LAWYERS for Cardinal George Pell have sent a letter to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse indicating they may cross-examine witnesses.
Timothy Green, who testified on Wednesday he told then Father Pell about Edward Dowlan abusing St Patrick’s College boys in 1974, and David Ridsdale, who said Fr Pell also attempted to bribe him to drop sexual abuse charges against his uncle Gerald, were not cross-examined after their evidence.
However, a letter from lawyer Kate Harrison, of Gilbert and Tobin Lawyers, said: “As our counsel advised the commission, the church parties do not intend to question survivor witnesses unnecessarily”.
“However, some of those associated with one or other of the church parties do have different recollections of conversations, or have different interpretations of events, referred to by some of the survivor witnesses.
The deliberate decision by the church parties not to question a survivor about a particular
event or conversation does not mean that the relevant church party accepts that every last detail of a survivor’s recollection is accurate.”
Cardinal Pell, now finance chief at the Vatican, released a statement online later on Wednesday night saying he had already addressed many of the claims levelled against him in a Victorian parliamentary inquiry in 2013, and he stood by those statements.
“Over the last 24 hours, I have been accused of being complicit in the moving of a known paedophile, of ignoring a victim’s complaint and of bribery,” he said. “These matters again require an immediate response and it is important to correct the record, particularly given the false and misleading headlines.”
In reference to Mr Green’s testimony, Cardinal Pell said: “To the best of my belief, this conversation did not happen.”
Senior counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, described it as a “statement of denial, rather than a statement of difference”.
Commission chairman Justice Peter McClellan also said: “There is a direct conflict between witnesses as to whether a particular event occurred or a particular statement was made, either because there’s been a mistake or one or the other may not be telling the truth and should be disbelieved.”
