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How much did Pell know? We’re about to find out
The Victorian government has cleared the release of unpublished findings from the inquiry into child sex abuse, which detail Cardinal George Pell’s knowledge of the offendings.
Naomi Neilson
The Victorian Attorney-General Jill Hennessy advised federal counterpart Christian Porter that she was greenlighting the unredaction of blacked-out sections from the institutional abuse royal commission final report, after the High Court overturned Cardinal Pell’s convictions.
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The final report contains pages of redacted information about the Catholic church and its handling of child abuse allegations in the Melbourne archdiocese and Ballarat diocese. It is more specifically related to Cardinal Pell’s handling of the incidents.
“The government is not aware of any impediments to the unredacted versions of a report being tabled and published at this time,” Ms Hennessy said in a statement. “The removal of redactions is entirely a matter for the royal commission.”
The report was redacted due to Cardinal Pell’s ongoing legal actions at the time. Findings remained redacted throughout his criminal trials and subsequent appeals due to fears of prejudicing the jury. There has been pressure on the government to release the findings, due to the case finally coming to an end in March.
The decision to release the finding now rests with Mr Porter, given the royal commission completed its work and released its final report in December 2017.
Mr Porter said it would only be released once Victorian law enforcement is confident the findings would not jeopardise future investigations or prosecutions.
