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Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse

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Suzanne Marry Roberts
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"Julia Gillard stared down Influential Lobbyists and Catholics from the church, including Tony Abbott to get the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse throug...

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  • Zappy Russell     THIS is what leadership looks like. Not banning guns. Or signing up to a phony war. Or guarding the finances. Or a million other minor details. It's taking on institutions that can get down and dirty when they are losing.
    2

  • Jillian Verhardt     It wasn't until a person, in this case, PM Julia Gillard, to put Justice first and foremost. Since that time, the push-back, resistance and entitlement delivered by the now found immoral authority is the most telling. That just leaves all the other 'authorities' who looked away, who did not protect those harmed.
    2

  • Zappy Russell     And what did Abbot call her, "barren" she respected the rights of children more than he ever did
    5

  • Tim Mentzing     We should all be grateful that we were lucky enough to have this unmarried, childless, atheist, female prime minister. Without her religion institutions probably wouldn't have been made accountable for decades to come.
 
Predictably, Hinch is straight out of the blocks, even though the matter is still subject of an appeal.

Perhaps the the cardinal could move to Nauru and get two doctors to medivac him via skype, hey Derryn
 
Background to the two child sex abuse trials held for Cardinal Pell. And why we never heard anything until now.

Inside the Pell trial: we sat in court for months, forbidden from reporting a word
George Pell

When the verdict came, the room was still. No one made a sound

• Up to 100 journalists accused of breaking suppression order may face jail
•Five times guilty: how Pell’s past caught up with him

Melissa Davey


@MelissaLDavey
Wed 27 Feb 2019 00.00 AEDT Last modified on Wed 27 Feb 2019 09.05 AEDT


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George Pell leaves court in Melbourne on Tuesday. ‘A suppression order meant that the thousands of words recorded by the media had to remain carefully protected.’ Photograph: David Crosling/AP
For nearly three months a small group of journalists watched as the most powerful Catholic official to be charged with child sexual abuse faced justice in a Melbourne courtroom.

Until now we have been unable to publish a word of what we heard and saw.

Cardinal George Pell, a confidant to the pope and the financial manager of the Vatican, had been on trial for child sexual abuse – not once, but twice.

But a suppression order meant that the thousands of words recorded by the media – including the Guardian – through first a mistrial and then a retrial had to remain carefully protected in notepads and on personal computers. Nothing could be published.

The court had ruled that the interests of justice were paramount. Pell was due to face yet another trial involving more allegations – this time accused of molesting boys in a swimming pool. And, without a suppression order, news of the preceding trials would have received saturation coverage – potentially biasing a future jury.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...rt-for-months-forbidden-from-reporting-a-word
 
I am sure the Murdoch press would give the same outraged support for an Indigenous man convicted of sex crimes against two young children as they are for Pell.............
 

I don't know about that.

I think incidences of child abuse in the home is a hidden monster that is not able to rear it's head because families tend to stick together and protect themselves, the same as churches.

I doubt if the full extent of the problem will ever be known.
 
He's waved his right to a Bail hearing apparently, off to the "Big House" this arvo.
His Lawyers have submitted 10 character references for the sentencing hearing.
 
His QC has argued to the Judge for the sentencing that "this is just a standard sexual penetration case", and that "it's just a matter of Law, not morals".

Best of luck with that argument!
 
SirRumpole said:
I think incidences of child abuse in the home is a hidden monster that is not able to rear it's head because families tend to stick together and protect themselves, the same as churches.
Click to expand...

Very much so. But outside of family, if you look at any profession, so nurses, doctors, teachers, etc, the clergy is massively over represented in cases of abuse. Hence the need for the royal commission in the first place.
 
George Pell, in particular, built his career on condemning other people.

 
Back in the 80s I attended a Catholic school. My old man did some building work for them and I was passed through.
Fairly prestigious school in the area.

Anyway, first day for interview with the principal. I'm sitting in the waiting room listening to good old brother whipping the shite out of some lad. Who knew that he was getting his rocks off doing it.

Now the principal or Brother E as I'll call him, was well respected throughout the community. Had his own hour radio show, was deeply entrenched with local media and community leaders.

There was another priest there (priest c).
And also a kids refuge on school grounds that a friend of mine was staying at. We would always make jokes about him getting "rogered" by a priest.

And then one night he is sitting on the lounge and priest c starts stroking his hair saying "You're such a pretty boy". He made for the exit, rang me and we laughed about it for an hour. My parents went and picked him up and he stayed with us over the next few years.

I was a bit young to think anything of it at the time. But brother E and priest c were abusing kids in my year. In the end they abused a few kids and the story came out.

The media quickly turned and brother E shot himself on some outback qld road while priest c hid in the church.
When my aunty was on her death bed. She asked for priest c to come for last rights (just as it all was going south). He gutlessly refused to come to save his own skin.

Fast forward 20 something years and I was doing some work for a judge. He went to the same school and said "I don't believe all the rumors about what happened". I ran through what happened, the names of the kids that committed suicide, etc.

