AUSTRALIA
news.com.au
A CONTROVERSIAL scheme introduced by George Pell to deal with complaints of sexual abuse actually discouraged victims from going to police, the child abuse Royal Commission has found.
In a major blow for Melbourne’s Catholic Archdiocese, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse today released its report into Cardinal Pell’s Melbourne Response.
As well as finding the scheme worked to stop victims taking complaints to authorities, the commission also hit out at the Vatican hierarchy saying it worked to obfuscate the removal of paedophiles in its ranks.
Introduced in 1996 by then Melbourne archbishop George Pell, the Melbourne Response was one of the Church’s first schemes to offer redress to victims of paedophile priests.
But in its report released today, the royal commission found compensation model’s independent commissioner discouraged victims from taking complaints to police.
“Advice about the approach that the police might take to any prosecution, and the likely outcome, should have been left to the police” the commission said.
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