By Adam Cooper
Prosecutors have withdrawn 13 of the 100 contempt charges against Australian media companies and journalists over the way they reported George Pell's conviction, but lawyers for the news outlets argue more charges should be dropped.
Twelve news outlets and 18 individual journalists have faced trial this week in the Supreme Court, accused of breaching a court-imposed suppression order and other rules related to Cardinal Pell's initial conviction on child sex abuse charges in December 2018.
Cardinal George Pell in Rome last month.Credit: Andrew Medichini
The media outlets are defending the contempt charges.
On Thursday, prosecutors withdrew some charges against News Corp mastheads and journalists.
Lawyers for the News Corp publications, along with lawyers for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, then launched submissions that some of their clients had no case to answer on some charges.
Justice John Dixon is yet to rule on the submissions.
Cardinal Pell was found guilty by a County Court jury on December 11, 2018, and the Office of Public Prosecutions alleges the media breached a suppression order and other rules by reporting over following days that a high-profile person had been found guilty of serious charges, when the cardinal was still due to face another trial.
The articles and reports did not name Cardinal Pell nor were the nature of his charges disclosed.
Cardinal Pell was released from prison in April when his conviction for sexually abusing two choirboys in the 1990s was overturned and he was acquitted following a successful appeal to the High Court.
Prosecutors this week began outlining their case against the media respondents, but at times were unable to have key documents tendered as evidence following objections by lawyers for the media, and the judge's rulings.
On Thursday, lead prosecutor Lisa De Ferrari, SC, withdrew charges against the digital editors of The Daily Telegraph, Adelaide's The Advertiser and the Geelong Advertiser.
Those three mastheads had some of their charges withdrawn, and some were withdrawn against the Herald Sun and The Weekly Times.
Will Houghton, QC, acting for the News Corp publications, then made a no-case submission for some charges on behalf of a senior reporter at news.com.au, The Courier-Mail and The Daily Telegraph, and the editors of the two newspapers.
Matt Collins, QC, said he also intended to make no-case submissions on some charges for journalists at The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, radio station 2GB and two other news websites.
Mr Houghton said prosecutors had not presented any evidence that showed Charis Chang, a senior reporter at news.com.au, was responsible for publishing an allegedly contemptuous article.
Prosecutors had to prove journalists published, or caused to publish, to satisfy all the elements of a contempt charge, he said.
Mr Houghton said the charges against The Courier-Mail and The Daily Telegraph could not be proven because on the day they published stories about Cardinal Pell's convictions, the two newspapers sold a combined 260 copies in Victoria, which was a "minuscule" circulation.
The County Court imposed a suppression order over Cardinal Pell's case because at the time of his conviction he was to face another trial.
County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd lifted the suppression order, allowing media to report the conviction, in February last year when prosecutors abandoned the second trial.
Lawyers for the media companies will continue their no-case arguments on Friday.