AUSTRALIA
The Australian
November 3, 2016
TESSA AKERMAN
ReporterMelbourne
@TessaAkerman
The Archdiocese of Melbourne has flatly rejected Cardinal George Pell’s key evidence to the child sex abuse royal commission that he was purposely deceived by the Catholic Education Office over pedophile priest Peter Searson.
The issue of his handling of Searson has dogged Cardinal Pell, with counsel assisting the royal commission recommending this week that Cardinal Pell’s evidence be rejected.
Searson was the parish priest of Doveton between 1984 and 1997 when he was placed on administrative leave by then archbishop Pell but in 1989 the cardinal played a key role in dealing with serious complaints against Searson.
Searson died in 2009 and was never charged with any offences in relation to sexual abuse of children, but there had been complaints he had sexually abused children, took a handgun to school and showed children a body in a coffin.
When Cardinal Pell gave evidence in March from Rome to the commission he said it was an “incorrect assumption” that he was told what the education office knew when he received a delegation from it in November 1989 and agreed it had deceived him.
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