NSW Police officers have "condoned" and even "encouraged" the cover-up of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, And some officers have helped set up the processes which allowed this cover-up to take place.
Kristina Stern, SC, said the Professional Standards Resource Group(PSRG) of police force was responsible for dealing with complaints of child abuse within the church, and involved the participation of police at regular meetings. Ms Stern said there were a number of issues with the processes of dealing with complaints within the PSRG.
These included the procedure known as "blind reporting", which involved some aspects of an abuse complaint being reported to the police by the PSRG, but without all information, and without any information identifying the complainant.
These blind reports were effectively filed away and not investigated by police: Police didn't investigate whether victims who were the subject of blind reports knew that this meant there was unlikely to be a police investigation. Only rarely did the PSRG make a complaint directly to the police, and it almost never recommended to victims that they do so.
Inspector Elizabeth Cullen was found to have "failed to investigate" child sex abuse allegations.
Eureka Q / Australia
Police officers who participated in the PSRG through regular meetings knew that the group was keeping information about serious crimes from other police, either through the blind reporting process or by discouraging victims to go to police directly.
Inspector Elizabeth Cullen who, as a young senior sergeant, was the key police representative on the PSRG. Ms Stern said the commission needed to consider whether Inspector Cullen's actions constituted police misconduct or guilty of concealing a serious crime.
Inspector Beth Cullen had "shredded" all documents she received from the group, thereby destroying evidence of sexual abuse by priests and other church workers.
Later in Jun 2015, Inspector Elizabeth Cullen was found to have "failed to investigate child sex abuse allegations", a diplomatic term for "cover up". However, the Police Integrity Commission on this matter, outrageously, claimed Cullen had acted in good faith. She kept her job and walks free.
