“Call to charge Pell rests with police ” & related articles

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The Australian

12:00AM May 17, 2017

Tessa Akerman   Reporter  Melbourne

John Ferguson  Victorian Editor Melbourne

Cardinal George Pell outside his apartment in Rome in February. Picture: David Dyson

The decision on whether to charge George Pell with historical sexual-abuse allegations now rests with Victoria Police after the Office of Public Prosecutions ­yesterday returned the brief of evidence.

A police spokesman confirmed advice from Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions John Champion SC concerning the investi­gation of Cardinal Pell had been received.

The OPP advised police that, based on its assessment of the evidence, they could charge the cardinal, Melbourne’s Herald Sun reported last night. Despite the green light, the advice made it clear that ultimately it was up to the police whether to act. “Detectives from Taskforce Sano will now take time to consider that advice,” police spokesman Charlie Morton said last night. “As with any ­investigation, it will be a decision for Victoria Police as to whether charges are laid.”

Cardinal Pell has strenuously denied all allegations.

It is understood the latest ­development took lawyers for the cardinal by surprise.

This was the second time a brief of allegations concerning Cardinal Pell, Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic, had been sent to the OPP.

A brief was referred last year but the OPP sent it back without recommendations.

The Australian understands senior figures in the Catholic Church were unaware the brief had been returned or that any decision about charges would now rest with police.

A spokesman said the cardinal had no comment.

Cardinal Pell met three Victoria Police officers at the Vatican in October for a voluntary interview. The brief compiled by police was sent to the OPP in February for advice.

Allegations relate largely to his tenure as a young priest in the Diocese of Ballarat, where hundreds of children were abused by the clergy.

It has been publicly alleged that Cardinal Pell abused young boys in Ballarat’s Eureka swimming pool in the late 1970s.

Former St Alipius students Lyndon Monument and Damian Dignan claimed Cardinal Pell touched their genitals while playing in the pool.

ABC journalist Louise Milligan published further allegations in her book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell published by Melbourne University Press.

Lawyers representing Cardinal Pell this week demanded an apology and retraction from Fairfax Media and The Guardian over articles ­repeating child sexual-abuse alle­gations made in the book, described by the cardinal as a “character assassination”.

In a statement on Monday night, a spokesman for the cardinal said: “Each and every allegation of abuse and cover-up against him is false. The book is an exercise in character assassination. The decision by MUP to bring forward the publication of the book … is a blatant attempt to interfere in the course of justice.

“Unlike MUP, the cardinal will not interfere with the course of justice. He will await the outcome of due process before launching defamation action.”

Neither Fairfax nor The Guardian responded to The Australian before publication.

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 Green light for charges on Cardinal Pell, DPP says it’s up to police to act on sex abuse allegations

 The Herald Sun

May 16, 2017 7:00am

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Reports suggest Pell could face sex abuse charges in Australia

Crux

16 May 2017

Crux Staff

Reports suggest Pell could face sex abuse charges in AustraliaAustralian Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy. (Credit: Paul Haring/CNS.)

Police in Australia will “take time to consider … advice” from prosecutors over the allegations Cardinal George Pell engaged in inappropriate behavior with young people decades ago. The cardinal, currently the head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, has issued a “vehement” denial of all accusations against him.

According to multiple media reports, Cardinal George Pell, currently the head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, could face legal charges in his native Australia over decades-old allegations of sexual abuse.

Police in the Australian state of Victoria, in which Pell’s home Diocese of Ballarat is located, confirmed on Tuesday they “received advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to a current investigation into historical sexual assault allegations.”

Pell has long denied the allegations vehemently.

The police investigations surround accusations that Pell inappropriately touched two young boys while swimming in the late 70s, and that he exposed himself in a change room in a surf club in the 1980s.

Those allegations were investigated by Victoria’s SANO unit, which was set up in 2012 to look into new and historic cases of sex abuse at religious and other non-governmental organizations.

Pell became an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne in 1987, before becoming archbishop of the same archdiocese 9 years later. He was moved to Sydney in 2001, and was appointed a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2003. Pope Francis picked him to take charge of the Vatican’s finances in 2014, and he moved to Rome.

Pell cooperated with the SANO investigation, and agreed to be interviewed by detectives in the Vatican last October.

The investigators returned the findings to prosecutors earlier this year.

Now that the Director of Public Prosecutions has given its advice to the police, it is up to the them to decide whether or not to pursue charges.

Police spokesperson Creina O’Grady told local reporters that detectives “will now take time to consider that advice.

“As with any investigation, it will be a decision for Victoria Police as to whether charges are laid,” she said, “as this remains an ongoing investigation, we will not be commenting further at this time.”

When the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported on the investigation in July 2016, Pell’s office released a statement “emphatically and unequivocally” rejecting any allegations of sexual abuse.

“The cardinal’s conduct has been repeatedly scrutinized over many years, including before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organizations and according to leaked reports, by Victorian Police’s SANO Taskforce,” the 2016 statement said.

“The cardinal does not wish to cause any distress to any victim of abuse. However, claims that he has sexually abused anyone, in any place, at any time in his life are totally untrue and completely wrong,” it continued.

“He denies the allegations absolutely, and says that they, and any acceptance of them by the ABC, are nothing more than a scandalous smear campaign which appears to be championed by the ABC. If there was any credibility in any of these claims, they would have been pursued by the Royal Commission by now,” the statement said.

Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was set up in 2013 to examine the history of sexual abuse in religious and educational institutions, as well as other organizations dealing with young people. It works closely with Victoria’s SANO taskforce, and other local agencies.

On Monday, a new book was released in Australia detailing further accusations against Pell.

Cardinal: The Rise And Fall of George Pell, was written by Louise Milligan, a journalist with the the ABC, and includes allegations Pell abused choirboys in the 1990s, when he was Archbishop of Melbourne.

Pell’s lawyers issued a statement Saturday stating the cardinal will not respond to the latest allegations made in the book, other than to restate that “any allegations of child abuse made against him are completely false.”

The statement also said the book was a “deliberate attempt to influence the public opinion in a manner that would make it impossible for our client to receive a fair hearing in court should he be charged.”

The statement said Pell “repeats his vehement and consistent denials of any and all such accusations, and stands by all the evidence he has given to the royal commission.”

According to the royal commission, nearly 10 percent of the priests of the Diocese of Ballarat had an allegation of sexual abuse brought against them between 1950 and 2010.

When asked about Pell during his inflight press conference after leaving World Youth Day in Poland on July 31, 2016, Francis said “one must not judge before justice judges.”

Francis also warned against a “media trial” and the “judgement of gossip.”

“Once justice speaks, I will speak,” the pope said.

1 Response to “Call to charge Pell rests with police ” & related articles

  1. Nick Hardy says:

    The cardinal’s phrase “sexual abuse is quite abhorrent to me’ is something of a ‘tell’, if you are a poker player

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