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Pell Became Angry at Boy Who Told Him of Abuse by Christian Brother, Inquiry Hears

The Guardian
December 7, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/08/pell-became-angry-at-boy-who-told-him-of-abuse-by-christian-brother-inquiry-hears

Cardinal George Pell is alleged to have told the brother of a victim: ‘how dare you knock on this door and make demands’. Photograph: Paul Miller/AAP

Cardinal George Pell became angry at a boy who told him his brother had been beaten and sexually abused by a Christian Brother, an inquiry has heard.

Witness BWF went to see Pell, then a Ballarat priest, after finding out his brother BWG had been molested by Brother Edward Dowlan at Ballarat’s St Patrick’s College in 1973, the child abuse royal commission heard.

“I just blurted out to Pell that Dowlan had beaten and molested BWG and demanded to know what Pell was going to do about it. Pell became angry and yelled at me ‘young man, how dare you knock on this door and make demands’,” BWF told the commission.

“We argued for a bit and he finally told me to go away and shut the door on me.”

Pell’s barrister Sam Duggan said Pell was living at a different Ballarat presbytery at the time.

“I want to suggest to you that you are making this story up about visiting Father Pell at the cathedral presbytery and you never confronted him there,” Duggan said.

BWF replied “that’s your opinion” before rejecting the suggestion he had made it up.

BWF said at the time he knew Dowlan had hit his brother with a belt and assumed he had also molested him, as he had witnessed Dowlan abusing other people in the school dormitory.

“It was an assumption based on what I’d seen,” he said.

BWF, who was 14, said he went to see Pell as he was a well-known influential priest in Ballarat.

BWF said he had tried to complain about Dowlan to the school principal without success

Pell is due to give evidence before the commission next week.

 

 

 

 

 




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