New South Wales Police have been accused of complicity in a Catholic Church bid to limit the release of incriminating evidence about child abuse.

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

But police deny there was any arrangement, in a deal that might have led to breaches of the Crimes Act.

Now NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge says New South Wales police were pushing an arrangement of their own.

Documents released under Freedom of Information show that senior police actively pursued the Anglican and Catholic Churches to agree on procedures for what evidence would be handed over.

Police also wanted the New South Wales Health Department and the Education Department to be a party to the arrangement.

"It's hard to accept the police claims of innocence at face value when we know that, at least up until the middle of 2005 they were actively progressing their own memoranda with the Catholic Church, which had every bit as offensive a set of terms in it" Mr Shoebridge said.

Original memorandum meant police might not be given names of alleged attackers

One letter obtained under FOI is from the intelligence coordinator of the Child Protection Squad.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 5 minutes 55 seconds 5 m Thursday night's Lateline report on the Catholic Church's attempt to strike a deal

In the correspondence, dated February 2005, Inspector Wayne Armstrong asks a NSW Police lawyer for advice on a workshop he wanted to set up to discuss MOU.

"Our goal is to have a series of MOUs or a single generic one covering information exchange with agencies with similar needs," he wrote.

Mr Shoebridge says churches and government departments have an obligation to provide all evidence to police, and it should not be subject to deals.

"The police should be nowhere near that kind of agreement, the police should be standing aside from these organisations, independent of these organisations, and demanding they provide any evidence they have about serious criminal offences" he said.

The original Catholic Church memorandum meant that in some cases police would not be provided with the name of the victim, nor the identity of the alleged offender.

It gave the church control of what records were released.

"If the police don't know the name of the victim, they don't know the name of the priest, the police will never have sufficient information to get the court order in the first place" Mr Shoebridge said.

"The police were complicit in it".

Revelations are a setback for the victims

A victim of abuse has told the ABC the revelations are another setback for the hundreds of people who suffered while under care in Catholic institutions.

John Ellis received an apology from the church after suffering 12 years of abuse by Catholic clergy.

Watch Duration: 11 minutes 50 seconds 11 m Watch Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Truth, Justice and Healing Council CEO says MOUs raise questions

He says he is critical but not surprised that the church found a way to limit the release of incriminating information.

"We've probably know in our hearts that there has been withholding of the information, but we've probably not wanted to believe that," he said.

"If that went on for long period of years, then potentially there could be dozens, hundreds, of investigations inhibited by this sort of thing."

NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione has released a statement saying the draft MOU was not approved by police, and that was made clear in a letter to the Catholic Church in August 2003.

"The church continued to operate with NSW Police but 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," he said.

"Child abuse is abhorrent and intolerable."

A spokesman for NSW Police Minister Michael Gallacher would not comment when contacted by the ABC.



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