AUSTRALIA
Sky News

One of the world’s first child abuse compensation schemes will be scrutinised when the Child Abuse Royal Commission sits in Melbourne this morning.

The Melbourne Response, introduced in 1996, was the one of the Catholic Church’s first redress schemes for victims of paedophile priests.

The commission will hear from Cardinal George Pell via video link from the Vatican on Thursday about his involvement in setting up the scheme and in responding to allegations of child sex abuse in Melbourne where he is archbishop in the 1990s.