Freed George Pell retreats to nuns’ sanctuary after High Court quashes convictions
Cardinal George Pell has left Barwon Prison for the high, rendered brick walls of the Catholic Church’s Carmelite Monastery | WATCH
Cardinal George Pell has escaped the confines of Barwon Prison after being incarcerated for 405 days for the high, rendered brick walls of the Catholic Church’s Carmelite Monastery in the leafy eastern Melbourne suburb of Kew.
Cardinal Pell, who was once the most powerful Australian in the Catholic Church, was earlier acquitted of child sex abuse by the High Court of Australia after an extraordinary legal fight to clear his name.
Breaking: George Pell has left HM Prison Barwon after being incarcerated for more than 400 days. He’s in the backseat in the middle black car. More @australian pic.twitter.com/cF8mDxrDJR
— Remy Varga (@RemyVarga) April 7, 2020
The 78-year-old left prison in the back seat of a black Volkswagen that drove in the middle of a three-car convoy.
He turned his head to stare at reporters as he was driven away from HM Prison Barwon.
He wore glasses and has aged considerably since he was last seen in public.
At the monastery police in marked and unmarked cars and a large media contingent were present outside the imposing set of buildings which are set among manicured gardens, but there was no sign of Cardinal Pell since he arrived directly from prison, an hour’s drive away.
A nun dressed in a brown habit briefly came outside the monastery gates to accept a delivery, but there has otherwise been little sign of life visible from outside.
Famed for its ornately decorated church, the monastery has been home to a community of Carmelite nuns since 1929.
“The religious life of the Nuns of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at Carmelite Monastery Melbourne is contemplative in its prayer, eremitical in its spirit of retirement from the world, and monastic in its usages and Liturgy, in worship and divine praise,” the monastery’s website says.
“The calling to the contemplative life is an invitation from God to follow a more constant and higher form of prayer and penance and practice of virtue which one lovingly fulfils through a daily fidelity to the observance of the vows of obedience, chastity and poverty.”
The nuns live a life of community service, deriving some of the income which funds their work from a perfume and skincare range known as “Monastique”.
Pell: Court has remedied a serious injustice
It took High Court Chief Justice Susan Kiefel only about a minute to deliver the history-making decision.
She said special leave was granted, the appeal allowed, and that the Victorian Court of Appeal’s earlier decision was set aside. In its place, his convictions were quashed and replaced with acquittals.
The High Court ruled 7-0 in Cardinal Pell’s favour.
The High Court’s judges are not travelling due to the coronavirus pandemic, so the decision was delivered by the Chief Justice alone.
“Today, the High Court granted special leave to appeal against a decision of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria and unanimously allowed the appeal,” a statement read.
“The High Court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place.”
Read the judgment summary here
The High Court found: “Making full allowance for the advantages enjoyed by the jury, there is a significant possibility in relation to charges one to four that an innocent person has been convicted.”
Charges one to four relate to the alleged assaults in the priests’ sacristy. These were the most significant of the five charges.
On the final charge, the court said the unchallenged evidence of the applicant’s invariable practice of greeting congregants on the steps after mass and that he was always accompanied were inconsistent with the complainant’s evidence.
“In relation to charge five, again making full allowance for the jury’s advantage, there is a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted.”
In a strange conclusion to one of the nation’s most high profile criminal cases, the decision was delivered in the smallest courtroom in the entire Commonwealth Law Courts building at North Quay.
It was deliberately staged that way to keep numbers down, with security staff stationed at the door allowing only three people into the 20-seat public gallery to witness the decision being handed down, in compliance with social distancing requirements.
Due to bans on public gatherings, there were none of the rallies from supporters of Cardinal Pell and victims’ advocates that had been seen at previous court hearings.
Cardinal Pell’s lawyers, Paul Galbally and Ruth Shann, arrived at Barwon Prison earlier on Tuesday.
Galbally is his solicitor and Shann the junior barrister to both Bret Walker SC in the appeal courts and Robert Richter QC in the lower courts.
Cardinal Pell released a statement on Tuesday morning, declaring his innocence and his appreciation for his supporters, legal team and parishioners.
“I have consistently maintained my innocence while suffering from a serious injustice,” he said.
“This has been remedied today with the High Court’s unanimous decision.”
Read Cardinal Pell’s full statement here
The decision vindicates the massive campaign conducted by his closest supporters to clear his name.
It was not a major surprise to legal experts who have followed the case in fine detail.
But it will unleash an extraordinary reaction in the Australian and Catholic communities.
Cardinal Pell has twin heart conditions and his closest friends have been concerned that he would not survive the six year sentence.
Cardinal Pell was remanded in custody last February and has lived a life of prison deprivation ever since.
He is a reviled figure among the abuse survivor community, a divisive leader of the Australian church but loved by his inner sanctum, including many powerful Australians from John Howard and Tony Abbott down.
He was sentenced to six years’ jail, with a three year and eight month minimum, for sexually abusing two altar boys in 1996 and 1997.
There were two County Court trials, the second finding against Cardinal Pell.
Then the Victorian Court of Appeal decided with a 2-1 majority that the County Court jury was within its rights to convict Cardinal Pell of five sexual assault charges in the priests’ sacristy at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne and a church corridor the next year.
There were two choirboys, then aged 13, who were involved, the jury found.
One died of a heroin overdose several years ago and the other is an early middle-aged family man who was described as a “compelling” witness.
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