Court dismisses George Pell appeal over child sex abuse, disgraced cardinal set to appeal
Disgraced cardinal George Pell could fight his child sexual abuse convictions in the High Court, after Victoria’s top court yesterday sensationally dismissed his appeal. But pressure is mounting on Pope Francis to remove his former right-hand man from the College of Cardinals.
The Vatican will hold off on taking any action against George Pell pending a potential High Court challenge.
Pressure is mounting on Pope Francis to remove his former right-hand man from the College of Cardinals and begin proceedings to have him laicised following the Court of Appeal decision.
But Francis, embroiled in the most serious scandal of his pontificate, has vowed to let Australian authorities finish their work.
A shell-shocked Pell has flagged challenging yesterday’s appeal loss in the High Court.
Pell, 78, will remain behind bars after Victoria’s top court sensationally dismissed his appeal.
Pell’s legal team said in a statement following yesterday’s verdict, that he was “obviously disappointed with the decision”.
“However, his legal team will thoroughly examine the judgment in order to determine a special leave application to the High Court,” the spokeswoman said.
“While noting the 2-1 split decision, Cardinal Pell maintains his innocence. We thank his many supporters.”
A Vatican statement said last night that it would await Pell’s right to appeal.
“While reiterating its respect for the Australian judicial system, as stated on 26 February after the first instance verdict was announced, the Holy See acknowledges the court’s decision to dismiss Cardinal Pell’s appeal,” the statement said.
“As the proceedings continue to develop, the Holy See recalls that the Cardinal has always maintained his innocence throughout the judicial process and that it is his right to appeal to the High Court.
“At this time, together with the church in Australia, the Holy See confirms its closeness to the victims of sexual abuse and its commitment to pursue, through the competent ecclesiastical authorities, those members of the clergy who commit abuse.”
After Pell was charged Francis said: “we must avoid a media verdict, a verdict based on gossip.”
“It’s in the hands of the justice system and one cannot judge before the justice system. After the justice system speaks, I will speak,” he said.
Pell has spent 176 days behind bars after being found guilty of abusing two choirboys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s.
Yesterday’s decision by the Court of Appeal means he must spend at least another three years and three months of his six year sentence in prison.
While news of the decision was greeted with cheers outside the court in Melbourne’s CBD, it has rocked Pell’s supporters.
Chief Justice Anne Ferguson said having reviewed the whole of the evidence, two of the three judges were satisfied that it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Pell was guilty.
She said she had no doubt, and says the victim was a convincing witness of truth.
Justice Chris Maxwell agreed.
The court agreed unanimously that two of the three appeal grounds be dismissed, but on the third Justice Mark Weinberg dissented and upheld the appeal, finding the victim’s account of one of the incidents was “entirely implausible and quite unconvincing”.
A 300-page judgment has now be made public, detailing the full reasons for the decision.
Dozens of supporters and protesters gathered outside the court yesterday morning, with cheers erupting as news of the decision reached the steps of the building.
The courtroom was packed and there was a heavy police presence outside the building.
>>READ THE SUMMARY OF THE DECISION BELOW
In his three months in prison Pell has been held in 23-hour lock down because of fears for his safety.
He was inundated with letters of support and penned his own letter to supporters which was controversially published online.
It is understood Pell could now be moved to a more mainstream prison to complete his sentence.
One prison source said he may have to remain in maximum security for his own safety.
Pell was found guilty in December of molesting two St Patrick’s Cathedral choirboys, one on two separate occasions, months after being appointed Archbishop of Melbourne.
The guilty verdicts came at the end of a retrial after an original jury was unable to reach a majority verdict.
Pell has vehemently denied any wrongdoing since being charged in 2017 following a lengthy police investigation.
He immediately resigned as Vatican treasurer and returned from Rome to Australia to face charges.
Pell first appeared in court less than three weeks after returning to Melbourne.
Since then he has endured dozens of court dates, a committal hearing and two trials.
An original jury was unable to reach a majority verdict.
The jury in his retrial reached a unanimous verdict.
The verdict stunned those that had closely followed the trials.
Pell was first interviewed by police in a Rome hotel in October, 2016.
Until then, Cardinal Pell was aware he was under investigation but had been told few details about the case against him.
THE BASIS OF THE APPEAL
Pell had relied on three grounds of appeal.
Within those grounds his legal team listed 13 reasons they said made the offending impossible, or should have given such a reasonable doubt to the jury that they couldn’t reasonably convict him.
Prosecutors argued during the appeal, as they had at trial, simply that the offending was not impossible.
In yesterday’s decision, two of the three Appeal Justices accepted the prosecution’s argument that the victim of abuse that took place at St Patrick’s in 1996-1997 was “a very compelling witness, was clearly not a liar, was not a fantasist and was a witness of truth”.
“Throughout his evidence, [the complainant] came across as someone who was telling the truth. He did not seek to embellish his evidence or tailor it in a manner favourable to the prosecution.
“As might have been expected, there were some things which he could remember and many things which he could not. And his explanations of why that was so had the ring of truth,” Justices Ferguson and Maxwell said.
Dissenting Justice Weinberg took a different view, finding that the witness’s story “contained discrepancies, displayed inadequacies, and otherwise lacked probative value so as to cause him to have a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt.”
