Abused and despised, George Pell contemplated giving up his fight

Cardinal George Pell has revealed he was spat on and abused by fellow prisoners while serving time in jail.

Cardinal George Pell at the Vatican in 2017.

Cardinal George Pell has revealed he was spat on and abused by fellow prisoners while serving time in jail for historical child sex offences and that, in his darkest hours, he contemplated abandoning his fight to clear his name.

Opening up about his time ­behind bars, Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic also said the fact he was despised by many of his fellow inmates for being a convicted child sex offender actually helped restore his faith in the natural “existence of right and wrong”.

“All of us are tempted to despise those we define as worse than ourselves,” he said. “Even murderers share in the disdain toward those who violate the young.

“However ironic, this disdain is not all bad, as it expresses a belief in the existence of right and wrong, good and evil.”

Cardinal Pell was sentenced to six years in prison in March 2019 after being found guilty of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choir boys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s.

He served 13 months in Melbourne Assessment Prison and Barwon Prison, near Geelong, before his convictions were overturned on appeal in April this year.

While the 79-year-old maintains “most of the warders in both prisons recognised I was innocent”, he conceded not everyone on the inside was convinced.

He said “opinion as to my innocence was divided among prisoners” and he had to be separated from the general population.

“I was in isolation for my own protection, as those convicted of the sexual abuse of children, especially clergy, are vulnerable to physical attacks and abuse in prison,” he said.

“I was threatened in this manner only once, when I was in one of two adjacent exercise areas separated by a high wall, with an opening at head height. As I walked around the perimeter, someone spat at me through the fly wire of the open aperture and began condemning me.

‘‘It was a total surprise, so I returned furious to the window to confront my assailant and rebuke him. He bolted from the front line out of my sight but continued to condemn me, as a ‘black spider’ and other less-than-complimentary terms.

“After my initial rebuke, I remained silent, though I complained afterward that I would not go out to exercise if this fellow was to be next door.

“On a few other occasions during the long lockdown from 4:30 in the evening to 7:15 in the morning, I was denounced and abused by other prisoners.”

Despite maintaining his innocence throughout the police investigation and ensuing trial, Cardinal Pell said he almost gave up on trying to have the convictions overturned after his first appeal failed in August 2019 before receiving encouragement from an unexpected quarter.

“I considered not appealing to the High Court, reasoning that if the judges were simply going to close ranks, I need not co-operate in an expensive charade,” he said.

“The boss of the prison in Melbourne, a bigger man than I and a straight shooter, urged me to persevere. I was encouraged and remain grateful to him.”

Cardinal Pell was released from prison after the full bench of the High Court unanimously quashed his convictions on April 7.

“My Catholic faith sustained me, especially the understanding that my suffering need not be pointless but could be united with Christ Our Lord’s,” he said. “I never felt abandoned, knowing the Lord was with me even as I didn’t understand what he was doing for most of the 13 months.”