Passport Proves Cardinal George Pell’s Point

The Courier
June 26, 2015

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/passport-proves-cardinal-george-pells-point/story-fnn8dlfs-1227416933253

CARDINAL George Pell has provided his full passport details in an extraordinary step to disprove allegations that have been made against him.

A former child victim of a paedophile Christian Brother has claimed that in 1969 Dr Pell, who was then a young priest, heard him pleading for help a few weeks after he had been raped.

The cardinal has this week given the Herald Sun access to a copy of his full passport showing his travel between the 1960s and 1970s. The passport makes it clear that Cardinal Pell was not in Australia in 1969. The Herald Sun reported on Monday that Paul Lyons, 55, had challenged the cardinal to prove he was not in Ballarat at the time he told priests at St Alipius Presbytery of his rape.

Mr Lyons, who has previously made the claims through his lawyer at a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse, went public on the weekend saying: “I want Pell to produce the pages of his passport as proof that he was visiting Australia at the time.’’

The travel documents now prove that Dr Pell was studying in Oxford at the time Mr Lyons has said he was brutally raped, at age 9, in St Alipius Primary School by Christian Brother teacher Robert Best.

The travel documents now prove that Dr Pell was studying in Oxford at the time Mr Lyons has said he was brutally raped. Picture: Andrew Medichini

Dr Pell has previously denied being in Victoria at the time, but until now had not been asked to produce the evidence. The passport pages show that Dr Pell was not in the country at any time around the period that Mr Lyons has alleged he was.

Mr Lyons is still expected to address the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse when it reconvenes in Ballarat later this year.

Dr Pell is also expected to return from the Vatican to attend commission hearings to answer several questions and allegations concerning whether he knew of widespread sexual abuse.

The cardinal, who has repeatedly and vehemently denied any wrongdoing, offered in May to make the journey.

In 2011, Best was jailed for six years for the crime he perpetrated against Mr Lyons, along with a further eight years and nine months for sex offences against 10 other schoolboys.