The father of one of the choirboys who was sexually assaulted by Cardinal George Pell has had an unusually quiet week.
A few months ago he was taking phone calls from The New York Times and The Washington Post, as the media storm surrounding his son’s abuser’s trial whipped up international headlines. He spent last week nervously awaiting the outcome of Pell’s appeal, suffering sleepless nights only to rejoice at it being dismissed.
Sitting in the lounge room of his home in a sprawling development on the outskirts of Ballarat, he told INQ how he had no idea his life would be so profoundly affected by the actions of one man — a man who spent much of his life not far from where the choirboy’s father now calls home.
“Living in Ballarat, a lot of people know him, and have known him from when he was quite young,” he said. “I’m in the dragon’s lair.”
The father, whose name has long been withheld to protect the identity of Pell’s surviving victim, has now been left to consider just how big an impact Pell’s abuse has had on his life. His son, referred to in the trial as R, died of a heroin overdose in 2014 at the age of 30. The boy never spoke to his father — or anyone else — about the abuse that occurred at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne when he and his friend were just 13 years old. But his father believes that was the reason his son turned to drugs.
“He went from being a friendly kid that would do anything you would ask him to do, to someone who didn’t give a stuff,” he said. “It wasn’t a very good life. It wasn’t a good way of living.”
R’s trouble with drugs started not long after his abuse occurred. At 14, his behaviour changed so dramatically that his parents took him to be assessed by a psychologist at the Royal Children’s Hospital. The psychologist, whose initial assessment suggested some kind of attention disorder, would later give evidence at the trial, saying had she known about the abuse, her examination would have been different.
By 16, R was addicted to heroin and disappearing from the family home in the northern suburbs of Melbourne for days at a time. During his 20s, he spent time in and out of jail for possession. It was after a brief time away, during which time he had come clean, that he died from an accidental overdose in St Albans. But it wasn’t until a year after his death that R’s father learned that he had been named in a statement by his son’s friend, alleging they were both sexually abused by Pell in the 1990s.
“It was like being hit over the head with a bat, it really was,” he said.
R’s father has long threatened to seek compensation for what happened to his son at the hands of the third most senior Catholic in the world, and is now finalising a civil claim through Shine Lawyers.
“With all the anguish, all the upset and all the depression and anxiety, I’ve got a lot of issues that have arisen since my son’s death,” he said.
But he says he’s ambivalent about the outcome.
“It wasn’t the most important thing in my mind. The most important thing in my mind was getting justice.”
Since learning that his son was abused, he’s been forced to look at his son’s addiction through a new lens. And while he feels justice is finally being done, he still feels anger and betrayal towards Pell and the Church. It’s the hypocrisy that sticks in his throat the most, he says, like how his son was kicked out of the choir for bending the corners of his hymn book — an innocent act compared to the horrors inflicted upon his son by Pell. He also feels anger when he recalls how proud his parents had been to see their grandson up there on the choir stand.
“My mother was proud as punch. And my father. They used to come to church and sit there and listen to the choir.”
Last week, after the appeal was quashed, he made a toast to his son with a glass of Chivas Regal, which was given to him by his son on the Christmas before his death. Going through old mementos of his son, he says he’s undeterred by the prospect of Pell appealing to the High Court, and feels that justice will prevail.
“I used to look at his photo and think, what a waste of a life. Now I look at it and think it was still a waste of a life, but there was a reason why he died. There was a reason why he couldn’t tell us. And the reason was Pell.”
10 thoughts on “‘There was a reason why my son died … And the reason was Pell.’”
educate.the.masses
August 30, 2019 at 12:55 pmIt just breaks my heart to read this. Pell lived a long and prosperous life and this innocent boy had everything taken away from him at such a young age. I’m grateful the law eventually caught up with him but it’s terrifying to know how much damage has already been done to this family and no doubt many others.
Bref
August 30, 2019 at 2:08 pmDefinitely go for the money. Sue the arse off them! While some brothers and priests are caught and charged, almost no one in the organisation is ever held to account for protecting them for years on end. Even now there are probably priests who, like Pell, will continue to ‘serve’ and even be promoted to high positions without any regard for the crimes they have committed. Money is the only thing that they understand. Only when every brother’s or priest’s conviction turns into a multi million dollar lawsuit against the church will we see change.
ratty
August 31, 2019 at 8:50 pmIt is not only the perpetrators that are the criminals in these cases.
It is the confessors who forgave them.
The whole organization that coalesces around them, although there have been many reports of questionable behavior by the perpetrator in the past, defending them, they, too are also criminals. “After the fact”.
As for the people who can’t and won’t accept a conviction, upheld on appeal; let me draw your attention to the reason Pell was not in jail months before.
His conviction, suppressed in Australia, because he was facing further charges along the same lines.
The death of his next accuser, although sad and tragic for his family, saved us another trial.
Maybe Pell would have been be found not guilty, but, that is , on a probability, likely, only on the basis that most survivors of sexual abuse are only survivors, they usually do not thrive.
In effect, Pell may have got away with it, but that would not have made him innocent.
redniba124
August 31, 2019 at 12:05 am“His son, referred to in the trial as R, died of a heroin overdose in 2014 at the age of 30. The boy never spoke to his father — or anyone else — about the abuse that occurred at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne when he and his friend were just 13 years old. But his father believes that was the reason his son turned to drugs.”
This is hearsay – not evidence. One alleged incident – never spoken of or told to anyone causes this boy’s lifetime addiction and eventual death. I would suggest there is a lot more to the story of this boy’s life than that.
ratty
August 31, 2019 at 7:03 pmYes, there is a lot more to this mans death than is disclosed.
This boy was vulnerable because he was a scholarship boy, this was disclosed in the original trial.
Let us look at the actions of a predator.
Identify victim/s, this often determined by their or their families status within the society.
Isolate the victim/s
Exploit victim/s
The most common response for victims of sexual abuse are self destructive, which makes it a very good bet that by the time comes, for an accusation to be made, they are not credible because of the self-destructive behavior.
When this boy’s initial self destructive behavior began a Child Psychologist diagnosed a an ADHD, but in retrospect, if informed of the sexual abuse, would have diagnosed differently.
The boy would not have been game to accuse the Bishop of sexual abuse. Consider the familial pressure of Grand parents proud as punch of your scholarship/ choir place and so forth.
The very Catholic family would be unlikely to even believe him, if he had spoken out. If he spoken after the self-destruction had begun (aged 14) he would lack any credibility.
Sexual abuse victims usually go to substance abuse, which if it is drugs, usually leads to criminal behavior in order to feed the habit.
And so, any predator, in a position of trust and authority has his pick of the flock, so to speak.
In Pell’s case he has the whole of the Catholic Church singing his praise and innocence.
Looking at it dispassionately, he set up the Melbourne response to protect himself and it is easy enough to work that out, because he spent more on lawyers, than he did on compensation for victims. In fact he set about destroying a man because he wasn’t going to be quiet and accept a pittance for the abuse he suffered.
The blessing in this, is that the other child involved, in this episode, also never spoke of it, or made an accusation. He also managed to compartmentalize, the abuse, and consciously decided to not allow it to contaminate the rest of his life. An unusual response.
He was only brought out, by the death of his friend who did not have the same ability to compartmentalize.
Obviously, he has been found to be both credible and unimpeachable in regard to the conduct of his life, so far. His right to privacy has been respected, which has been a feat in itself, however, No one doubts that if this veil is ever lifted the consequences will be dire and unmitigated.
The boy/victim who died, was a stock standard life following sexual abuse, the witness, must have an outstanding intellect and a drive that allows emotional compartmentalization’s, the world is a better place for him.
It should always be remembered, that many other victims of sexual abuse have died from their self-destructive behaviors.
The question that I ask, is how many other people lives, did Pell’s predilection, take?
redniba124
September 2, 2019 at 12:25 amA pyramid of speculation unless you know the family personally. Yes, these stories are true for many wicked priests who have abused children – but the issue is not that – it is the actions of Pell, and Pell only at issue.
The pile-on Pell has been relentless from all manner of media and social media sources.
And how much real evidence is there of Pell being a predator and serial abuser – you tell me!!
The ‘Pool’ allegations dissolved within a day of the ‘trial’ opening – this is the trial for which the whole suppression business of the Cathedral conviction was wrought. Do you think that experienced prosecutors would not have known that the Pool evidence was so flimsy that the trial would collapse??
So we are left with the 2 alleged 1996 incidents in the Cathedral, the second of which Judge Weinberg found unbelievable, casting doubt on the whole story.
ratty
September 2, 2019 at 1:21 amWho says I don’t know the family?
As for “wicked priests”, but not our Pell. Oh, sure. Look over there………
Denial of a crime, does not make it less of a crime, it adds injustice to the victims.
And again goes to character.
Ted Bundy was charming and charismatic and completely reliable and believable, does this sound familiar?
The Melbourne response was a smokescreen for Pell to manage and control what came into the public domain and mercilessly destroy anyone who stood up to him, as a warning to others.
There were many other allegations, quickly dismissed by the church and you forgot to mention the death of a witness was the main reason why the “swimming pool” trial didn’t go ahead.
redniba124
September 2, 2019 at 11:38 pmYour assertions about Pell are not evidence.
The Ted Bundy analogy is irrelevant. You could equally apply the same argument to an accuser, believable, with no logical reason to lie – yet a liar.
That is why uncorroborated ‘he said-she said’ evidence is so problematic.
Most reasonable people tend to believe an accuser in such situations. Why would someone make up such a story; what is there to gain? Yet it happens and probably more often than one thinks. Ask John Jarratt.
Calside
August 31, 2019 at 4:07 pmGiven that morality appears to be outside the Church’s remit, ABSOLUTELY do everything you can to secure an enormous payout. It’s clearly the only thing the Church now holds dear, and everything that can be done to erode the arrogance that accompanies the Church’s endless denials should be ruthlessly pursued.
Abeya
September 7, 2019 at 8:07 pmMy sympathies for the loss of your son and empathy for your anger and frustration toward Pell and the Catholic Church. You are not alone with these feelings. How could any parent or intelligent person feel any other way?
To state the obvious. We all know that child sexual abuse affects children, and not in a positive way. We also know that those affected children become adults, carrying the burden of that trauma. Many of us also know that sexual abuse at the hands of ‘the religious’ also carries the additional burden of total denial/unbelievability/from ‘the untouchables, read those in Religious Power. . The Religious, particularly priests are seen as one step away from God, which stirs a spiritual/belief/identity crisis in young children and an unwillingness to speak up. Remember many of these historical crimes were set against a background of ‘fire and brimstone’ Catholocism which privleged Religious Orders (Priests, Brothers, Nuns over the laity, (people , particularly adults of a religous faith, in this instance, the Catholic faith, seperate from the Clergy)not so much children who were the lowest pecking order of the laity – ‘to be seen and not heard’.
Frequently, these religious figures “may as well have been God, as they were perceived as that powerful, certainly more in our faces than the invisible hand of God”. Soothsayers need to understand this. Try to put yourself in the child’s situation and feel the power differential. Enormous! Try to put yourself in the parent’s situation. Have some empathy.
The denial of wrong-doing, even in the face of conviction, as in Pell’s case, from ‘Catholic believers at any cost’ who question ‘the evidence’ despite the findings of the court, and evidence of the Court, to which the public was not privvy points to the child-washing by the Catholic Church at large. Priests before little people is now no longer okay. It’s a thing!
On any moral compass, loss of life by suicide, is partly attributable to both the hierarchy and institution of the Catholic Church where it chose historically to keep its very powerful hands tied and to do nothing about those very paedophiles it knew it harboured and had lurking within its very walls. . walking its corridors of power, churches and schools. It even knew there were unknown paedophiles and chose to not look within and find them. The evidence of this was made abundantly clear throughout the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse. Did the ‘Catholic Church Hierarchy” know that Pell was one? Who knows – this wasn’t on trial (cannot be on trial) and not material to Pell’s conviction.
What many know and I know is that the Catholic Hierarchy is not transparent, is party to cover-ups and lacks transparency. While this does not sit well and is totally frustrating, it is not the reason Pell ‘went down’. it was not the Catholic Church on trial, it was Pell. So let’s move on, suffice to say I don’t see the Catholic Church voluntarily relaxing its hands on the issue of transparency and child sex abuse cases anytime soon – coming clean with what it knows – given that internal isolationist and protectionist policies apply still apply to its practice.
So on any moral compass, loss of life by suicide is attributable in part to the actual paedophiles, convicted or still in hiding who have sexually abused children, now adult or not. Why? – because it is a precautionary principle that needs to be adopted, morally, ethically – how can it not? You can’t go around committing sex crimes against children without accepting that there is a good chance that this, and therefore you as perpetrator may not have contributed to pushing ‘them over the edge one day.’ It’s not like giving them detention – it’s seriously big psychological and emotional dysfunction you’ve dropped on them.
However, that’s not what Pell’s legal case was about either. He wasn’t convicted for causing suicide. That’s not a thing the Court does. He was convicted of and found guilty by a Court of Law for committing sex crimes against children. He is to date a convicted pedophile, appeal withstanding.
No matter the outcome, on any view he is morally reprehensible.