SURRY HILLS (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
The Australian
April 18, 2020
By Angela Shanahan
Only a week after being exonerated by the High Court, Cardinal George Pell is now, we are told, the subject of yet another historic sexual assault accusation by a new accuser. This “news” was leaked to the Herald Sun, pre-empting Andrew Bolt’s revealing interview with the cardinal that finally made clear to the public, who were not aware of proceedings at the trial, that despite many witnesses providing contrary evidence, the cardinal was condemned by the word of just one accuser.
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Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews reiterated the “we believe you” mantra. Child protection campaigner Hetty Johnston made it clear in an interview with Chris Kenny on the day of the High Court verdict that in child sexual assault cases, campaigners want the onus of proof shifted so that we begin from a point of belief in the “victim”. Children don’t lie, she says. But Pell’s was an adult accuser. He might have been sexually molested at some stage in his life, or he might not.
There is another recent case against a high-ranking prelate that illustrates this point. Max Davis is the Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force. He has had a long, distinguished career and is well thought of by ordinary soldiers, particularly as he has been to various areas of deployment, including the base at Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan.
However, in June 2014, Davis was charged with having indecently assaulted a 13-year-old boy in 1969. The one complainant was followed by more and eventually there were six counts related to the period between December 1968 and October 1972. Davis had been a young teacher and a dorm master at St Benedict’s College New Norcia, for some of that time. The charging of Davis was sensational as, until Pell, he was the highest ranking prelate charged with this offence.
But what happened next well illustrates the problem of shifting the onus of proof. All the victims swore that their abuser was Davis, that he was one of the brothers, even to describing the famous Benedictine habit. However, contrary to that testimony, Davis was a lay person — he was not ordained until 1971 and he was never in the Benedictine order. Davis left the school in the late 1960s, went into the seminary and was ordained in 1971. While he was at the school he was not “Brother Max”, as was claimed, he was simply Mr Davis. The trial became a fiasco when it became clear the police had not checked the enrolment records at the school at the same time as Davis was there. One of the accusers was not enrolled.
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