How Australia’s highest ranking Catholic, George Pell, was brought to justice | Four Corners

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last week, the news that had been kept secret for nearly three months finally broke.
Australia's highest ranking Catholic man, who rose to be the Vatican's third most powerful cleric, had been convicted of sexual crimes against 2 13 year old boys.
Ah, a jury of 12 had found George Pell guilty of five shocking offenses which all took place inside since Patrick's Cathedral when Pel was archbishop of Melbourne.
A suppression order banning publication of those convictions was lifted last week after the crown decided to drop a second trial against the cardinal on separate charges.
He was a man that was so high up in the hierarchy that he believed he was untouchable.
But we believe that justice will be served, that we're just wasting our time and effort with credibility of the institutional church is at an all time life and this is what is so devastating about this conviction.
It just makes it worse.
Watching his progression and climbing within the Catholic Church, he's nine, was regularly within the press and every time Pell's nine was a very clear recollection of what he'd been up to and what Yeah, but you're just a dirty, rotten, sneaky conniving.
I've been following this case for three years since I first met a group of men who broke decades of silence to reveal allegations of how the innocence was stolen by Cardinal George Pell when they were young boys tonight on Four Corners, the inside story of how a prince of the church was brought to justice.
It was 1996 and George Pell was the newly installed archbishop of Melbourne.
The church was grappling with an escalating scandal over clergy sexual abuse of Children, and the Archdiocese of Melbourne had Maur pedophile priests than anywhere else in the country.
Archbishop George Pell was in damage control.
One or two lonely voices have suggested that the Catholic Church here is in a state of crisis.
They are badly mistaken thanks.
In October 1996 Pel launched the Melbourne Response, the church's new strategy for dealing with sexual abuse victims.
But I do want to stress that this is a genuine attempt tow lesson, the sufferings off the victims and the lesson, the sufferings of their families.
I'm hopeful that with further improvements and refinements over time, these initiatives will go a long way towards addressing this sad and deeply regrettable issue.
This was the public face of George Pell.
But only a few months after that press conference, we now know that the archbishop was doing exactly what his game was set up to address.
Sexually abusing Children.
These was the case put by the crown as your honor pleases members of the jury it's alleged in this case.
But on a Sunday morning in the latter part of 1996 Archbishop George Pell, as he was then known, was saying 11 a.m. Mass at ST Patrick's Cathedral here in East Melbourne.
As was customary during Sunday Mass.
Listen, Patrick's Cathedral Church choir was singing, accompanied by an organist.
There were 61 boys in the choir, about half of them with sopranos sopranos were what the younger Children.
And then there was the altos, which is when your voice starts to break.
Then you turn into a tenant base.
Hi, you're up.
We get you look after the little boys.
You look after him and you sort of they're only little kids.
You gotta show him a bit of a disciplined.
I don't do that, Do this.
But then today you're still a child yourself, but you should always and I help him out.
Look after him.
The choirboys were all on scholarships to attend the nearby since Kevin's College in wealthy Turek.
Andrew McGregor was one of the older boys in the choir.
It was a big deal.
It was a big deal.
And for Northern Boy to sort of go all the way to tour act fools, prestige.
And it was quite an achievement that your parents were proud of you.
You were proud off and to say that I went to school at ST Kevin's, which is a press stage school, lots of opportunities.
Hey, says George Pell was often there when the boys practiced.
It was just George Power, the archbishop, the priests that leaves at the church.
He came to visit us.
We didn't know if he lived their lives somewhere else.
But we just assumed, because it's the archbishop, he lives at the church.
I used to be around listening to the choir coming past the silos.
I thank you before of it as a mark of respect that he used to take notice of us.
On the day of the incident, the choir had just finished singing and filed out of ST Patrick's in Procession.
You're singing.
The mess is finished.
Everyone still standing around just watching you sing, and then Iran collapse.
Soon as the Carol's finished and it's it's like playing a game of football, and you scored the winning goal.
