Police are investigating multiple child abuse allegations levelled directly against Australia's most senior Catholic cleric Cardinal George Pell, the ABC's 7.30 program has revealed.
Key points
- Victoria Police investigating multiple complaints of sexual abuse by Cardinal George Pell
- Complaints range from the 1970s to the 1990s, when Pell established the Catholic Church's response to sexual abuse allegations
- Pell describes the claims as "totally untrue and utterly wrong"
Victoria Police's Taskforce SANO, which investigates complaints coming out of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, has been examining the allegations by complainants from Ballarat, Torquay and Melbourne for more than a year.
They include allegations about incidents which allegedly happened during Cardinal Pell's time as Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.
7.30 understands that the Pell case has been referred by Victoria Police to the Office of Public Prosecutions for advice.
7.30 has obtained eight police statements from complainants, witnesses and family members who are helping the taskforce with their investigation.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton confirmed last month that the taskforce was investigating multiple allegations against the Cardinal and, if necessary, detectives would fly to Rome to interview George Pell, although the Chief Commissioner said "it had not been put as necessary to me at this point in time".
Mr Ashton declined to comment to 7.30, although his spokesman has confirmed to the program it is "very much a live investigation".
In a statement to the ABC, Cardinal Pell's office said he "emphatically and unequivocally rejects any allegations of sexual abuse against him", and accused the ABC of mounting a smear campaign against him.
Dave R
