AUSTRALIA
The Age
August 11, 2014
Aisha Dow
City Reporter for The Age
The Catholic Church found a Melbourne paedophile priest accused of interfering with young girls during confession guilty of child sex abuse, more than a decade before Cardinal George Pell denied a cover up, it has been revealed.
The ABC’s Four Corners program has obtained a confidential draft report that shows former Doveton parish priest, Father Peter Searson, was found guilty of sexual abuse by the church during an internal hearing in 1997.
That is despite the fact former Archbishop of Melbourne Cardinal Pell previously denied the church ignored complaints about Searson, in what victims described as an attitude of “hear no evil, see no evil, say nothing”.
“No conviction was recorded for Searson on sexual misbehaviour,” Cardinal Pell told the Victorian inquiry into child sexual abuse last year. “There might be victims. He was convicted for cruelty. But speaking more generally, I totally reject the suggestion.”
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