Everyone just clapping and cheering you on.
It was a sense off achievement, sense of gratitude.
Two of the boys left the rest of the group.
Both boys took the opportunity to have some fun to be naughty, mischievous kids.
They slipped away from the procession once the precision was outside the cathedral and away from the public gaze.
Once inside the cathedral, this is after Mass.
They then entered an unlocked door and walked down a corridor that led down to the sacristy.
It's a big church is lots of space.
Anyone can get lost.
This 60 hits, and there was never if someone was missing, you wouldn't be able to tell because everyone would just hurry up, get changed.
Let's go home with Two boys were swigging from the altar wine when George Pell caught them in the act pill.
Asked the boys, What are you doing here?
And told them that they were in trouble.
Pill approached the two boys.
He then proceeded to maneuver his robes so as to pull out his Penis.
He pulled the first boy aside and had him crouched in front of him.
Pill was standing, but this time the boy asked to be let go, as they hadn't done anything wrong.
Pel had his hand on the back of the boy's head and his other hand at his own genital area.
The other boys saw the first boy's head being lowered towards the genital area of Pel.
When he'd finished with the first boy, George Pell moved on to the second.
It's alleged that Pel was standing and he pushed the other boy down to a position where he was crouching or kneeling.
The boy was then pushed onto pills, erect Penis so that the Penis was in his mouth.
This act of filet sha or oral sex lasted for a short period, which the boy estimates to be a couple of minutes.
You'll hear that Pel then stopped and told the boy to remove his pants.
The boy stood upright and pulled down or dropped his pants and his underwear in accordance with the instruction.
Pel then lowered his position so as to be almost crashed on his knees.
Hell then started touching the boy's genitalia while touching the boy's genitalia.
Pill was touching his own genitalia.
After a couple of minutes, Pel finished and stood up.
No, the little boys.
So to think that this happened to the little boys for it to happen to the little boy's is just they preach about God, preach about love, loved on I burn, that's that took away lives, took away innocence.
That's not love questions your belief in a church.
It's like all your life you brought up the church's God and love.
But if the church is is this night love, What's your view about George Pell?
What sort of person is he?
It's only a monster.
I couldn't describe someone like that.
After the incident, the choir boys went home.
One of them later told the court he didn't tell anyone.
The boy didn't say anything at the time about what had happened because he didn't want to jeopardize his scholarship in any way.
He was also cognizant of the position held by the accused man and the possible ramifications that might flow from saying something about what happened.
About a month later, George Pell approached the second boy again in a back corridor of the cathedral.
It's alleged that the accused man, Pel, pushed the boy against the war.
He then squeeze the boy's genitals over his robes before letting go.
I'm walking off Theo.
Events in the cathedral would change the course of their lives.
The identities of the 2 13 year old victims and their families can't be revealed.
But the family off the first choirboy wants to tell his story.
Hey, went from being this lovely boy who used to come to the football with me, who used to go on helping his grandparent's and hoped around the house to this boy who I keep wanting to go out all the time.
His whole bane.
Just who's different, boy just totally different, just didn't care about anything, didn't care about anyone, just didn't wanna be to breathe like you'd see him on.
The training was like Here you go, that's it.
But deep down you think that why you're rebelling so much?
Like what is it that you hate like?
You could sense that there was a bit of height.
Therefore, Authority King back as a person.
He changed.
He did.
He wasn't the same person.
That's what he was before.
Hedge.
Yeah, on Dhe changed so much that his life Really?
It's borrowed.
Yeah, but it's far.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Huh?
Look, Within a year of the abuse, the sun began to use heroin.
He started?
Yes.
I noticed some bits of foil that had been burnt.
And I noticed that my parents noticed that he's grandparent's was pretty young at this stage.
Yes, he waas he waas hellos.
Hey, would have been about third and fourth the time.
Um, yeah, yeah, very young at the time.
Very m.
It's devastating to what?
