AUSTRALIA
The Age
December 23, 2015
Rania Spooner, Steve Lillebuen
The Catholic Church in Melbourne has been hit with child sexual abuse claims just two days before Christmas as police target allegations that fall directly under the leadership of George Pell.
In a rare public statement, Sano taskforce detectives investigating historic allegations of abuse have made an appeal for information about sexual assaults at St Patrick’s Cathedral between 1996 and 2001.
Its investigation centres on claims that 14-year-old boys were sexually assaulted at the East Melbourne landmark, described by the church as the “mother church of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne”.
The taskforce is understood to have executed search warrants on buildings linked to the church in East Melbourne, Melbourne, Maidstone and Toorak, on December 2.
The timeframe of the allegations covers the years when Cardinal Pell was archbishop of Melbourne and current archbishop Denis Hart was vicar-general.
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