By Adam Cooper
A “calculated risk” in early reports about George Pell’s sex assault conviction was, prosecutors argue, an attempt by media companies to pressure a judge into revoking a suppression order.
Fourteen news outlets, including The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, have pleaded guilty to a combined 21 charges of contempt of court for breaching a suppression order over reports published or broadcast in December 2018, in the days after Cardinal Pell was found guilty.
Cardinal George Pell at his residence near the Vatican last year.Credit: AP
The cardinal last year had his convictions quashed and was released from prison following a successful appeal to the High Court.
In calling for the media to face substantial fines and convictions on Tuesday, prosecutor Roslyn Kaye told the Supreme Court the breaches were aggravated because there was an aim by editors to put pressure on County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd to revoke his suppression order.
Ms Kaye cited a sentence in The Daily Telegraph’s front-page article on December 13, 2018 as an example of the media’s attitude. The sentence read: “We believe there are strong grounds to fight the ban.”
The Courier-Mail’s front-page headline “Secret Scandal” also illustrated the strong language and the media’s attitude in the reports, she said.
The news outlets later applied to Judge Kidd to revoke the order, which would have enabled the media to publish Cardinal Pell’s name and charges. The order prevented the media from publishing any information derived from Cardinal Pell’s trial.
But Judge Kidd refused the application to revoke the order, which meant the media had to wait until February 2019 – when prosecutors aborted the cardinal’s planned second trial – before they could publish full details of the first trial.
The media’s penalties will be up to the discretion of Justice John Dixon but Ms Kaye called for significant fines and convictions given the seriousness of the breaches.
“The conduct was contumacious [wilfully disobedient]. There is no accidental publication in this case,” she said.
“It was considered and deliberate. There was no oversight or inadvertence.”
But lawyers for the media argued their clients’ breaches were at the low end of the spectrum and not in the same category as past contempt examples, such as Derryn Hinch, fined $100,000 for publishing on a blog Adrian Bayley’s past convictions while charged with murdering Jill Meagher or Yahoo7, which was fined $300,000 for reporting about a murder trial that included details not before the jury and led to the trial being aborted.
Will Houghton, QC, acting for News Corp publications, called for his clients to face lesser fines and in some cases be spared convictions.
Mr Houghton said there was no evidence senior editors tried to exert pressure on Judge Kidd, as there was never an intention to breach the suppression order.
“They thought, wrongly, your honour, they were not breaching the suppression order,” he told Justice Dixon.
Matt Collins, QC, acting for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and other media, also rejected the prosecutor’s argument, which he said “was akin to an allegation of malice”.
Mr Houghton said the media had apologised, would pay the costs of the prosecution case and were prepared to appear before Judge Kidd to show their contrition.
“He deserves to hear it personally and we will do that,” he said.
Mr Houghton said his clients’ reports were measured in tone and content, that some online articles were only seen by a handful of readers before they were removed in the hours after Judge Kidd made clear his anger at the media reports, and called on Justice Dixon to consider the companies’ good corporate reputations.
Dr Collins will make more submissions on Wednesday.