maandag, februari 06, 2017

Significant lead in case against Cardinal George Pell as evidence brief is returned to Office of Public Prosecutions for second review

A BRIEF of evidence in a sex abuse investigation of Cardinal George Pell has been returned to prosecutors for review.

Police had first asked prosecutors to review the brief last year, but Director of Public Prosecutions John Champion, SC, returned it without making a recommendation, saying that any decision on potential charges was a police call.

On Monday, Natalie Webster, on behalf of Victoria Police, said that investigators had ­delivered the brief to the Office of Public Prosecutions for ­consideration.

Sano taskforce investigated multiple allegations, including that the cardinal abused up to 10 boys in 1978-2001, while a priest in Ballarat and while archbishop of Melbourne.

The cardinal, 75, has strenuously denied the allegations.

On Monday, a report released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse showed Victoria had proportionally more paedophile Catholic priests than any other state.

Sale was the nation’s worst diocese: 15.1 per cent of priests from 1950 to 2010 were accused of abuse. In Sandhurst, in central and northeast Victoria, it was 14.7 per cent.

The figure in Ballarat was 8.7 per cent — the nation’s seventh worst. The Archdiocese of Melbourne rounded out the 10 worst, at 8.1 per cent.

The commission said on Monday that of 309 Catholic abuse cases it had referred to police, 27 had been prosecuted, 75 were under investigation, and 66 were “pending”.

[...]

Geen opmerkingen: