George Pell - Accusation of Sexual Abuse

Accusation of Sexual Abuse

In June 2002, Pell was accused of having sexually abused a 12-year-old boy at a Roman Catholic youth camp in 1961 whilst a seminarian. Pell vigorously denied all the accusations and stood aside, but did not resign, as archbishop as soon as the allegations were made public. The complainant agreed to pursue his allegations through the church's own process for dealing with allegations of sexual misconduct, the National Committee for Professional Standards (NCPS). The subsequent inquiry found that the accusations had not been established. Justice Southwell concluded:

earing in mind 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'

Doubts about the handling of the accusation arose following the publication by the Australian Herald Sun on 6 October 2002 of details about the accuser, whose anonymity had been preserved in previous media coverage. As relayed by the Zenit news service, "Pell's alleged victim was, it turned out, a career criminal. He had been convicted of drug dealing and involved in illegal gambling, tax evasion and organized crime in a labour union. A commission probing the union devoted a whole chapter of its report to the man's activities. As the inquiry report noted, 'The complainant has been before the court on many occasions, resulting in 39 convictions from about 20 court appearances.'"