The Catholic church's Hunter Valley child protection unit was inundated by complaints of sex abuse by priests as soon as it was established in 2005, a NSW inquiry has heard.
"Frankly that took us by surprise," Helen Keevers, who helped set up the unit and managed it until late 2009, told the special commission of inquiry in Newcastle on Wednesday.
"Immediately we were inundated and were investigating seven clergy and four (of those sexual abuse investigations) resulted in criminal prosecutions."
Ms Keevers said the seven priests involved were additional to known Hunter Valley pedophile priests Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher.
The inquiry, before Commissioner Margaret Cunneen, is examining how church leaders and police handled child sexual abuse allegations against McAlinden and Fletcher.
As allegations involving the other seven are outside the commission's terms of reference they were not named.
Ms Keevers said the unit's establishment followed the conviction and jailing of Fletcher, who died in jail in 2006, on nine sexual abuse charges.
She said her inquiries into allegations involving McAlinden took a back seat as they were historic matters and "I had seven matters involving current clergy that took precedence".
Ms Keevers said she was asked in 2004 by the then bishop, Michael Malone, to be on a panel advising him about child sexual abuse throughout the Hunter and to spend six months reviewing the diocese's child protection needs before she was appointed to help establish and run the protection unit.
She said she found Bishop Malone "deeply affected and confused about his inappropriate decisions around the Fr Fletcher matter" and that he wanted sound risk management advice.
Ms Keevers said she was the only person on the nine-member advisory panel who was not "a devout practising Catholic" and was treated as an "outsider" when she explained the legal requirements of sexual abuse legislation to priests.
She said Bishop Malone always directed her to notify police of child sexual abuse allegations and provide them with any information they sought.
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