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	Pell Stands by "Consensual" Decision The Australian July 9, 2008 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23996987-12377,00.html CARDINAL George Pell has stood by a decision to dismiss a sex abuse complaint against a priest who claimed the encounter was consensual - despite the Catholic Church possessing proof to the contrary. Cardinal Pell will consider reopening a church investigation of convicted priest Father Terrence Goodall, after phone taps recorded him admitting he had forced himself upon his victim. In 2003 Cardinal George Pell dismissed a sex abuse complaint against Goodall, because he gave weight to the priest's claim the encounter was consensual. Cardinal Pell dismissed Anthony Jones' complaint despite Mr Jones protestations to the contrary. However, in police phone transcripts played on ABC's Lateline tonight, Father Goodall admitted to Mr Jones that the encounter was not consensual. "I certainly did not say it was consensual, I don't know where they got that from,'' he said in the January 2003 phone conversation. "It was a very wrong thing to do, and I was taking advantage of another man and it was very bad.'' Goodall was speaking to Mr Jones after being interviewed by the church's investigator Howard Murray. Lawyers for the Catholic Church were given transcripts of the phone taps three years ago, Lateline said. Dr Pell said he had no knowledge of the conversations. Asked if Goodall's admission warranted a reopening of the case, Cardinal Pell said he would "certainly take legal advice''. "Those statements of Goodall put my decision in quite a different light,'' he told ABC's 7.30 Report. "I would certainly take legal advice. I've always said I would be happy to talk with Jones. And if this new information is verified I'd certainly talk to him on a new basis. "If both parties say it wasn't consensual then there is just one conclusion.'' Mr Jones, a former Catholic educator, was sexually abused by Father Goodall in 1982 and informed the church about it 20 years later. In 2005, Father Goodall was convicted of indecently assaulting Mr Jones after pleading guilty to the charges, but served no time in prison. Asked tonight why he had placed so much faith in Father Goodall's claims, Cardinal Pell said Mr Jones' evidence was uncorroborated. "Because the evidence was uncorroborated, because of the whole circumstances leading up to - there was a candlelight dinner, they swum together, they were sitting on the bed together,'' he said. "It was because of the circumstances as explained that I took that view, and I believe it has been vindicated by subsequent events.'' Cardinal Pell also revealed he spoke to Goodall prior to making his decision - but did not speak to Mr Jones. Mr Jones told the ABC he was appalled by Cardinal Pell's comments. "I could not believe that Cardinal Pell had the hide to say that it was consensual when Father Goodall said that it wasn't,'' he said. Cardinal Pell has become embroiled in the Goodall sex abuse scandal just days before Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Sydney for World Youth Day. But Cardinal Pell said the scandal would not taint the upcoming celebrations, which he described as the biggest week of his life. "It is an extraordinary coincidence that these things have been brought up just before the Pope comes - we would like it otherwise,'' he said. "But in the end you have to cope with what comes.''
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