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Police chief commissioner 'concealed priest's sex abuse crimes', inquiry hears
By Frederick Little
More damning allegations about Cardinal George Pell's intricate knowledge of the sexual abuse of boys have emerged. Miller said he was horrified by what he read in a book written by Ryan, which documented serial sex offences against children, and misconduct by police. "It was corruption at its highest, an absolute conspiracy...when you look at the abuse of justice". Hazel again said to us: 'He allows us to drive the auto. "What we have been doing, what today is about is is particularly hearing Mr Ryan's evidence and the evidence of former chief commissioner Miller. It's all about trying to say sorry and trying to make sure we go forward". He said in the last few decades there had been profound changes in the way police respond to allegations of sexual assault. Outside court, current police Commissioner Graham Ashton said he accepted the evidence given by both men and he would be making an apology to Mr Ryan. He knew most of the police members mentioned in the book, and now believed his predecessor, the late chief commissioner Reg Jackson, was the "architect" of Victoria Police's response to Mr Ryan's investigation into Monsignor Day. Mr Ryan thanked Mr Miller, calling him a "very courageous man" for supporting him. "The driving force behind the crusade was a desire to achieve justice for the victims of a hypocritical paedophile priest". "Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of the police force and what they did to the kids who were victims of Monsignor Day". Those children were being mentally and physically destroyed by day and the police protected him. Ballarat Bishop [Ronald] Mulkearns also protected him. Mick Miller, 89, who served as Victoria's chief police commissioner between 1977 and 1987, told the commission: "This entire episode was a shameful event in the history of Victoria Police". During first day at work there he runs into Day at presbytery. In September, 1971, Mr Ryan was contacted by John Howden, headmaster at St Joseph's College in Mildura. He told the inquiry Mr Howden confided in him that one of the students made a complaint she had been sexually assaulted by Day. The girl alleged Day had touched her breasts while was washing his vehicle and later revealed she'd been molested a number of times. Inspector Irwin attempted to relocate Mr Ryan to Melbourne. Despite Mr Ryan's efforts, Monsignor Day was never charged but was eventually moved from the parish and banned from working with children. He said he had discovered the then Apollo Bay priest, drunk in a auto with two prostitutes with his trousers down to his ankles, when on night divisional duty with other officers. "He was wearing a Catholic priest's collar and on the floor was an empty sherry bottle". Mr Ryan and two other officers had pulled over a vehicle that kept bumping into the gutter in St Kilda in early 1956. "(He) explained that the Catholics looked after the Catholics and the Masons looked after the Masons, and short of murder you just didn't charge a priest", Mr Ryan said on Tuesday. Mr Ryan is expected to detail to the inquiry how he was forced off the case by his superior offices and claims there was a a catholic element of the police force which sought to protect paedophile priests. With a royal commission into the police force occurring every nine years on average, he said, Mr Jackson may have worked to cover Mr Ryan's investigation up "to avoid another royal commission into Victoria Police that investigated his administration". BWF told the inquiry the quickly conversation became heated. "Father Pell was not living in the presbytery on Sturt and Dawson Street in 1973 and had no reason to be there", he suggested. "They must have because none of these people told me about it". "That is wrong", BWF said.
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