By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
FATHER Peter Searson’s terror reign at Holy Family School in Doveton continued because a delegation of teachers advised they did not want him removed, Cardinal George Pell told a Royal Commission hearing on 3 March.
Cardinal Pell was questioned in depth for four days by the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse via a video link from Rome.
On Thursday, the final day, Paul O’Dwyer SC quizzed Cardinal Pell on the 18-teacher delegation that visited him with grievances about the parish priest’s conduct with children in 1989 – eight years before Father Searson was dismissed.
Mr O’Dwyer asserted that the school community thought Father Searson was a risk to children.
Cardinal Pell replied: “The staff didn’t say it in those terms because they didn’t ask for his removal. They asked for him to stay on.”
Mr O’Dwyer said it “beggars belief” that the staff wouldn’t tell the then-Auxiliary Bishop they had concerns for the children’s safety.
“They were expressed to some degree,” Cardinal Pell said. “But in the context of not asking for him to be removed.”
Ahead of the meeting, Cardinal Pell received a list of five complaints including a “small group of children shown (a) dead body in (a) coffin”, “cruelty to an animal in front of young children” and “compulsion on children to attend reconciliation on demand”.
Also on the list was “unnecessary use of children’s toilets” and “harassment of children”.
Cardinal Pell said Father Searson’s compelling of children to go into confession was “unacceptable” and the loitering around toilets “unseemly”.
“Certainly (the loitering) raises the possibility of inappropriate behaviour and abuse.
“His defence was that he was vigilant, that graffiti was to be removed.”
Mr O’Dwyer asked: “Are you saying those teachers never mentioned anything to you about Father Searson being a risk of abusing children?”
“I remember very explicitly they weren’t asking for his removal,” Cardinal Pell replied.
“And that obviously is incompatible to them saying to me that he is a serious risk of paedophilia.”
Nonetheless, Cardinal Pell said he still took the complaints “very seriously” and passed them on to Melbourne Archbishop Frank Little with the message that the teachers didn’t want Father Searson removed.
In turn, Cardinal Pell was instructed to pass the concerns onto Father Searson, to request he “followed all the rules and regulations very carefully and explicitly”.
In 1991, a delegation of Holy Family parents told then-Auxiliary-Bishop Pell of Father Searson frequenting boys’ toilets, observing boys showering and taking children alone into the presbytery without teacher permission.
Cardinal Pell said he didn’t investigate though the parish was in his region; it was the responsibility of the education office and the Vicar General.
A day earlier at the Commission, Cardinal Pell stated the Catholic Education Office had inadequately briefed him on the list of issues ahead of the meeting with teachers.
He said the education office at the time deceived him partly to protect then-Archbishop Frank Little, who had been inactive on the Searson matter.
The argument was described as “completely implausible” by Gail Furness SC, counsel assisting the Commission.
The Royal Commission had been earlier told of a litany of complaints about Father Searson such as killing a bird with a screwdriver and tossing a cat to its death – both in front of children – as well sexually abusing and striking children.
Cardinal Pell, as then Archbishop of Melbourne, dismissed Father Searson in 1997 after police laid a charge of assaulting a boy.
Searson had been at the parish since 1984.
