‘Abuse and vitriol’ followed Terry Goldsworthy’s social media post on George Pell

An associate professor warns public debate is being stifled after he was attacked online and cast aside from a victim support service following a social media post about George Pell.

Terry Goldsworthy says he was told his views on George Pell, pictured, did not align with a victim support service he has helped for the past decade. Picture: AFP

An associate professor of criminal justice says he was subjected to “abuse and vitriol” and cast aside from a victim support service after a personal social media post was viewed as being supportive of Cardinal George Pell.

Terry Goldsworthy, a Bond University academic whose fields of expertise include miscarriages of justice, has hit out at the stifling of freedom of speech and the “shutting down of public debate on contentious issues”.

He says it’s just the latest instance in which he has been targeted for voicing an opinion, and warns future generations are at risk of being denied fearless, independent views that run counter to those of “the baying mob”.

Dr Goldsworthy’s post on LinkedIn stated that anyone who studied miscarriages of justice should examine Pell’s case “to see how we can improve the criminal justice system”.

A LinkedIn post by Dr Terry Goldsworthy commenting on Cardinal George Pell and the criminal justice system. Source: LinkedIn

The former Queensland Police Service detective inspector included in the post a link to the High Court’s unanimous judgment quashing Pell’s child sexual abuse convictions.

“Vale Cardinal George Pell,” Dr Goldsworthy wrote in his post.

“His pursuit by the Victorian police on historical child abuse charges highlighted how poorly our justice system performs in certain cases where emotions run high. To quote the High Court of Australia, who overturned his convictions 7-0, there was, consistently … ‘a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof’.”

Terry Goldsworthy. Picture: Nigel Hallett

The post ended with a series of hashtags including #crime #justice #miscarriageofjustice and #wrongfulconviction. Dr Goldsworthy said a high-profile person, whom he declined to name, attacked him online in response.

He was also told his post did not align with the values of the victim support service he has helped for the past decade. The issue was due to be raised by the support service at a meeting in his absence, so he resigned as a committee member out of principle.

Pell, who died in Rome in January at the age of 81 after complications from hip surgery, spent 404 days in custody on charges of assaulting two teenage choirboys in the late 1990s when he was archbishop of Melbourne.

He constantly maintained his innocence and was acquitted by the nation’s highest court in 2020.

At his funeral last week, he was described by former prime minister Tony Abbott as “the greatest man I’ve ever known” and a scapegoat for the Catholic Church, while protesters clashed with worshippers outside.

Catholic supporters signal towards protesters outside St. Mary’s Cathedral ahead of the pontifical requiem mass for Cardinal George Pell on February 02, 2023 in Sydney.

Dr Goldsworthy said he commented on Pell “as an aside” as someone who taught in the area of criminal justice.

“I thought it was pertinent. It just struck me that there was a real intolerance around dealing with factual debates.

“The High Court ruled 7-0 in this case, and identified that it had been problematic. Yet there seem to be topics now where you can’t point to those facts, or if you do, you’re shouted down. In my field of criminal justice, there’s a number of contentious issues now where if you try to argue one point of the argument there’s almost this demand that you cease.

“People engage in personal attacks, rather than engaging in critical inquiry looking at the scholarly or scientific evidence you’re putting forward, and allowing some kind of public discourse to take place without fear or favour.”

Writing in The Australian, Dr Goldsworthy says that as a Catholic he is reminded in the Pell debate of the denial of Jesus by his disciple Peter.

“The message here is that you must stand by your convictions and beliefs, to fail to do so is a betrayal of the contest of ideas and a surrender to the absolutism of populist narratives where only one viewpoint is acceptable.”