Peter O'Callaghan QC represented grandparents, Westernport Hotel, at Liquor Royal Commission
08:00 Fri, 10 Oct 2025
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.
The rogue Debianists began using their debian-private whisper network to spread rumours about abuse on 24 December 2018, Christmas Eve, just days after the late Cardinal Pell had been convicted.
Abuse is an important subject so I felt it was important to look and make sure I hadn't missed anything. No proof presented itself but one of the more unusual discoveries comes from the Victorian Liquor Royal Commission.
There was a news report which I copy below. In hindsight, it is fascinating.
My grandparents were married by Fr Frank Ryder, who was also the brother of my grandmother.
In an era long before social media and even before the era of radio shock jocks, priests had a far more significant role in society, comparable to the role of modern day influencers. In our modern, secular lifestyles it is harder to visualize the significance of having a priest in the family. Back in the day, this was something to be proud of.
My grandfather was a distinguished schoolteacher employed by the state. My uncle also become a teacher working for Catholic education. My grandfather had worked at various places in Western Victoria. The lawyer in the news article, Peter O'Callaghan, is from Horsham and the late Cardinal Pell is from Ballarat. Nonetheless, as both O'Callaghan and Pell had been in Catholic schools and my grandfather worked in public schools, it is not clear their paths crossed before this.
My grandfather eventually quit teaching. The news report tells us this was due to the burden of red tape for schoolteachers.
In 1959, the late Cardinal Pell had allegedly been signed by the Richmond Football Club. He had a formidable reputation as an Australian rules football player. He turned down the opportunity and went into the seminary in 1960 to commence training for priesthood.
Records tell us my grandparents acquired the license for the Westernport Hotel some time in 1960.
The Westernport Hotel is in San Remo, the gateway to Philip Island.
In 1961, Peter O'Callaghan signed the bar roll in the State of Victoria.
My great uncle, Fr Frank Thomas Ryder, died on 21 September 1961.
The oldest allegations against the late Cardinal Pell were only raised after he had a very significant public profile in 2002. The allegations concern a camp at Philip Island in January 1961 or January 1962. At the time, Pell was still a seminarian, living in the seminary and undergoing training to become a priest. The church appointed a retired judge, Alec Southwell, as a commissioner to interview all the parties and record the facts. There are many summer camps in Philip Island. Southwell's report goes into great detail trying to determine whether Cardinal Pell was in the same summer camp, in the same year, as the man who made the accusations. Southwell concludes they appear to be the same camp in two consecutive years but he did not find any evidence to either prove or contradict the accusation of wrongdoing. Every person is innocent until proven guilty. The church published a full copy of the report. At this point, nobody has come forward with any additional evidence that might prove the accusations.
The public Southwell report does not specify the exact location on Philip Island. Third-party news reports refer to Smiths Beach.
The Southwell report notes that multiple seminarians were present at the camp. Given the passage of time, the report left open the possibility that the accusation might concern any of the other seminarians. The report notes Pell's connection to Australian (Aussie rules) football had been mentioned during the camp and this was one of the details remembered by the man making the accusation.
Therefore, from the Southwell report, we can see that Cardinal Pell was in the region at the same time my grandparents ran the Westernport Hotel. Given that my grandmother's brother was a priest, it would be no surprise if some of the priests visited the hotel for a drink or a meal. The news report tells us that my grandmother did the cooking. Therefore, it is possible she even cooked for the late Cardinal Pell during the period he was training to be a priest. This is one of many things we can't prove either.
In 1963, the Victorian state government commenced the Royal Commission into the Sale, Supply, Disposal or Consumption of Liquor in the State of Victoria. The scope of the commission was very broad, including the social consequences, accommodation and entertainment in pubs and hotels.
The Australian Hotels Association appointed the lawyer Peter O'Callaghan to represent them. It was one of his first projects after becoming a barrister. It is not clear if O'Callaghan had any prior dealings with the hotel industry.
On 26 June 1964, the news report was published by The Age, including the comments from my grandfather and my grandmother. It is interesting for anybody who dares to speak to a journalist. Journalists will often spend a few minutes having a discussion with a source and then they will pick out one sentance and use it in their story. In this case, the journalist has chosen to publish my grandfather's concern that teachers face too much red tape. No doubt teachers will look at the article today and they will be able to relate to the teachers of that era.
Shortly after that, my grandparents sold the business to somebody else. Around the same time, the government started reconstruction of the bridge linking San Remo to Philip Island. The work on the bridge would have increased the number of workers looking for lunch but it may have reduced the number of tourists during the same period. It is not clear if the hotel had a net benefit or a net loss from those years, nonetheless, my grandparents had got out before the project started.
In the 1980s, Peter O'Callaghan was appointed to the Appeals Board for the Australian football (AFL) tribunal. O'Callaghan eventually became chair of the board from 1993 until 1997.
In 1996, O'Callaghan was appointed as the church's independent commissioner for abuse. It was initially a six month appointment that eventually continued for twenty years. O'Callaghan's name and reports that he prepared are prominent in many news reports, the Victorian state inquiry and the Royal Commission.
According to one news report:
When the Melbourne Response was first established in 1996 under former Melbourne archbishop George Pell, Mr O'Callaghan thought he would be able to handle all victims' complaints in six months' time.
After almost two decades and over 351 complaints, Mr O'Callaghan had changed his belief that there would be "many questionable complaints" from people wanting money from the church, with most people highly credible. He now believed "one doesn't fake stories about sexual abuse".
In the UK right now, authorities are currently prosecuting Julia Wendell/Wandelt, a woman who claimed to be the missing toddler Madelaine McCann. Remember, the famous Turing Test created by Alan Turing, the grandfather of computer science and artificial intelligence, challenges us to become better at fooling people.
The social engineering attacks in open source software communities rely on the fallacy that women are always victims, even while the very same women are spreading lies about male competitors in our profession. The Wandelt/McCann incident is another example of female protagonists in harassment cases.
In other words, while I agree there are an extraordinary number of real abuse victims out there, there is a growing phenomena of people who either deliberately lie or become brainwashed into the belief they are a victim. It is not clear if they are brainwashing themselves of if they are sent down this dark path by over-exposure to social control media.
O'Callaghan's comments were made before the social media set came on the scene. I've gone into some depth researching the phenomena of fake news about abuse in the digital space. When I exposed the falsification of allegations against Dr Jacob Appelbaum, people became hysterical. Out of all these dramas, not one real abuse allegation has ever been reported to police, let alone substantiated with real proof. There is something incredibly dishonest about people trying to exploit the sympathy we would normally reserve for real abuse victims.
The most high profile accusation, which eventually led to the late Cardinal Pell's conviction, revolved around the subject of former choir members obtaining access to liquor in the sacristy. The conviction was subsequently overturned by all seven judges in the High Court. As a former altar boy myself, I was not entirely convinced that the choir boys would have access to the liquor because the altar boys, not the choir boys, are usually responsible for the processions involving the bread and wine.
The news article:
Please see the chronological history of how the Debian harassment and abuse culture evolved. █