Your child like that because off these drug use, it was very hard to watch.
At 14.
Hey would spend nights where we wouldn't see him.
It would disappear for a day or two and then turn up as if nothing had happened.
Hayes schooling, of course, became heretic.
His attendance Hey was at the point where the choirmaster was going to expel him.
It meant that he would lose.
He's scholarship and we would then have to pay.
And we didn't have the thousands of dollars that were required to keeping the his mother suspected her son might have been abused for once.
I assume if he was exactly remember the words or yours, whether it was touched up or plied with and he told me, nor but a game with a shrub again, little niggling in there.
I'm never sitting thing 20 body, really going out thinking who you are, is signore.
And in a while after their again, I asked him, and again he told me No, and then I get this and I was just so angry with him for not telling me so angry.
Sometimes it's still very angry.
Their son died of a heroin overdose in 2014.
He took his secret about George Pill to his grave.
I don't tell about people having passed away till part of the truth, but not all of it, because I don't want sympathy.
I don't want pity.
You know, it's very hard to explain to people that I'm a brother, struggle for half his life with drug abuse problem, and it's very hot.
You know, I have never told anybody this devastating because he helps to explain a lot of incidents in his life.
Hands it is, it's devastating.
It is.
It's hard when you think a child can't come outside.
This has happened because most times they're not believed.
I would like to think I would have Blake my son.
I would have liked.
It must be a really hard thing as a debt to contemplate its worst.
It's the worst.
I used to think when when he died, I was to think, What a waste of a life 31 is old and you did What a waste of a life.
The young man's death had a terrible impact on the other choir boy who was also abused by George Pell.
After the funeral, the other boy finally told his own mother that he had been abused.
She rang Bernard Barrett at the victim's group, Broken Rights.
I answered the phone, and she explained that her son, it was a former choir Billy.
It was very upset because he had a troubled life since his teens and hey was killing her for the first time at the age of 30.
But having been abused by a priest Later, Bernard Barrett spoke to the second choirboy.
He told me that when he was a Corbally at the Millbrook Cathedral.
Uh, one day, hey was sexually abused by a prominent person in in one of the rooms of the cathedral.
Who was that prominent?
Gave the name Archbishop Pill.
And that's how this investigation into Cardinal George Pell began.
When you get a figure like that is a high, highest rank Catholic in Australia, he's a high position in the Vatican.
We obviously had to trade things very seriously in relation to the hair.
We conducted the investigation to make sure that a ll the boxes were ticked as faras not letting information out.
We had to be very sacred, even relation to making sure that this wasn't put it into the public arena.
Doug Smith oversaw the investigation When it started through your work with Tess, Fool, Sana and Victoria.
Police had had a lot of experience with these Catholic church perpetrators.
How did you find the Catholic Church in dealing with them?
In these cases, they were very difficult to deal with.
Um that would sigh that they wanted to cooperate with the police in relation to all these allegations and now openly saying that that would cooperate.
But I think you could almost say that the way that they class, their cooperation will be similar to, Ah, practiced a lying on the ground in the middle of the street, not resisting the place.
But the place would have to pick that person up and drag him off the street.
And I think that that's the level of cooperation that the Catholic Church gave this.
The police investigation into pill widened.
New claims were made about alleged abuse in the 19 seventies at the Eureka Stockade.
Paul in George Pell's home town of Ballarat.
Damian Dignan was eight years old at the time.
In 2015 he made a complaint to Police Way.
Spoke to him the following year.
No father pals over there take pain.
Sort of.
Randy's just thought there, and we love to pick the kids up from over shoulder.
We'll throw him up in the air.
So, like, you have a splash.
So things got to be rough.
So what happened?
Uh, random test, ese.
Randy Highness, what would he do?
Crabby.
Um, how did it make you feel?
Scared?
Uh, so scared, but hurt?
Um very full school.
Right in the eyes.
Could there ever be an interpretation that it just so happened that his hands what slipped down there, You know, Obama steak.
Fair enough.
One tone more Kept the stage play every time I peeked Drop those they and, uh not much fun, huh?
Get out of the pool.
Damon Dignan said he was terrified of pill Republicans I ever even looked in.
I'll be still scared, little boy, Don't get me wrong I believe in the Catholic Church Ideo I believe in Jay's are playing God That man is evil and he should not bathing should not bay there where he is Um, he's car sickness And he told us about allegations that had happened against his other person.
And that person was Lyndon monuments.
That's correct.
Yes.
Linden Monument described playing the same game with George Pell in the pool.
Well, it was his hand touching your genitals and stuff on the outside of your by the boy shorts and then that slyly be kind and day on the front of the paints.
By this, whatever you call under the water under the water, Linden monument told police that Pel would then invite him into the change rooms he done dress on and then the heat side.
Tow us to undress.
Um, so we don't dress on.
Then he had a tail.
He decided to make sure he walked under your testicles and all that sort of stuff.
And while he was doing this, was he wearing clothes?
Balleret local Phil Nagel said He also saw Pel in the change rooms.
His kid's pretty discreetly in the corner because we didn't want to say I do does And where there's little kids tapped me on the show.
Look around and there was a young cattle Pel Stark naked and he was actually had his tail and he's drawn his back and it was no discretion at all, So he's actually first adult mile live.
It's all naked.
I didn't look here, but, um, because it was a church and just he was George Power.
We just You just went kind to the other side.
Anything, you know, what a mind.
So I'm just trying not to think about it.
It's been honest.
Linden and Damien went to primary school at Ballarat Epi Center of Abuse Saint Ilie Pius, where a ring of pedophiles, Christian brothers and a priest abused dozens of Children George Pell leaved in the Saint Ilie Pia's presbytery at the same time as the notorious child abuser father Gerald Ridsdale.
Both Linden and Diamond told police they were also abused by teachers at the school.
Lyndon's brother was one of many ST Ole Pia's pupils who later suicide it.
That's what took two drugs.
I just wanted a little.
And then still, to this day I go on outside and horrible.
I would never hurt myself a little on my family and my kids, but really living Okay, careful.
Get people about.
But I would never do anything to hurt the kids with this.
I just could back him.
That conference can't talk and you'll live.
Talk.
You feel a shined Andi?
Um, yeah, on, if you ask me, had fixed me mentally ruining the loss.
Ruinous.
She's always very angry.
Or Grover Anger.
Young blood.
I took a lot of my anger out on myself.
Self destruction, another plate, little kid a bit me and loved me.
Diamond Dignan had a drinking problem, and he developed leukemia.
Police laid charges in relation to his alleged abuse, but they were dropped when he died in January 2017.
He was 47.
He told me he was always proud of coming forward.
Six months after the Ballarat men went to police, another man came forward.
Liz Tyack top police that in the mid 19 eighties he saw Pel in the change rooms at the talky Life Saving club wino walking a sore fellow.
They crisscrossing coastal back, telling yourself off.
And there's three young kids.
They're like to 10 years of age.
They're about to two meters across from him.
Also getting changed.
I went into the share and, uh, would have been in the showers for probably 5 to 10 minutes.
When I came out, uh, this fellow was facing the boys with the tail over the every is right shoulder, and I thought that to be a very odd situation here I was in the share he he had not got dressed.
He was facing the boys, and I thought, Then immediately, there's something not right here.
I said to the boys, If you're finished off your guy, we're seeing in some other time And I said thio, this fellow, uh, George, I know what you're up to.
Get tress.
Piss off and don't come back to this club again.
If I see you back here, I'll call the boys.
And George was George Pell.
George was George Pell.
So what you're saying is that you thought that George Pell was exposing himself to those boys?
Absolutely, Absolutely.
I have no doubt whatsoever.
Let's Taik was inspired to speak up when the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to child abuse began seating the pills.
