Dignitatis Humanae

[...]

The court dismissed this reasoning and said Mr Pulis contradicted himself when he was caught by a care worker with his private parts exposed while a 15-year-old boy was lying on him.

Mr Pulis had admitted his private parts were exposed but claimed he did not notice and this could have happened because he was wrestling with the boy while wearing boxing shorts.

The court did not believe his version of events and commented sternly on the fact that Mr Pulis was in his underwear, alone with the boy at 11.45 p.m.

“I never sexually abused a boy. I never touched the genitals of any boy... Throughout my life I never sexually abused anyone... Lawrence Grech is lying about me out of revenge and because he is angry,” Mr Pulis told the court at various times throughout the eight years the case has been going on.

He insisted that never in 32 years had he been accused of sexual abuse by the 400 or so children who came in contact with him except the time in 2003 when Mr Grech and 10 other former residents decided to speak out.

Reading through the magistrate’s judgment shows the defence team’s attempts to discredit the men who made the accusations, especially Mr Grech who was the public face for the victims.

Mr Pulis tried to discredit the 15-year-old boy’s testimony by saying that at the time he worked with Mr Grech in a cleaning company.

He also claimed to know Mr Grech's father as a troublemaker even though Mr Grech does not know who his father is.

“I also know (Mr Grech’s) half brother. I had met him in prison... this half-brother had told me Lawrence Grech was a vicious person and once he had opened the gas knob so that when his father lights up a match he would be blown up,” Mr Pulis recounted in court.

But in a direct confrontation with Mr Grech, the former priest admitted he did not know the name of Mr Grech’s father. He also admitted that he only came to know who Mr Grech’s father was through his superiors.

Mr Pulis also insisted that Mr Grech had told him he knew who his father was, something that the victim flatly denied.

In his defence Mr Pulis also produced a social worker, Joseph Calleja, who described himself as “supersensitive” to cases of child abuse having been through a similar experience.

Mr Calleja, who provided social work services to St Joseph Home, testified that he never suspected any wrongdoing by Fr Pulis despite spending long hours talking to him.

[...]

‘I tried to make a good home for troubled, angry children’

August 4, 2011 ,

Waylon Johnston

Despite being under psychiatric care and taking pills for severe depression, one of the priests convicted of sexual abuse on Tuesday had been allowed to look after teenagers from broken homes.

Defrocked Charles Pulis, 65, has a family history of psychiatric problems, two grandparents and a nephew having committed suicide. He himself was on medication while in close contact with the young men and looking after them, the court heard in the course of the case against him over the sexual abuse of eight boys.

This emerges from the 94-page judgment handed down by Magistrate Saviour Demicoli that was published yesterday. It exposes the sordid and “disgusting” experiences 11 boys aged between 13 and 16 were subjected to about 20 years ago, right up to 2003.