SYDNEY (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
Australian Associated Press via 7 News
April 7, 2020
By Megan Neil
[See also the currently redacted versions of the Ballarat and Melbourne case study reports.]
A royal commission’s findings about Cardinal George Pell’s handling of child sexual abuse complaints won’t be released for weeks.
The High Court’s decision to overturn Cardinal Pell’s criminal convictions paves the way for blacked-out sections of two reports from the child abuse royal commission to be released.
Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter said the reports should be released without redactions where possible.
He said his office first needed to check with Victorian authorities to ensure the information would not prejudice any future investigations or prosecutions.
“That could take a number of weeks,” Mr Porter told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.
“But my strong preference is to have as much of the information that has been redacted, tabled with less redaction.
“There is a process now for me to go through with Victorian authorities to determine whether those redactions can be lifted or modified without doing any prejudice to any future proceedings.”
Redacted versions of the royal commission’s reports into the Catholic Church’s handling of child abuse allegations in the Melbourne archdiocese and Ballarat diocese were released in December 2017.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.