AUSTRALIA
ABC News
[with copy of a statement from the office of Cardinal Pell]
7.30 By Louise Milligan and Andy Burns
When local businessman Les Tyack walked into the Torquay Surf Club change rooms one day in the summer of 1986-87, he encountered a scene that struck him as “very odd” — George Pell with three boys he estimates were aged between 8 and 10.
“I said, ‘Hi George’, and at that time he was towelling, had the towel going across his shoulders drying his back, but he was facing three young boys standing about three or four metres across from him,” Mr Tyack told 7.30.
He thought it was “a little strange”, but he put his gear onto the bench and had a shower.
“I was in the showers for probably five to 10 minutes and when I came out the boys had got dressed,” Les Tyack said.
“But Pell just had the towel over his right shoulder, still facing the boys, and the boys were looking at him, there was no communication between them, but Pell was looking at the boys they were looking at him.”
“I immediately thought this is not right, there is something amiss here.”
Mr Tyack says the thing that disturbed him was that the naked Pell had stood there for 10 minutes facing the boys.
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