Yet a report by Peter O’Callaghan, the QC appointed to investigate the scandal, found that even before Father Searson arrived in Doveton he had “achieved a regrettable record of suspected sexual abuse of children and considerable financial misappropriations”.

Mr O’Callaghan recorded that he had found the priest “guilty of sexual abuse” during the internal hearing, according to the records obtained by Four Corners.

But Father Searson was able to successfully appeal to the Congregation in Rome that Mr O’Callaghan “did not have the appropriate jurisdiction or procedure” to make the findings.

Cardinal Pell was the Archbishop of Melbourne at the time the internal hearing allegedly took place. Father Searson died in 2009, before facing any child sex charges.

The Doveton parish, regarded as one of the most disadvantaged in Melbourne, endured a terrifying succussion of paedophile priests between 1972 and 1997, when Father Searson was finally suspended.

The former director of church’s pastoral response office, Helen Last, told Four Corners she was contacted in 1997 by worried parishioners in Doveton, but was told by Archbishop Pell in a letter that was situation was “under control” and “there remains no need for any pro-active measures from your office”.

Ms Last disobeyed the order and spent a day at Doveton. “One of the major things that they were grappling with was how could our church have known that this priest was a paedophile, Father Searson, and others before him, and not done anything to help us?”

She lost her job one month later.

In 1986, the former principal of Doveton’s Holy Family School, Graeme Sleeman, also resigned in an attempt to draw attention to the child abuse claims.

However he said his letter of resignation, that alleged Searson had interfered with young girls, terrorised boys and stolen money, was censored by the Catholic Education Office.

“You could almost call it a fetish that he had about having children go to confession to him and they’d have to sit by him and kneel at him,” Mr Sleeman said.

Mr Sleeman lost his successful career over the saga and has since received some compensation from the church. He said other priests and the Archbishop “knew lots but sat on their hands”.

Following Mr Sleeman’s resignation, a number of teachers from the school met with Cardinal Pell asking him to remove Father Searson, but again no immediate action was taken.

Last year Cardinal Pell said he was “sent back to Searson” who had denied “everything and anything”.

Former Holy Family School teacher Carmel Rafferty also resigned in 1993 after years of trying to get the church to respond to disturbing reports from children. “It came to a head when the priest was going into the boys’ toilet several times a day,” she said.