is examining whether senior church officials helped or hindered a police investigation into Maitland-Newcastle priests James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden.

Former policeman Donald Brown has given evidence at the public hearings and was involved in Fletcher’s arrest.

Police whistleblower Peter Fox was his supervisor in May 2003, when the pair interviewed and charged Fletcher over child sexual abuse.

Detective Chief Inspector Fox later wrote to the Ombudsman, complaining of collusion between five members of the Catholic Church in relation to Fletcher’s investigation.

Mr Brown said he “could not form that view”, as his “role was limited” and he did not have any information to suggest collusion.

He told the commission it was inaccurate that those comments be attributed to him.

The inquiry continues.

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