Australian Cardinal George Pell arrives the Quirinale hotel in Rome,
from where he is giving evidence to Australia’s child sex abuse royal
commission via videolink.
Photograph: Alessandra Tarantino/APA recap of the day's evidence
- Child sexual abuse survivors from Ballarat watching Pell’s evidence
in Rome have just held a press conference calling for a meeting with the
head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis. They
say they have grown frustrated with Pell’s evidence. While some would
still be willing to meet with Pell, their priority is a meeting with
Pope Francis.
- Pell says the senior figures around him deceived him about the
extent of abuse within the Catholic church. But counsel assisting, Gail Furness, didn’t accept Pell’s evidence that he was unaware of the abuse inflicted on children by Father Ridsdale and Searson.
- Furness also did not accept Pell’s evidence that senior figures who
worked alongside him who knew of the abuse deliberately didn’t tell him
about it.
- For the second time in two days, Furness told Pell his evidence was “implausible” adding it was “designed to deflect blame”.
- Furness and the commission chair, Justice Peter McClellan, have finished their questioning. Lawyers representing have begun their questioning of Pell and this will continue tomorrow.
- The commission will begin an hour early tomorrow, at 7am Australian
eastern daylight time, and run until 1pm in order to get through all of
the questioning. We will bring you live coverage again then.
Melissa Davey with you here, closing off our live
blog for today. Thanks for joining me. I’ll be with you again from
6.30am tomorrow and, in the meantime, you can share your thoughts with
me on
Australian Cardinal George Pell arrives the Quirinale hotel in Rome,
from where he is giving evidence to Australia’s child sex abuse royal
commission via videolink.
Photograph: Alessandra Tarantino/APA recap of the day's evidence
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