The Police Integrity Commission in New South Wales will conduct a public hearing in Sydney on October 13.

The investigation was ordered after the ABC and a Green MP found a formal arrangement might have been made between the Church and police on handling abuse complaints.

Last year, the ABC's Lateline reported accusations that the Church tried to strike a formal arrangement with police over how to handle allegations and what information would be handed over for investigation.

There are questions over whether a memorandum of understanding was ever signed, approved or even in operation.

Based on police documents accessed under freedom of information law, MP David Shoebridge said he was sure a formal agreement was in place.

At the heart of the investigation is an arrangement that occurred between 1998 and 2005.

NSW police agreed to a Church request to second a senior serving police officer on to the Church's Professional Standards Resource Group.

The officer was there to give advice about risks and potential concerns within the Church's operations.

According to the freedom of information material, Church leaders thought they had struck an MOU with police.

NSW Police deny this MOU was ever in place. They say it was never signed off on and was only in draft form.

The Church required that all minutes of the group be shredded and not retained by police, and the police complied.

While it might be argued that such cooperation enabled an exchange of intelligence, Mr Shoebridge said it was difficult to justify such an arrangement.

"There is a fundamental problem when you effectively co-opt the police into your own internal inquiries," he said.

The Catholic Church argues it acted in good faith, and wanted these arrangements to ensure there was no risk to children in their care.

The Church's Truth Justice and Healing Council welcomed the PIC's inquiry.

But at least one commentator said what needs to be clarified is whether the Church set up these arrangements so they could not be prosecuted under new mandatory reporting laws in NSW.

The investigation will look at possible police misconduct and whether an arrangement or agreement existed.

Sources

• Sydney Morning Herald
• ABC
• ABC
• Image: TNT Magazine

Church leaders thought they had struck a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with police about what information would be handed over.

The unsigned draft memorandum said: "Church authorities shall make available the report of an assessment and any other matter relevant to the accused's account of events only if required to do so by court order."

But police deny there was any arrangement, saying such a deal would be been in breach of the Crimes Act.

Documents released under Freedom of Information laws show that the executive director of the Catholic Commission for Employment Relations, Michael McDonald, wrote to the NSW child protection squad in 2003 seeking confirmation that the memorandum of understanding was still in place.

In response, Kim McKay from the child protection squad advised no agreement ever existed.

"The arrangements proposed by the draft MOU appear to be in direct conflict with the explicit legislative requirement of section 316 of the Crime Act," he wrote back.

But Michael Salmon, who was the Catholic Church's point of contact for police at the time, confirming that the Church had operated under the unsigned agreement.

"The church assumed it was operational, we were practising the provisions of the MOU and dealing with the police under those provisions," he said.

"We had an understanding from police it was approved."

Mr Salmon, director of the Professional Standards Resource Group of the Catholic Church in NSW, said: "We had a line of communications with the police and all indications from the police were that the MOU was approved from their end."

However, a spokesperson for the NSW Police said: "The Church continued to co-operate with NSW Police but it did so without any protections assumed in an MOU, as such protections would not have been valid given the requirements of Section 316 of the Crimes Act."

Sources:

Radio Australia

ABC News

The Guardian

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