Commission condemns Pell abuse scheme

The scheme introduced by George Pell to deal with complaints of sexual abuse discouraged victims from going to the police, Australia’s child-abuse Royal Commission found, writes James Roberts.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse this week released its report into Cardinal Pell’s “Melbourne Response”.

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 the commission said compensation schemes discouraged taking complaints to the police, the Herald Sun reported. Cardinal Pell and the current archbishop, Denis Hart, gave evidence that the Melbourne Response operated independently of the archdiocese. But the commission found the legal advisers to the archdiocese also provided services to the independent commissioner.