"I can testify from my own experience that the church covers up, silences victims, hinders police investigations, alerts offenders, destroys evidence and moves priests to protect the good name of the church"

 
CALL

A similar letter to the article below was sent directly to NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell.

The Newcastle Herald 8 November 2012:

I have investigated so many sexual assaults in my 35 years of policing I’ve lost count.
Having spent most of those years at the coal face I have seen the worst society can dredge up, particularly the evil of paedophilia within the Catholic Church.
I am not in an executive position or relying on statistics or reports being shielded from reality, I speak from first-hand experience with victims and their abusers.
It is not an easy story to hear and the reason so many cover their ears and turn away. I’ve visited victims in mental hospitals and listened to families tell of suicides. I have looked into their faces, seen their tears of pain, anguish and despair, listened to the hurt of betrayal and felt their isolation from not being believed.
We all hear the words ‘‘paedophile’’ or ‘‘child molester’’ but what do they really mean? The term ‘‘child abuse’’ sweeps over the acts sanitising images of this appalling crime. It’s our inbuilt defence to protect us from those horrific images.
Listening to their stories, typing their statements, I relived their pain. I haven’t blocked those images and they still haunt me. I visited them in psychiatric wards and saw the damage to their families. A solicitor from the DPP broke down reading one of my statements. The abuse was so abhorrent she asked to be relieved of the case. Is it any wonder people don’t want to hear and turn away?
Victims are coming forward in ever-increasing numbers but they need our support. They need your support, Mr Premier. Police are making arrests but still the abuse goes on. It is not enough to say, ‘‘I welcome the police decision to arrest another person [priest] accused of paedophilia’’, when on average it takes 21 years to report these crimes and the priest continues to prey on more little children.
Often the church knows but does nothing other than protect the paedophile and its own reputation. It certainly doesn’t report abuse as revealed by the current Victorian inquiry.
I can testify from my own experience that the church covers up, silences victims, hinders police investigations, alerts offenders, destroys evidence and moves priests to protect the good name of the church. None of that stops at the Victorian border.
Convicted priest Vincent Ryan was sent to Victoria when the church learned of his abuse, returning the following year after things cooled down to pick up where he left off.
Many police are frustrated by this sinister behaviour, which will continue until someone stops it. You have the power to do that, Mr Premier. The whole system needs to be exposed; the clergy covering up these crimes must to be brought to justice and the network protecting paedophile priests dismantled. There should be no place for evil or its guardians to hide. Then and only then will the arrests begin to slow, signalling fewer children are being raped.
It is no longer enough to just arrest the wrongdoer 21 years after the crime.
Removing the support that harbours these criminals is like cutting the head from the beast. It tears down the veil of secrecy behind which these vile animals operate with the self-assurance of immunity.
A priest once gave evidence that the church’s handling of child sex allegations was under control.
That priest was named by victims as having allegedly helped to cover up the rape of children.
His name continues to appear in other matters. Clearly everything is not under control. Alarm bells are ringing.
I have many family and friends who are Catholic. My children attend Catholic schools so I am not anti-Catholic. I voted for you, Mr O’Farrell, at the last election so my call for a royal commission is not politically motivated. My reason is from the suffering I have witnessed and a desire to make it stop.
There are more than just the victims and their families who want to see a royal commission. I have spoken to teachers who no longer want to be intimidated and silenced. I have sat with a priest and nun who were so distraught they felt forced to leave the church when they couldn’t remain silent. I have taken reports of ostracism and reprisals against victims’ families for giving evidence against priests at trial. If this doesn’t warrant a royal commission something is very wrong.
Apologising is not enough. Compensating victims for treatment is not enough. Mr O’Farrell, please don’t block your ears. Many priests don’t want a royal commission nor does the hierarchy of the church, but God knows we need one.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox is a Hunter police officer with more than 35 years’ experience in the force.

RESPONSE

Courier Mail  9 November 2012:

A SPECIAL commission of inquiry will probe allegations made by a senior police investigator into child sex abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy in the NSW Hunter region.

The commission, announced by Premier Barry O'Farrell on Friday, will be headed by senior counsel Margaret Cunneen to look into claims made by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, alleging cover-ups by police and the Catholic Church in the Hunter.

Mr Fox had publicly challenged Mr O'Farrell to launch a royal commission, writing an open letter to the premier and criticising the state government's continued failure to launch a judicial inquiry on national television.

Mr O'Farrell said while he had "full confidence" in police commissioner Andrew Scipione and the police force, the matters raised were serious.

"They go to the question about whether there has been interface, either within the police force, or by the Catholic Church, in relation to specific allegations of pedophile activity in the Hunter," he told reporters in Sydney on Friday.

 

CODA

 

In a somewhat weak response the nominally Catholic NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell is forming a special commission of inquiry with very limited terms of reference confining investigation to the Hunter district and the specific allegations made by Peter Fox.

Apparently he agrees with Cardinal George Pell that a state-wide royal commission into sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is not warranted despite the overwhelming evidence now in the public domain.

Peter Fox's response to the formation of a special commission.

 

One cannot help speculate that if O’Farrell was not worried about the Catholic vote, he would have established a full Royal Commission.

UPDATE:

Prime Minister Gillard announces Royal Commission

On the subject of political combovers

 

Never trust a bloke with a comb-over – adelcrow

 

ABC News 5 January 2010:

 

Tony Abbott is at a stage in this happy process when he is faced with the dilemma of what to do with that increasingly isolated forelock, once the thick, centrepiece of an admirably intact hairline.

If you look at the opposition leader on different days, or even different hours, he variously combs those remaining strands forwards, sideways, brushes it back or tousles it about. All in an attempt to achieve a look of maximum coverage while seeming unfussy.

 

	PjN @Pamela_November	30 Oct 2012
	@Thefinnigans Notice Abbott has changed his hairstyle? Previously short at the front...now swept across....hiding the >bald spot?

 

 

	Musca vetustissima @Mvetustissima	30 Oct 2012
	@Pamela_November @Thefinnigans Abbott has always used the comb-over style to cover his lack of policies.

 

Responses to Tony Abbott's qualified support of the proposed Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in Australia

 

 

Mr Abbott today backed a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse as long as it was not limited to a single institution.
However, Mr Abbott made clear that support for an inquiry would only be given if it did not focus on just one organisation. He effectively said he would not back a royal commission which looked only at the Catholic Church.

 

* Image found at Twitter and quote is from The Telegraph online 12 November 2012

"I suspect it may be dawning on a few white men as I write this that giving women the vote was a seriously bad idea."

 

Jane Caro at Crikey 9 November 2012:

 

Barack Obama won 55% of the female vote, meaning it was women who decided this year's presidential election. Politicians who refuse to take women's concerns and freedoms seriously are now on notice.

I suspect it may be dawning on a few white men as I write this that giving women the vote was a seriously bad idea.

Suddenly the constituency that used to rule the world — because they ruled America — are getting a sense of just what it feels like to be a minority group. And I don't think they like it much.

According to numbers that are being crunched as I write, Barack Obama outpolled Mitt Romney in every group except older white men. Based on these admittedly preliminary figures, the President won 55% of the female vote, 93% of the African American vote and 71% of the Latino vote. He also outpolled Romney in every age group up to 45 and won the votes of most Americans who live in cities.

But if these early figures are correct, it is women who have really decided this election. That's because they are 53% of the population, while blacks are 13%, Latinos 10% and Asians 3%. Even younger people only add up to 46% of the American population.

In other words, women voters in the US have become the kingmakers and let's hope one day soon, the queenmakers.