Leaks add a bitter flavour to allegations against Cardinal Pell

George Pell gives video evidence to the royal commission. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Wednesday night’s 7.30 program on ABC television carried allegations against Cardinal George Pell that, if true, are devastating: life-ruining for victims such as Damian Dignan and Lyndon Monument; confronting for all citizens committed to the wellbeing of children; and earth-shattering for Catholics who still have faith in their church. The ABC report is also troubling for those of us concerned about due process and the rule of law.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can all say it would have been better if onlookers such as Les Tyack in the Torquay Surf Club — claiming to have credible evidence of unseemly behaviour by an adult such as Pell towards children — went to the police promptly rather than waiting 30 years. As it was put on 7.30, “One summer day, (Tyack) says he witnessed a strange incident, so strange it later compelled him to go to police.” The incident is alleged to have occurred in the mid-1980s.

Pell has been the focus of attention during the long-running Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He was grilled publicly for days on end about what he knew about abuse committed by others when he was a priest in Ballarat and when he was auxiliary bishop in Melbourne.

The commission has been so focused on Pell that it decided to make the abuse by Peter Searson its primary focus when investigating abuse by Melbourne priests. This was not because Searson was the worst abuser but because he worked in the region of the archdiocese where Pell had supervision as auxiliary bishop.

The commission went to great lengths to reconvene and to call witnesses from the Catholic Education Office to highlight that there was no deliberate attempt to keep information from Pell. In the course of the inquiry, it became clear that officers from the Catholic Education Office did not ­provide Pell with detailed information about Searson’s wrongdoing. They saw no point. So then the focus moved to Pell’s rationalisation as to why he was not given relevant information. Whether that rationalisation was correct was a matter of intense media interest although of minimal forensic importance.

Now, before the royal commission reports on what Pell knew or did not know about abuse by others and what he did or did not do in response to that abuse, we have this TV report of allegations of abuse by Pell himself.

There are three ways in which such allegations of abuse can be treated. The first is the path of criminal investigation and prosecution. The allegations can be reported to police; police can investigate; police can then refer the matter to the Office of Public Prosecutions. Until charges are laid, it is customary not to publicise allegations.

The second is for the victim to make a complaint under the church’s Towards Healing process. If a credible complaint is received and if it involves criminal behaviour, it will normally be referred to the police, and the church official will be stood down while inquiries are concluded. Neither of these ways has been pursued in the instance of these allegations of abuse by Pell.

The second path was followed in 2002 when an unnamed man came forward to allege that Pell had fondled him inappropriately in much the same way as alleged by Dignan and Monument.

Pell was stood aside until a retired judge who conducted the inquiry concluded: “I accept ... that the complainant … gave the impression that he was speaking honestly from an actual recollection. However, the respondent, also, gave me the impression that he was speaking the truth. In the end, and notwithstanding that impression of the complainant, bearing in mind the forensic difficulties of the defence occasioned by the very long delay, some valid criticism of the complainant’s credibility, the lack of corroborative evidence and the sworn denial of the respondent, I find I am not ‘satisfied that the complaint has been established’.”

Pell then returned to office. Being cleared, he was further promoted in the church and he is presently a cardinal and Secretary of the Economy in the Vatican and one of Pope Francis’s trusted inner cabinet of nine cardinals.

The third path is a mixture of regular policing, police leaks and media speculation pursued by police and others who are not convinced that the two regular paths will produce an appropriate outcome. This path is particularly problematic when it involves the Victoria Police under the leadership of its Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton and the Catholic Church under the leadership of Pell. The history is poisonous. The well of good relations has been poisoned at three stages.

When Pell became archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, he moved promptly to set up the Melbourne Response in close consultation with the Victorian government and the Victoria Police. The close working relationship between the church and the police fell apart at the Victorian parliament’s Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organisations.

A key witness was Ashton, who was later promoted to police commissioner. He complained about the church protocol and tried to distance the police from it.

It’s sufficient to quote the committee’s final report: “As far as the committee is aware, Victoria Police made no complaint about the absence of reports and made no request for a review of the protocol for at least 12 years.

“It is clear that Victoria Police paid inadequate attention to the fundamental problems of the Melbourne Response arrangements until … April 2012 and that, when they did become the subject of public attention, Victoria Police representatives endeavoured quite unfairly to distance the organisation from them.”

The second poisoning of the well occurred last February when Pell was due to give evidence from Rome to the royal commission. There was a timely string of leaks of information adverse to Pell. The information could only have originated from Victoria Police. It related to allegations of sexual abuse by Pell, and not just to allegations of cover-up by Pell of the abuse committed by others.

If true, the allegations were fatal to Pell’s public standing and position in the church hierarchy. The media spoke of “calls by detectives to be given the green light ‘as soon as possible’ to fly to Rome to interview Cardinal George Pell”. We were told, “The Sunday Herald Sun understands senior Victoria Police (officials) are assessing the dossier of evidence collected by the Sano team in the past year, including witness statements from alleged victims.”

The newspaper claimed “legal sources (plural) revealed Sano Taskforce members were ‘highly motivated but frustrated’ ”. The source (now singular) was reported as saying that the investigators wanted to go to Rome to interview Pell “but that the ultimate decision isn’t down to them. It is with senior figures …”

Pell denied the allegations, said they were scurrilous and that they emanated from Victoria Police. He issued a statement saying “the Victorian Police have never sought to interview him in relation to any allegations of child sexual abuse”, and he “called for a public inquiry into the leaking of these spurious claims by elements in the Victorian Police”.

In February, Pell wrote to acting police minister Robin Scott requesting an investigation into how the details became public. Ashton referred the matter to Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission.

IBAC claims it informs all complainants of the outcome of their complaint within two months. Five months later there has still been no word from the Victorian government, police or any other government agency. IBAC says that if a complaint is outside its jurisdiction, it can be considered by the police’s Professional Standards Command. The police investigating themselves.

So now we come to the third dose of poison added to the well, on ABC’s 7.30.

Ashton has still not told us where the leaks came from. He has still not allowed the Sano Taskforce to travel to Rome to interview Pell despite Pell indicating his availability. A week before the 7.30 program went to air, Pell issued a statement that remains uncontested: “No request has been made to interview Cardinal Pell nor has he received any details of these claims … In late May the Cardinal was advised by the Sano Taskforce that there had been no change in the status of the investigation since the leaks were first reported.”

On Thursday, Pell issued a further statement: “Nearly six months ago media outlets carried leaked stories of allegations against the Cardinal which were said to have been under investigation by the Victorian Sano Taskforce for over 12 months. Despite this there has been no request made by the Taskforce to interview the Cardinal and the Victorian Police Commissioner confirmed last month that no request to interview the Cardinal had been proposed to him as necessary.”

If Dignan, Monument and Pell are to receive justice, Ashton should commission his Sano Taskforce to travel to Rome immediately to interview Pell and the Victorian government should take resolute action to demand that Ashton get to the bottom of the leaks and explain what involvement there has been by Victoria Police officers, including disaffected members of the Sano Taskforce. (The ABC has denied police were the source for the 7.30 report.)

More police obfuscation and media titillation merely risks undermining the standing and outcomes of the present royal commission and further unnecessary suffering for victims seeking justice and closure — to say nothing of the reputation of citizens such as Pell.

Make no mistake, if Pell is a child abuser, I want him out of the Vatican and out of the way of children. If he’s not, I want the Victoria Police to come clean and get back to routine policing, rather than media titillation, for the wellbeing of all of us, especially Dignan and Monument.

Frank Brennan SJ is professor of law at the Australian Catholic University. This is an edited version of an article on eurekastreet.com.au.