Australia’s most senior cardinal under investigation for child sex abuse

George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric and a key figure in the Vatican under Pope Francis, is being investigated by police over child sex abuse allegations. 

A special police task force had been looking into the allegations for nearly a year but has now referred the case to the office of public prosecutions for advice.

Pell strongly denied the allegations when asked about it.

Pell accused the media, especially the ABC broadcaster, of a “scandalous smear campaign” against him.

Meanwhile, the ABC broadcaster said that police and prosecutors could decide whether the allegations warrant charges being filed against the cardinal.

The allegations went back to the 1970s, when Pell was a priest in the northern Victorian town of Ballarat.

Two men claimed on the programme that they had been molested in a swimming pool by Pell in the 1970s when they were young boys.

Also, another man alleged that he had seen Pell expose himself to young boys in a beach changing room in the 1980s.

The men said they had made statements to police.