George Pell scores new job in prison as gardener while behind bars: source
As he serves his time behind bars at Melbourne Assessment Prison for the sexual abuse of two choirboys, George Pell has reportedly scored himself a new job to help pass the time.
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George Pell has reportedly scored himself a prison job as he f ights to overturn his child sex abuse conviction .
The disgraced cardinal has been tending gardens at Melbourne Assessment Prison, sources told the Herald Sun.
It would be his first job since being locked up eight months ago.
Pell, 78, spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement at the maximum security prison in West Melbourne.
A prison insider told the Herald Sun he recently asked for a job to break up his days.
This week he started his new gig tending to the garden in the “visitors’ yard”.
The convicted paedophile weeds the garden and hoses the native trees and plants about twice a week, the source said.
He gets paid about $10 a week in return.
“He wanted a job so this is what he got,” said the prison source. “It’s paid so it’s an opportunity for him to get some canteen money.”
Pell works in isolation from other inmates during the single hour he gets outside his cell each day.
“It takes him about 20 to 30 minutes to do,” the source said. “He’s doing alright (at the job).”
The garden is located within a red brick courtyard about 10x15 metres in size in the southwest corner of the prison.
It includes various native trees and shrubs which surround tables and chairs and a gazebo used by prisoners.
Corrections Victoria has denied the claim.
Pell’s reported new prison gig is a far cry from his former role as Vatican treasurer and Australia’s most high-ranking Catholic.
He was jailed for a minimum of three years and eight months after a Supreme Court jury found him guilty of sexual offending against two choirboys at St Patrick’s cathedral in the 1990s.
Pell is fighting to overturn the conviction and has lodged an application with the High Court seeking special leave to appeal.
His legal team has accused the Victoria’s top prosecutor of failing to properly respond to his High Court appeal bid.
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Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd, QC, previously argued there was no basis for a High Court challenge and that there was “no error” in the approach taken by the Court of Appeal.
Pell has been in protective custody at Melbourne Assessment Prison since February.
He has spent time caged between cells occupied by notorious Bourke St killer James Gargasoulas and brothers Ertunc and Samed Eriklioglu, who are accused by police of plotting a mass terrorist attack in Melbourne.