Nine kept on coming up.
I felt that that was the time that maybe I should put my statement into the police as to what had happened, because if thou forming some dust here on Pell, it might might be some sort of back up.
And just another example of what what this man was up to.
I had not know.
Bay five was not a victim.
I had no nothing against the Catholic Church.
But this This was a situation that did disturbed me greatly.
In October 2016 Victoria police made the decision to quietly fly to Rome.
Thio interview George Pell.
It would have been some level of secrecy that would have been required for that to happen.
Three people were neither native interview, and that obviously would have been with the cooperation of the Catholic Church on dhe, George Pell would have agreed to the interview taking place.
Great form.
I do.
My name is George Hill on Dhe.
I lived number one, The accident.
Italianate.
Thank you.
That counter today try extending your collection to the Victorian Australian offenses of index himself upon Miles Dyson Acting presents chart on 16 years before we continue, I must inform you if you don't have to say anything but anything you understand that the cardinal started his interview with a statement, volunteered to take part in this interview because, as I understand allegations made admit against me going back decades, I'm made in value and in precisely defined circumstances in time frames.
So that is practically impossible to demonstrate.
Negative.
Unless I'm given division details Naval major, search the past and show them to be wrong.
I have to rely on the law and my conscience, which side that I'm innocent and I have to rely on the integrity of the investigators not setting out to make a case but actually searching for the truth on this occasion that what's next is that after last night or something, we're okay towards their writing.
Quite lost.
When I stop parking around the various rooms, I can cross the line parking ramp.
Just pretend she wasa That's unfortunate way with what you do today.
Go next.
You planned something that place two boys in the door after Sunday, in fact.
Now, look at that time, You, uh, move your robes to one song and exposed us also at this time standing.
Get back to the door.
What, actually like it matters.
There's all sorts of people used to come to the secretary speaking priest sack Christians around the altar service around.
Okay.
They should be on their way to change their investments.
Yes.
Now, could you step forward?
What he said foresees head down on your pants in the sacristy after come to a place this is gonna show period before instance 40.
Sit down.
Completely false place.
No, the boy's a tear for besides, hands helping you holding on with two hands on the back before stuffing which talking stood back.
I'm staying with you.
Sorry.
Legs that you've been said.
Take off your pants and you stepped up to no damn started to form a list.
And that's about yourself.
This is in the sacristy at the cathedral after Sunday.
Well, need I say well off, Garbage on, False with and deranged.
Good morning On June 29 2017.
Victoria police made a historic announcement.
Today Victoria police have charged Cardinal George Pell with historical sexual assault offenses.
Cardinal Pell has been charged on summons and he's required to appear at the Milan Magistrates Court on the 18th of July this year for a filing hearing.
The charges were today served on Cardinal Pell's legal representatives in Melbourne and they've been lodged also at the Melbourne Magistrates Court.
Cardinal Pell is facing multiple charges in respect of historic sexual offenses and there are multiple complainants relating to those charges.
I'm not in a position to take any questions here this morning and I'm moving forward.
Victoria Police won't be making any further comments in respect to this matter.
Good morning to you all.
I want to say one or two brief words about my situation.
These matters that have bean under investigation and now for two years there have bean leaks to the media.
They have bean.
There's bean, relentless character assassination, a relentless character assassination and for more than a month, claims that a the decision on whether to lay charges was imminent.
I'm looking forward, finally toe having my day in court.
I'm innocent of these charges.
They are false.
The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me.
Thank you all very much for coming.
George Hill flew back to Australia.
So began a grueling 20 month court drama.
The case depended on the testimony off the sole surviving choirboy being abused by Pel in the cathedral.
Andrew McGregor also gave evidence in the Pel court proceedings.
I was vigorously questioned and always a witness.
I could imagine how much how much, um, how strenuous the questioning would bay, questioning every thought and every movement he did back then let align the stress that he would be on the, and now it's coming back to hold him.
