AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Calla Wahlquist
Tuesday 22 December 2015
Victoria police are investigating allegations of sexual assault at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s cathedral during Cardinal George Pell’s tenure as archbishop of Melbourne.
The victims were reportedly 14-year-old boys.
In a statement on Wednesday, Sgt Sharon Darcy said detectives from the Sano taskforce wanted to speak to anyone who was a victim of sexual assault at the cathedral, or who knew of sexual assaults at the cathedral, between 1996 and 2001.
“Victoria police is committed to investigating and bringing to justice those people who prey on children, no matter how many years have passed,” Darcey said.
Pell was appointed archbishop of Melbourne in 1996 and remained in the role until being appointed archbishop of Sydney in 2001.
He was scheduled to appear at a hearing of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse last week, but his lawyers said he was too ill to make the flight from Rome where he is the head of the Vatican’s economic secretariat.
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