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FORMER Anglican registrar Peter Mitchell has repeatedly denied being a member of a committee formed to “regularly review” brown envelopes containing allegations of sexual misconduct against priests of the Newcastle diocese.
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This was despite the existence of various file notes – including one he had written himself – that said he was either a member of the committee or was one of two people – along with the bishop – who had access to “codes” used to identify each case.
He has also denied ever seeing what was inside the envelopes.
Mr Mitchell was giving evidence after the morning tea adjournment at the Royal Commission in Newcastle on Wednesday.
Soon after the resumption, the commission was shown the cover of a confidential report by the director of the diocese’s professional standards office, Michael Elliott, which was identified as “The Yellow Envelopes Report”.
The commission heard this was a reference to the same files that had previously been described as brown envelopes.
The commission had already heard that the subsequently disgraced dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence, was handling complaints phoned into the church through a 1300 help line.
The commission was again shown Lawrence’s account of victim CKA’s reporting to the help line of abuse by CKC at the age of 14.
Mr Mitchell agreed that this was the sort of information that would be put into a yellow envelope, although he did not know whether it had been.
On another subject, Mr Mitchell was asked about a section of a file note he wrote in May 1998 that discussed a need to clarify whether information was given in an interview or a confession.
The chair of the commission, Peter McClellan, put it to Mr Mitchell that this was “on the agenda” because someone who had given information in a confession was “protected” from an obligation to have that information disclosed.
Mr Mitchell agreed.
Mr Mitchell was questioned at length about about the Rushton pornography affair, and of correspondence between law firms Sparke Helmore – acting for removalists Farragher’s – and Rankin and Nathan for the diocese.
A letter from Sparke Helmore referred to a possible defamation suit by Rushton if the Farragher’s employees said anything about the finding of pornography when they were moving his possessions, but Mr Mitchell said the only legal concern he could recall was one of potential wrongful dismissal if the church sacked Rushton.
The Sparke Helmore letter said Farragher’s was prepared to hand over statements made by three employees involved in the issue provided they were kept confidential to the Bishop and his advisers and that the diocese agreed to indemnify Farragher’s and its employees against any costs that might flow from action taken against them by Rushton.
Questioned by Todd Alexis by professional standards director Michael Elliott, Mr Mitchell agreed that it was important to work out whether the pornography involved children because it if it did it was a legal issue but if it didn’t it was only a pastoral issue.
The commission had earlier heard Mr Mitchell went through two bags of pornographic videos to make sure the tapes matched the covers.
Mr Mitchell said he had not been aware that Mr Farragher had written in his statement to the commission that he believed “there was an agreement reached that the church would remove the child pornography before the move continued” and that “this was done and my employees returned the next day to complete the move although it was a different moving crew”.
He also said he had not heard Farragher’s removalist Gary Askie give evidence to the commission immediately before he took the stand that he had personally seen one video with a boy on the cover.
Mr Mitchell was also questioned about a meeting he had on July 25, 2012, with Mr Elliott, which he said was the first time he had met anyone from the diocese since his fraud conviction the decade before.
Mr Alexis, for Mr Elliott, said that Mr Elliott had wanted to talk to him simply to understand the procedures that had been in place at the time at the time, but Mr Elliott disagreed, and said he had felt “bullied”.
“One of the phrases he used was ‘if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem’,” Mr Mitchell said of Mr Elliott.
“I took that to be intimidatory.”
The hearing will resume after the lunch break.
