‘Guilt by accusation’: George Pell blasts justice system’ in interview with Andrew Bolt
George Pell has claimed Australia’s justice system is too much in favour of alleged victims and is in danger of regarding every accusation “as gospel truth”.
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George Pell has claimed Australia’s justice system is too much in favour of alleged victims and is in danger of regarding every accusation “as gospel truth”.
In a world exclusive TV interview on Sky News with Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt, Pell said it was “not a sign of a civilisation where you have guilt by accusation”.
Pell, 78, spent more than 400 days behind bars after being found guilty of abusing two choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s, when Pell was archbishop of Melbourne.
He was dramatically acquitted of all charges on April 7 and left prison a free man.
“These things have to be tested respectfully. The pendulum 30 or 40 years ago was massively against anybody who said that they had been attacked.” Pell told Bolt in the interview, which airs in full on Tuesday at 7pm AEST.
“Nowadays, we don’t want to just swing back so that every accusation is regarded as gospel truth. That would be quite unjust and inappropriate.”
The High Court ruled the jury’s verdicts in Pell’s case, on four counts of indecent assault and one of sexual penetration of a child, were unsafe.
Pell, who was put in charge of the Vatican’s finances by Pope Francis in 2014, said he couldn’t explain his treatment at the hands of Victoria Police, describing it as “extraordinary”.
Bolt pointed out that Pell had been charged by police “26 times with charges so stupid not one has survived the process”.
He asked Pell if he believed Victoria Police had an “agenda” to “get” him and how the former Archbishop of Sydney would react if “police were to keep trawling for victims” in attempts to prosecute him.
“Well I wouldn’t be entirely surprised, but, uh, who knows, that’s their business,” Pell said.
Police chief commissioner Graham Ashton last week denied his force had a “get-Pell” agenda, telling 3AW: “What a joke. We don’t run vendettas against people.”
Pell was scathing when asked about the ABC, describing reporting of allegations against him as one-sided and a “betrayal of the national interest”.
When asked by Bolt if the ABC’s role in his “persecution” concerned him, he replied: “Yes, it does.”
“Because I mean, it’s partly financed by Catholic taxes,” Pell told Bolt.
“I believe in free speech. I acknowledge the right of those who differ from me to, you know, to just state their views. But in a national broadcaster, to have an overwhelming presentation of one view and only one view, I think that’s a betrayal of the national interest.”
Andrew Bolt interviews George Pell in a TV exclusive on Sky News at 7pm Tuesday