Rape Victim Claims Cardinal George Pell Ignored His Pleas after Abuse

By Lucie Morris-Marr
Herald Sun
June 22, 2015

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AN abuse victim who claims Cardinal George Pell overheard his pleas for help after being raped as a child is preparing for a showdown with the senior Catholic.

Waiving his anonymity for an interview with the Herald Sun, Paul Lyons, 55, has challenged Cardinal Pell to prove he was not in Ballarat at the time of the alleged incident, ahead of the cardinal’s appearance at the second round of royal commission hearings in the town later this year.

“I want Pell to produce the pages of his passport as proof that he was visiting Australia at the time,” Mr Lyons said.

Cardinal Pell has said he was studying at Oxford at the time Mr Lyons says he was brutally raped, aged 9, in a Ballarat school by a Christian Brother teacher.

Mr Lyons says Cardinal Pell, then a young priest, ­ignored his plea for help.

He claims Cardinal Pell, 74, “kept his arms folded and walked away” when he went to St Alipius Presbytery a few weeks after the attack in 1969.

The victim, who still lives in Ballarat, said he sought help after his parents ignored his account of the abuse at the hands of Robert Best, who was later jailed for the crime.