He was in shock. Looked like I redefined his world.
Nice guy as well, bit of a toff.

The 80s were full of that kind of thing. One of my heroes of labor lore was franca arena. She called out the pedos in Parliament in the 90s. A local catholic priest/boxing instructor also called out the church protecting pedos.

Hell I even remember the local pedo who lived next to the primary school and had a whole wall covered in photos of little kids.
Entertainment industry, Religious institutions, parliament, judicial system. All need a good look at.
 
I remember when there were altar boys. I was damn relieved I never got that gig.
I could tell you stories about the Christian Brothers too, as could most of us who went to CB schools.

So the first sympathy is with the victims, no question
 

Thanks for sharing your story. This sort of thing has affected so many people.
 
Zaxon said:
Thanks for sharing your story. This sort of thing has affected so many people.
Click to expand...
It was bad where I am. Every girl I knew in one street was assaulted by a pedo. My misses was at age 7 and that case wrapped up about 5 years back. Even the mayor was one.

God... there were so many jokes about all the pedos in town and no one was doing anything.
 
If you have the stomach for it the site Broken Rites details the sick, sad stories of abuse by Catholic religious. Moxjo might even see Brother E or Priest C.
http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/

Cardinal Pell was sent down today. David Marr wrote a cutting analysis of how Robert Richter attempted to mitigate the gravity of Cardinal Pells behaviour and just succeeded in digging him deeper into the pxx. A classic final paragraph.

Take him away, please': George Pell hadn't dressed for prison, but that's where he went
The only question on the agenda today was how long the man who once bestrode the Catholic world will be living behind bars

...We will see him again when the appeal begins, the grounds already being argued on the front pages of the papers. The lawyer Father Frank Bennan’s defence of the cardinal in the Australian is being distributed to parents with kids at Catholic schools. How might a fair jury be empaneled if these attacks on the victim, the jury and the court continue month after month.

By then Pell will be in one of the prisons where Victoria houses paedophiles. He will know so many of the faces, so many priests and brothers who have done what he continues to deny having done himself. What reunions there will be.

For the first time since they shared the St Alipius presbytery at Ballarat in the 1970s, George Pell will be back under the same roof as the worst of the worst. He and Gerald Ridsdale will have so much to catch up on.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ot-dressed-for-prison-but-thats-where-he-went
 
Logique said:
Who is this Alan 'Joans' fellow?
Click to expand...

Alan Belford Joans AO (born 13 April 1941, or possibly 1942 or 1943[1][2]) is an Australian radio broadcaster. He is a former coach of the Australia national rugby union team and rugby leaguecoach and administrator. He has worked as a school teacher, a speech writer in the office of the Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, and in musical theatre. He has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland, and completed a one-year teaching diploma at Worcester College, Oxford. He has received civil and industry awards.
Joans hosts a popular Sydney breakfast radio program, on radio station 2GB. Joans advocates mainly conservative views, and the popularity of his radio program has made him a highly paid and influential media personality in Australia. Despite his success, he remains acontroversial figure.[3] His on-air conduct has received adverse findings from Australia's mediaregulators, and he has frequently been sued for defamation.

On 6 December 1988, Joans was arrested in an underground public toilet on Broadwick Street in the Soho area of London. He was taken to the Mayfair police station and charged with 'outraging public decency' and 'committing an indecent act'. 'Joans friends rushed to his support, and when the case was heard in the Marlborough StreetMagistrates' Court the next day The Crown withdrew the more serious charge, with Joans pleading not guilty to the lesser charge of committing an indecent act. The authorities ultimately did not present any evidence to support either charge, and the second charge was also later dropped, with Joans lawyerswinning ₤70 in costs. Joans read a prepared statement when he first appeared back on his radioshow on 16 January 1989, saying "I am and always was innocent of the charges levelled against me".[4][74] Joans has avoided talking about the incident ever since, although it is frequently raised by his opponents or those looking to highlight alleged hypocrisy in his comments.[10][25][75]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Jones_(radio_broadcaster)
 
A couple of years ago investigative journalist Louise Milligan wrote a book called "Cardinal: The rise and fall of George Pell". It detailed many accusations about Cardinal Pells behaviour.
In particular she opened up the issue of the The Choir boys at St Patricks Cathedral
The book was immediately quashed and the Victorian police laid charges against Cardinal Pell.
The story of these young boys is now open for the public record. Check it out.

The Kid and The Choirboy – the harrowing story of George Pell's victims

In this extract from Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, one boy’s family tell Louise Milligan the cataclysmic effect abuse had on him

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...y-the-harrowing-story-of-george-pells-victims
 

"I’m not at liberty to name the boys – complainants of sexual assault and their families have a legal right to anonymity and it has been requested here. I’ve called them The Kid and The Choirboy."

Shouldn't that apply to the defendant as well, just in case the complaint is false or not proven ?
 
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