Former choirboy labels George Pell ‘a monster’

A former St Patrick’s cathedral choirboy, who knew the two 13-year-old boys molested by George Pell, describes the victim who testified as a “hero”.

A former St Patrick’s Cathedral choirboy, who knew the two 13-year-old boys molested by George Pell, has labelled the convicted child abuser “a monster”.

Anthony La Greca, who gave evidence in the court proceedings against the disgraced cardinal, was one of the older boys in the choir in the mid-1990s when the abuse took place.

Like Pell’s two victims, he was on a scholarship to attend Toorak’s prestigious St Kevin’s College.

“It was a big deal, it was a big deal. And for a northern boy to go all the way to Toorak it was prestige and was quite an achievement that your parents were proud of you, you were proud of, and to say that ‘I went to school at St Kevin’s’, which is a prestige school, lots of opportunities,” he told the ABC’s Four Corners.

Anthony La Greca says George Pell is a monster.

Mr La Greca told Four Corners how George Pell regularly attended choir practice.

“It was just George Pell, the Archbishop. The priest that lives at the church, he came to visit us. We didn’t know if he lived there, lives somewhere else, but we just assume because it’s the Archbishop, he lives at the church and used to be around listening to the choir. Coming to pastor, say hello, say thank you.

“We thought of it as a mark of respect that he’s taking notice of us.”

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Cardinal George Pell flanked by police and media outside the Melbourne County Court last month. Picture: Getty

Mr La Greca became emotional when he referred to Pell’s 13-year-old victims as “the little boys”. He said as an older choirboy it was his role to look after the younger ones.

“For it to happen to the little boys is just…They preach about god, they preach about love. Love thy neighbour. They took away lives. Took away innocence. That’s not love. It questions your belief in a Church. It’s like all your life you’re brought up that the Church is God and love and all this. But if the Church is this, there’s no love.”

The case against George Pell depended on the testimony of the sole surviving choirboy.

Mr La Greca praised the abuse victim for his courage, describing him as a hero.

“I was vigorously questioned, and I was a witness, so I could imagine how much, how strenuous the questioning would be, questioning every thought and every movement he did back then let alone the stress that he would be under.

And now it’s coming back to haunt him. I could just imagine the stress and pain he went through - just in that trial.”

The then Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell celebrates a special mass in Sydney's St. Mary's Cathedral.

Andrew La Greca told Four Corners how Pell’s victim was a different person after the abuse and began to rebel against authority.

“Just totally different. Just didn’t care about anything. Didn’t care about anyone. Just didn’t even want to be, to breathe. Like you’d see him on the train, and it’d be like, ‘how you goin’?’ That’s it. But deep down, you think, why are you rebelling so much? Like what is it that you hate? Like, you could sense that there was a bit of hate there for authority.

This was a view echoed by the second choirboy’s parents, who opened up to Four Corners about how the trauma of the sexual abuse sent their son spiralling out of control.

The victim, who tragically died of a heroin overdose in 2014, became distant after the abuse, his parents told the ABC.

His father said: “He went from being this lovely boy, who used to come to the football with me, who used to go and help his grandparents and helped around the house, to this boy wanting to go out all the time.

“His schoolwork, I noticed that it started slipping. His whole attitude changed. His whole being just, he was a different boy.”

His son also started using heroin within a year of the abuse.

“I noticed some bits of foil, that had been burnt. My parents noticed that — his grandparents,” his father said.

His mother twice asked him if he had been sexually abused, but he kept it to himself.

“I once asked him if he was, I can’t exactly remember the words I used, whether he was

touched up or played with,” she told Four Corners.

“And he told me no, but again, with a shrug. Again, little niggling there, I never said anything to anybody. Little niggling. I’m thinking, ‘yeah, alright’. He said ‘no’. And then, awhile after that, again, I asked him and again, he told me ‘no’. And then I get this. And I was just so angry with him or not telling me. So angry. Sometimes I’m still very angry.

“It’s devastating to watch your child spiral out like that. It was very hard to watch,” she told Four Corners.

It was only after the other victim made a formal complaint that the family realised what had happened to their son.

St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne where the sexual abuse took place in 1996. Picture: Jay Town

The father says the trial and conviction of Pell has left him “disgusted” in the Catholic Church.

“I’m glad that it’s over and it gives me an idea of why my son went through hell. Why he did the things he did,” he said

“And myself, I’m just disgusted. I’m disgusted in the Catholic Church.”

The program comes as a man who claims he was molested by Pell when he was a boy in the 1970s will file a lawsuit against the disgraced cardinal in the Supreme Court in Melbourne, the Herald Sun reports.

The suit to be lodged today names Pell, the trustees of Nazareth House, (formerly St Joseph’s), the State of Victoria and the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

The 50-year-old man was a resident in St Joseph’s Boys Home in Ballarat from February 1974 to 1978 and alleges he was abused by Pell during that period.

He was a complainant against Pell in a second trial over allegations Pell indecently assaulted boys in Ballarat in the 1970s.

The case was abandoned by prosecutors after a court deemed vital evidence inadmissable; with the man saying he was left devastated by the decision.

“It took a lot of courage and soul searching to be prepared to tell my story, accusing one of the most senior Catholics in the world of serious criminal offences, and eventually I was ready to have my day in court,” he told the Herald Sun.

“But when I was told they had withdrawn the case I felt empty, and that an injustice had occurred.”

The man’s lawyer Lee Flanagan said at least three other witnesses would testify they about the cardinals conduct.

“There was a fourth witness, but he died after charges were laid against Pell. We may seek to tender his statement into evidence in this case,” Mr Flanagan told the paper.

A Melbourne jury in December found Pell guilty of five charges of abuse against two choirboys in the 1990s but the verdict was only made public on February 26 after months of procedural secrecy and the abandonment of the second trial.