Despite what news headlines love to say, I'm not sure "circling the wagons when someone is caught" has been accurate in the English-speaking world since the 1990s. Often it's more "please don't blame the people who had no knowledge and who had already made rules that would've prevented the situation if actually followed." By far the majority of pedophiles are lone operators within the organization.

Two things that are obvious when explicitly stated but unintuitive otherwise:

* Abusers deliberately target people with a poor reputation; particularly, a known history of lying about other matters.

* If the group does their own investigation, the media will condemn them for it. If the group leaves the investigation up to the government, the media will condemn them for it.

I encourage you to read up on George Pell. Circling wagons and protecting abusers definitely comes to mind.

There's a reason I qualified "since the 90s". For the sake of this argument I'll assume all allegations are true related to him, but that doesn't invalidate my statement.

Since the 90s we have seen 2 things, which change the picture entirely:

* organizations are acutely aware of the issue, and thus make structural actions to both make offenses less likely and improve documentation regardless; and

* technology has improved so there is much more evidence, both to convict and to acquit.

... I can't actually locate a single allegation where the occurrence was after 2000, now that I look for them.

Sometimes, sure. Sometimes it’s circling the wagons.