Jennifer found the process to be every bit as aloof and calculated as Pell himself. Her family was well-known to Pell, who had been bishop in their area for a decade. He confirmed Jennifer and her younger brother. Yet all this meant little when she came forward. Today she feels emboldened - in fact compelled - to speak out about it. She is unlikely to be the only one - law firms believe victims who were paid out under Pell's scheme may be entitled to tens of millions of dollars in additional compensation. Jennifer is firm that this is not the reason she is speaking now. Rather, she wants people to understand the broader spectrum of suffering that happened under the powerful man she used to think of as "he who would be Pope". The man at the apex of the system that failed her has now been convicted of abuse himself, and yet Jennifer found herself reading a newspaper article last month that suggested Pell's conviction made him a scapegoat for society's frustrations. "Just don’t see this man as a martyr," Jennifer said. "Not after everything he’s put us through … He is not to be pitied."

Jennifer's 1997 statement to police is hard to read. When she was eight, she was sent by her teacher to a seminary adjacent to her Catholic school in a southern suburb of Melbourne to carry out an errand. While she was looking for something in the chapel cupboard, a priest she didn't know approached her. "Jennifer" remembered nothing about the priest other than that he spoke with a thick Italian accent. Credit:Darrian Traynor After grabbing her, he pulled down her tights, raped her and then forced her to perform a sex act on him. "I can remember that he said I was bad and evil, and that I was naughty, and that God was watching me," she told police. She remembered nothing about the priest other than that he spoke with a thick Italian accent. The police investigated thoroughly. Jennifer said they were "fantastic". They believed her but, in the end, there was not enough evidence for a conviction.

Jennifer's parents said the police had told them the chief suspect had been "moved back to Italy" and this had hampered the investigation. The police also said other people had made complaints about this priest. "They said if he were ever to enter the country again, he would be a person of interest to them," Jennifer's mother said. April 2013: Peter O'Callaghan QC gives testimony about the Melbourne Response at the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and other Non-government Organisations. Credit:Justin McManus The happy and outgoing child her parents had known changed virtually overnight. For a month afterwards she fiercely resisted going to school. Her parents were worried but never knew the reason for the change. In late 1997, Jennifer met the independent commissioner the Church had appointed, Peter O'Callaghan, QC, who ended up serving in the role for 20 years. She also met with the compensation panel and with Carelink, which was co-ordinating health services under the Melbourne Response.

The process happened in fits and starts. Jennifer said she and her parents "had to instigate everything", though she also put things on hold herself for just under two years when she went to live overseas. “You had to push and push and push. The only reason they took me seriously, I think, was because I went to the police.” Her mother recalls the meeting with Mr O'Callaghan as professional but "very lawyerly". The process struck her as "trying to keep everything within the Church to limit the damage to the Church". "It didn't seem to take into any account the human damage that had been done." The Child Abuse Royal Commission made extensive criticisms of Pell's Melbourne Response along very similar lines to Jennifer's, including that it was "not sufficiently independent of the Archdiocese of Melbourne in its operation".

Loading It concluded that a "scheme that is heavily dominated by lawyers and traditional legal process is unlikely to provide the most supportive environment for complainants". It found Mr O'Callaghan had discouraged two victims from going to the police. Jennifer and her parents are certain they never received a transcript of the interview with Mr O'Callaghan. It is not suggested that Mr O'Callaghan personally withheld from providing the transcript to Jennifer and her parents. If the archdiocese did fail to send a copy of the transcript, this would be a breach of the process. A spokesman for the Melbourne Archdiocese said that Jennifer had been legally represented throughout the process but did not comment specifically on whether a transcript had been sent. Mr O'Callaghan told the royal commission he had been "independent in all respects", making decisions "without fear or favour and without any influence from other persons".

Jennifer reached the end of the Melbourne Response process more than three years after she told her parents about the rape. In 2000, she received a carefully worded pro forma letter from Pell offering her $25,000 as compensation along with a legal agreement that she drop the matter. "It is my hope that my offer ... will be accepted by you as a preferable alternative to legal proceedings and that it too will assist you with your future," Pell wrote. An earlier, harsher, version of the letter had warned victims the Church would "strenuously defend" any court proceedings. The royal commission found it was "inevitable" that such language would intimidate victims who might be considering pursuit of civil cases. Jennifer accepted the payment and understood the agreement to also impose a legal obligation on her not to talk about her abuse - one reason she hasn't spoken about her experience before. A Church lawyer acknowledged to the royal commission that some of the compensation paperwork could be read as legally compelling victims' silence, but insisted that this was not actually the case.

Jennifer, who is now 40, has managed well, but the rape has changed her life, her mother says. She has a prominent role in the public service, which is part of the reason she has requested anonymity. But her personal relationships have suffered. She had a long-term male partner until recently, though her psychologist says there were unhealthy aspects to the relationship. The psychologist told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age the impact of the rape had been "profound and pervasive". Ribbons on the railings of St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne earlier this month, for the victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. Credit:Simon Schluter The family remain astounded that no one senior from the Church - not their local priest, much less Pell - phoned or held a meeting with them. "We were known enough in the area and in the Church ... and we were just left out in the cold," Jennifer said.