Justice Weinberg “could not exclude as a reasonable possibility that some of what the complainant said was concocted, particularly in relation to the second incident” and that “the complainant’s account of the second incident was entirely implausible and quite unconvincing”.
YESTERDAY’S REACTION
The lawyer representing the father of Pell’s dead victim, Lisa Flynn, said it was a sleeplessness night for her client on Tuesday night but that he’s now elated.
“He was very anxious,” she said outside court yesterday. “We’re hoping that he sleeps better today. It’s been a very tough time.”
Cardinal Pell is likely now to be stripped of his Order of Australia honours.
A criminal conviction is grounds for “termination” of the award.
The Prime Minister’s office indicated before Pell’s appeal that if it was unsuccessful, it would refer the matter of his honours to the Council of the Order of Australia.
The Council will then investigate and make a recommendation to Governor-General David Hurley on whether to revoke Pell’s appointment to the Order.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday said he understood Pell would be stripped of his honours but noted that it was “decided externally to the Government”.
He said his sympathies are with the victims of child sexual abuse forced to relive their horrific experiences.
“Events like this today, bring it all back and I would urge Australians who find themselves reliving these experiences to reach out, reach out to the services that are there for them in whatever phase of life they’re in,” he said.
“These things can take you back a long way and so that’s where my sympathies are.”
Mr Morrison said the courts had “done their job” by rendering a verdict yesterday.
“That’s the system of justice in this country and that must be respected,” he said.
Mr Morrison said he believed an independent process to strip Mr Pell of his honours would now follow.
“My understanding is this would result in the stripping of the honours that are decided externally to the government,” he said
A vocal Pell backer clashed with child sex assault survivors outside the hearing, loudly protesting he was a victim of a media trial.
Survivors advocate Paul Hogan, 48, will celebrate Pell remaining behind bars over a meal with his wife.
“I’ve been protesting for the past 25 years,” he said.
“It’s the best feeling. I’ll take my wife for dinner and have a couple of beers.”
Mr Hogan’s wife Valda Ann Newman-Hogan lost her brother after he was allegedly assaulted by a member of the clergy.
“I feel that happy,” Ms Newman-Hogan said. “I’ll sleep like anything tonight.”
Victim of childhood sexual assault Vladimir Selakovic, 59, came to court to watch the decision being delivered.
“Victims have no rights,” he said. “These guys are getting away with it. He inflicted a lifetime of suffering.”
Others crowding the front steps of the court wanted to see Pell walk out a free man.
Former Catholic priest Eugene Ahern, 74, said he knew Pell since 1962 and had been his supporter all along.
“I consider a dog is a man’s best friend and I always stand up for a dog when a dog’s been kicked,” he said.
“George has been kicked and kicked again.”
Abuse survivor and campaigner Robert House, 52, described the scourge of abuse in the church as a “horror”.
He stood outside the court with a large, handpainted blue sign.
“I’d like to see that Cardinal Pell remains behind bars,” he said. “That would be justice for our entire community.
“It sends a message to our community that perpetrators won’t get away with this.”
WHAT PELL SAID ABOUT THE CRIMES
When interviewed by police about the crimes, Pell had read a prepared statement.
He had volunteered to take part in the interview, in a bid to kill off charges being laid.
“I have to rely on the law and my conscience, which say that I’m innocent,” he said. “I intend to answer all the questions asked of me.”
Dressed in his clerical uniform, all black with a collar, he was relaxed with police.
That changed when detective Sgt Christopher Reed, the man who would ultimately lay charges against the cardinal, told him for the first time the choirboy had accused him of heinous crimes.
“Oh, stop it,” Pell scoffed. “What a load of absolute and disgraceful rubbish. Completely false. Madness.”
That Pell had found the choirboys in the sacristy after Sunday mass drinking altar wine then abused each of them was, he said three times, “completely false”.
“This is in the sacristy, at the cathedral, after Sunday mass? Well, need I say anymore,” he told detectives. “What a load of garbage and falsehood and deranged falsehood.”
Pell said he would be able to easily prove the allegations were just not implausible, but impossible.
“I’d like just to say a word or two about the Sunday mass at the cathedral in Melbourne,” he said.
“For a start there would be hundreds of people present. I was always accompanied by a master of ceremonies. It was a big operation. The sacristy after mass was generally a hive of activity.”
Other claims were also unlikely, he said, particularly that the boys would have had access to altar wine, which was “always locked away” after mass.
“You could scarcely imagine a place that was more unlikely to be committing paedophilia crimes than the sacristy of a cathedral after Sunday mass,” he said.
MORE:
ANDREW BOLT: MY TRUST IN JUSTICE IS GONE
IS FIGHT OVER FOR OUR MOST DISGRACED PRIEST?
This 45-minute police interview was all the jury heard from Pell.
But through their verdicts they preferred the evidence given by the complainant, and their decision was supported by two of the Court of Appeal Justices who saw his account as credible and truthful.
Originally published as Court dismisses George Pell appeal over child sex abuse, disgraced cardinal set to appeal
Rappers’ prison brawl ‘linked’ to drive-by shooting: Police
Police have linked a drive-by shooting to an alleged prison fight between two rappers. CCTV footage from the night of the shooting has been released.
New survey: 90pc of parents demand action on social media
Parents have overwhelmingly backed age limits stopping kids accessing social media until they hit 16, according to a state government survey of more than 21,000 people.