I could just imagine the stress and pain he went through just in that trial, Even as a policeman who goes through court proceedings a lot, you feel very uncomfortable because it's it's almost in a threatening way.
I mean, it's threatening with word.
It's questioning your truthfulness.
It's questioning your character, and a placement can walk away at the end of the day and think are you know, that was difficult.
But when it comes from a complainant or victim's point of view, I mean it could be devastating to them to be called a liar.
In my 2017 Pel was committed to trial by a magistrate.
The public remained entirely in the dark about what pill was being tried, for, how many complainants were involved and how many charges he faced.
Thief Cathedral Trial Was Held Entirely in secret The Office of Public Prosecutions wanted to eliminate any arguments by the defense with Cardinal.
Couldn't get a fair trial Pale winter trial in August last year but that resulted in a hung jury.
In December, in a re trial, the jury found George Pell guilty off all five charges against the two choirboys.
They included one count of sexual penetration of a child and four of indecent acts with a child or in the presence of a child.
Hey was in a position of trust.
He was trusted, and yet he does.
This sort of thing has been, you know, been proven in court that he did.
We have to say that and myself I'm just disgusted undiscussed in the Catholic Church.
What does it say about the Catholic Church?
It slipped, people, damn it!
Let my son down.
It must be a huge mountain to climb for the police, for sure, they've been nothing but professional.
They've gone through some painstaking investigations leading up to getting statements, putting everything together to support a conviction beyond reasonable doubt for someone like, ah cardinal of the Catholic Church.
I mean, they have done a fantastic job, and I can certainly hold their heads up high.
At the time of his conviction, Pill was facing a separate trial on the allegations of abuse at the Ballarat pool.
The news was suppressed so as not to taint the jury.
In the second trial last week, the Ballarat pool trial was abandoned because some key evidence was ruled inadmissible as a result of that decision.
Finally, the veil of secrecy was lifted.
It can now be revealed that Australia's most senior Catholic cardinal, George Pell, has been convicted of sexually abusing two choirboys in 1996 when he was archbishop of Melvin, I was devastated.
Cardinal George Pell has always bean such a personification of the church in the public life of Australia and to get to a point where he's convicted for these sorts of crimes, in a sense, is I conviction more broadly about the Catholic Church.
It's it's culture that has led to this despite having brought the third most powerful Catholic in the world.
Justice, The man who was the 13 year old choir boy just wants to be left.
Aline, my clients had a very long journey.
The criminal process has been quite stressful for him, and it's not over yet.
Like many survivors, my client has experienced depression, loneliness, struggle with various issues over time, And one common feature that we often see in doing this kind of work is people feel that they have trusted somebody who they should have feared when they're a child and that it has long term impacts on their relationships for the rest of their life.
And it can be difficult for survivors to trust those people who are genuine and and should be trusted.
He feels that he trusted someone he should have feared.
He's created to himself and he needs to be congratulated because he has done a He's done a very, very good job at being believed.
I mean that you can eat.
All you can do is tell the truth.
He can't do any more than that and for a jury of his peas to believe him.
I mean, it's it's fantastic, Just he He's a hero.
I think deep down, he wasn't just doing it for himself.
Deep down, it was doing it for someone else as well.
There's someone else.
He wasn't here.
Yeah, Cardinal Pell.
What's the response to the charges?
You're guilty?
Gotten?
Absolutely.
County court chief judge paid a kid described Pell's crimes as callous, brazen, offending.
He exploited too vulnerable boys, and there was an element of force.
There was an element of brutality to this assault.
Eat was an attack.
George Pell maintains his innocence and his appealing a 77 year old man who once cast an enormous shadow over the Australian church and culture, is now in jail awaiting sentence days.
Probably gonna be millions of people out there who will look at it and think how important it is that no one's above the law.
Um, the Catholic Church isn't above the law.
A lot of times the system doesn't work But this time the system has worked, and there's gonna be a lot of people who are gonna benefit from that.