‘Pell is the head Catholic figure in the country, and he should be here, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the survivors,’ says lawyer representing victims

On Monday, survivors of child sexual abuse, their supporters, lawyers, solicitors and representatives of the Catholic church will descend on the bucolic Australian town of Ballarat for the second time in nine months.

The royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse, tasked by the federal government in 2013 to take on the massive job of independently investigating child sexual abuse within churches and other institutions throughout Australia, will once again turn its attention to the Diocese of Ballarat.

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Two previous rounds of Ballarat-focussed hearings, one held in the town itself and one in Melbourne, heard evidence from survivors of abuse within the diocese, as well as bishops and priests who were witness to, or responsible for, abusing. This time, the commissioners will question senior religious and educational figures within the diocese.

The hearing will culminate on 29 February when Australia’s most senior Catholic and the financial head of the Vatican, Cardinal George Pell, gives evidence via video-link from Rome. Pell has given evidence before the commission twice previously, the questions asked of him not relating to Ballarat but to the Archdiocese of Melbourne. The first time his evidence was given in person, and the second time, in 2015, via videolink.

This time, things are much different.

Pell has a lot more to answer than just how the Archdiocese of Melbourne responded to and investigated allegations of child sexual abuse within its institutions during the period he served as Auxillary bishop.

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The previous two Ballarat-focussed hearings heard evidence that while he was an assistant priest at Ballarat East from 1973 to 1983, Pell allegedly was involved in moving a notorious pedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, between parishes. Pell also worked at the parish during a period when several Catholic priests were later found to have assaulted young boys, the commission heard, raising questions about how, given his senior position, he could not have known.

One of Ridsdale’s victims was his nephew, David Ridsdale, who gave evidence at the first of the commission’s Ballarat hearings. He alleged that he told Pell about the abuse he had endured, but Pell encouraged him to keep quiet. Pell has previously denied the allegations via a statement from Rome.

On Friday, however, came perhaps the biggest bombshell to date, with reports detectives have compiled a dossier containing allegations Pell committed “multiple offences” when he was a priest in Ballarat including allegedly sexually abusing minors “by both grooming and opportunity”.

Pell has vehemently denied the allegations, describing them in a statement as “outrageous”, “without foundation”, “utterly false”, and “designed to embarrass”. He has also called for an investigation into the Victorian police force to identify the source of the claims.

The survivors of abuse at the hands of staff employed by the Diocese of Ballarat, on the other hand, want little to do with the allegations.

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They have courageously and openly told their stories to the commission and to the media, facing interview after interview and, for some, cross-examination by Pell’s formidable legal team. They have called for Pell to come back to Ballarat and appear in person before the commission. When Pell’s lawyers twice tendered documents to the commission that said Pell was too unwell to fly to Australia, they launched a public fundraising campaign – which raised more than $200,000 in a few days – to fly the church’s victims to him.

But they draw the line at getting involved in allegations that come from outside of the commission’s work. Guardian Australia contacted representatives of the major support groups for survivors in Ballarat, who feel questions about Pell should be raised not through police leaks to the media but through the royal commission’s due process.

Having worked for more than three years to co-operate with the commission and respectfully listen to and respond through their lawyers to evidence from the church, the survivors’ focus is very much on Monday; on the third round of Ballarat hearings, getting through it, and having their stories heard, believed and responded to through the commission’s public and transparent processes.

Though they have shied away from the media in light of the allegations around Pell, the presence of abuse survivors in Ballarat, a town of about 100,000 people 100km west-north-west of the city of Melbourne, is unmistakable. Thousands of colourful ribbons tied to the fences surrounding Catholic schools and churches in the town mark their presence.

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Following the last round of gruelling hearings in December, the ribbons began cropping up on fences and people have not stopped adding to them since in a show of support for the survivors. A man wanders up to the fence of St Patrick’s Cathedral, his partner watching on, and ties a Batman ribbon carefully to it, taking his time.

“When you walk through the town and see the ribbons, it reflects the sadness, but also that there’s just a lot of support in the community for the victims,” one resident tells Guardian Australia.

“That reflects a strength to this town.”

The town has needed strength in spades. The commission has previously heard evidence from the Ballarat Survivors Group that at least 45 victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy have taken their own lives in the town. There have been many more since then, says Dr Judy Courtin, a lawyer who represents victims of child sexual abuse on behalf of Angela Sdrinis Legal.

“These 45 suicides were all people abused in the same roughly five-year period as children in Ballarat,” Courtin says.

“Five years. Police supposedly investigated these 45 suicides, but I got hold of the police report, and it was rubbish. They didn’t investigate all of them, and they found only one was related to sexual abuse. That’s a joke, and it’s so terribly insulting.

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“But sadly in Ballarat the way child sexual abuse was historically investigated is a reflection of so many cities and regional towns across the whole bloody world.”

Courtin earned her doctorate by examining sexual assault and the Catholic church, and interviewing victims about whether they had found justice and what justice meant to them. Even more so than individual perpetrators being prosecuted, she said, victims overwhelmingly told her that they wanted the hierarchy of the Catholic church and their institutions, who often knew about the abuse but covered it up and allowed it to continue, to be held to account.

“Accountability of the hierarchy means criminal accountability for the crime of concealment,” Courtin said.

“We don’t have one criminal conviction in Australia against members of the hierarchy of the Catholic church who have taken part in concealing abuse that occurred. And those who are overseas enjoy impunity.

“But Pell is the head Catholic figure in the country, and he should be here, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the survivors and their families in a courtroom as a part of the democratic system all the other witnesses, including victims, had to face.”

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A royal commission, though it does not have prosecutor powers, or the ability to compel people overseas to give evidence, can refer matters it believes warrants it to police, and at its close provides a comprehensive list of recommendations to governments and institutions to ensure errors of the past are prevented from happening again.

Stephen Woods was raped and sexually abused by three different members of the Ballarat clergy while he was a student at St Alipius Christian Brothers primary school and St Patrick’s college. It began when he was just 11. Two of his six brothers were also abused by members of the clergy.

Now in his 50s, Woods doesn’t live in Ballarat anymore. He primarily returns when the royal commission holds its hearings in the town, having himself given evidence.

“It’s a beautiful place to visit, and I would recommend anyone to go there,” he says.

“It’s stunning. But the memories for me and many others are so, so associated with child sexual abuse, and that’s a shame.”

Woods knows of men, victims of sexual abuse when they were just children, who have lost their businesses in Ballarat and who are unable to work, so tormenting have been the memories of abuse dredged up. Others he has known have taken their own lives, or have tried to. He agrees with Courtin that transparency and accountability from the upper echelons of the church is fundamental to his and their healing.

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But the response by the people of Ballarat to abuse survivors, tying their ribbons and pledging their support, has left him heartened. In 1854, a rebellion of gold miners in Ballarat revolted against the colonial authority of the UK in a battle known as the Eureka stockade.

“Maybe this is another Eureka moment for the town,” he says.

“People have pulled together, even people unaffected by the abuse, because they know things need to change.”

Do you have any information about this story? Please contact melissa.davey@theguardian.com

Statement from the office of Cardinal George Pell