MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
CNA/EWTN News
February 15, 2018
By Elise Harris
The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard Wednesday that a charge related to a key witness in the case against Cardinal George Pell, accused of historical sexual abuse, is likely to be withdrawn.
In the Feb. 14 hearing, the director of prosecutions for the Melbourne Magistrates Court said that while they had not decided on the matter, the charge of a key complainant who died in January would likely be withdrawn.
Defense attorney Ruth Shann argued against the man’s credibility, saying Pell’s legal team would be examining the credibility of the “unreliable” witness when the formal four-week committal hearing begins March 5.
The witness, Damian Dignan, who died of leukemia in early January, and a fellow classmate at St. Alipius school in Ballarat accused Pell in 2016 of inappropriate sexual behavior when they were minors. The cardinal had previously been accused of acts of child sexual abuse dating as far back as 1961.
Shann said Dignan’s complaints – which he made to Australia’s Royal Commission in 2015, nearly 40 years after the alleged abuse, after reading about other cases in the commission in newspapers – had a “domino effect” in terms of other people contacting the police.
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