The church paid her a total of $188,000.00 on what was subsequently shown to be fraudulent claims.

She had provided medical reports by a psychiatrist and a general practitioner supporting her claim as well as emails purportedly from other victims of the same priest.

All her claims as well as the emails from other purported victims were fake.

An independent investigator working for the church at the time found that the information provided was legitimate.

The woman wanted her complaint to be kept confidential and dealt with only by the church.

The complaint was handled in-house by the Palmerston North Catholic Diocese Protocol Committee, which deals with allegations of sexual abuse by clergy.

The fraud was discovered only when the church queried one of the reports with a health provider.

The woman, who has name suppression, appeared at the Morrinsville District Court on Wednesday, June 8.

She had been charged with obtaining by deception $188,190.17 from the Catholic Church.

She is due to appear at the Hamilton District Court on June 27 for sentencing.

In the Morrinsville District Court, the former chair of the protocol committee told the court that the woman took advantage of her goodwill.

"I believe her fraudulent claims have damaged the claims of men and women who have suffered genuine abuse and has caused psychological harm to persons like myself, who give their time to support victims," she said as part of her victim impact statement.

" "I was duped and indeed cynically mocked by one of my own gender who blatantly lied ... fraudulently secured a large sum of money for her own use and committed a grave injustice on an innocent man."

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: lawyer-ok.biz

Dowlan, who has since changed his name to Ted Bales, was jailed last year for abusing boys in the 1970s and '80s.

"With the experience of 40 years later, certainly I would agree that I should have done more," Pell told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney via video link from Rome.

The cardinal has consistently denied any wrongdoing during his time in the town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne in the 1970s and 1980s when pedophile priests abused dozens of children.

In his testimony on Thursday, Pell claimed that at least two archbishops deceived him by not revealing what was happening during a period of "crimes and cover-ups."

The prelate said that "reading the transcripts of the way the victims suffered" was the toughest part of his four days of testimony.

The 74-year old cardinal admitted that he should have followed up on the complaint about Dowlan.

"People had different attitudes then…and the boy wasn't asking me to do anything about it," Pell said.

After his testimony, Pell said he didn't think the hearing in Rome will hurt his reputation. "This event might do a little bit of good in Europe," he said.

The cardinal said he was tired but satisfied he had contributed to a process of healing and to prevent a repetition of the tragedy of child sex abuse at the hands of the clergy in Australia.

"All of the leadership of the church in Australia is committed to avoiding any repetition of the terrible history of the past and to try to make things better," he said.

A group of abuse survivors who traveled to Rome to witness the testimony said they did not believe Pell.

"We feel we have been deceived and lied to," the group said in a statement. "We feel George has not been honest nor truthful. George will have to live with this chosen course," the group added.

Australia ordered the Royal Commission in 2012 after a decade of growing pressure to investigate allegations of widespread pedophilia.

It has spoken to almost 5,000 survivors and heard claims of abuse involving churches, orphanages, community and youth groups and schools.

Sources

The Telegraph
news.com.au
The Sydney Morning Herald
BBC
Image: Getty Images/BBC