Andrew Bolt says Cardinal George Pell was falsely convicted of sexually abusing two boys

Divisive columnist Andrew Bolt has come out in defence of disgraced Cardinal George Pell, saying he is the victim of a witch hunt.

Andrew Bolt believes Cardinal George Pell is an innocent man who has been wrongly convicted.

Speaking on his Sky News show last night, the News Corp columnist said he had “serious misgivings” about Pell’s guilty verdict.

“I just can’t accept it, based on what I consider is the overwhelming evidence of this trial,” he said. “And I base that opinion also on how many times Pell has been accused of crimes and sins he clearly did not do.

“Pell could well be an innocent man who is being made to pay for the sins of his church and made to pay after an astonishing campaign of media vilification.”

Bolt, who says has met Pell about five times, but is not a Catholic or Christian, raised “10 problems” with the evidence that saw a jury unanimously find Pell guilty.

One of these was the fact Pell’s second abuse victim, now dead after a heroin overdose, denied being abused by a priest when asked by his mother.

Bolt also said the other victim who gave evidence in court did not speak about the incident for many years.

He said he also doubted the attack could have taken place after Mass, when Pell is known to have traditionally spoken to worshippers leaving the ceremony.

“This attack allegedly happened in the cathedral sacristy, which is normally a very busy room, where Pell would have known people were almost certain to walk in,” he said.

He added Pell had no history of proven child abuse like other church paedophiles usually have.

Bolt has been widely criticised for his comments with some saying he was being disrespectful to the victims.

Pell, 77, was found guilty on December 11 in Melbourne’s county court, a decision which was revealed yesterday because of a lengthy suppression order.

He faces a maximum 50 year prison sentence for his sex abuse crimes against two young boys 22 years ago.

He will return to court today, with his lawyers making a final bid for his freedom. His lawyers are pushing for a retrial — or for the cardinal’s child sex convictions to be set aside.

Andrew Bolt defended George Pell on Sky News last night.

Pell could be sentenced to 50 years for his crimes. Picture: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/AFP

Bolt wrote in his Herald Sun column that Pell has been accused of crimes and sins he “clearly did not do” and eventually “some of the truckload of mud thrown at him has stuck”.

“Pell has survived so many fake allegations. Now he has fallen for one of the most unlikely of all,” he wrote.

“In my opinion, this is our own OJ Simpson case, but in reverse. A man was found guilty not on the facts but on prejudice.”

Andrew Bolt, a regular critic of a lack of law and order in Victoria, now decides that a conviction by jury should be ignored. Honestly... https://t.co/hYz5LVqZt3

— Tom Steinfort (@tomsteinfort) 26 February 2019

Others hit out at Bolt saying the legal process and decision of jurors should be respected.

Father Frank Brennan, a Jesuit priest who attended some of the Pell proceedings, wrote for The Australian newspaper about how the public, who could not hear all the evidence from the first four-week trial, did not have a “complete picture”.

“The complainant, who cannot be identified, did not give evidence at the retrial,” he wrote. “The recording from the first trial was admitted as the complainant’s evidence. The recording was available to the public only insofar as it was quoted by the barristers in their examination of other witnesses or in their final ­addresses to the jury and by the judge in his charge to the jury. So, no member of the public has a complete picture of the evidence and no member of the public is able to make an assessment of the complainant’s demeanour.”

He said he was “very surprised” and “devastated” by the verdict and concluded that the jury must have thought “children who are sexually violated do not always remember ­details of time, place, dress and posture”.

“Although the complainant got all sorts of facts wrong, the jury must have believed that Pell did something dreadful to him,” he wrote.

The Catholic world reacted with shock to Pell’s guilty verdict. Picture: World Youth Day via Getty Images

Pell’s guilty verdict was greeted with disbelief by shocked Catholics around the world.

Ed Pentin, the Rome correspondent for the oldest national Catholic newspaper in the United States, the National Catholic Register, pointed to conspiracy theories circulating in the Vatican that Pell was set up.

“Most people here don’t believe the verdict,” Pentin told Nine newspapers. “Most here believe Pell is innocent, certainly those who worked with him.”

Pentin said there was scepticism about the guilty verdict because Pell was investigating Vatican corruption and there was suspicion about the timing of the charges.

In an article for the Register, Pentin notes that after news broke in December about the verdict, a source told him, “People in court saw how flimsy the evidence was.

“This is an act of outrageous malice by a prejudiced jury. The media convicted him long ago in the court of public opinion and he did not receive a fair trial.”

— with Charis Chang