George Pell: newly appointed archbishop assaulted choirboys

It was in the most holy of places that George Pell was found to have committed a sex attack on two 13-year-old choirboys.

Cardinal Pell at the Vatican in 2014. Picture: Getty Images

Ritual. Tradition. Order. In 1996 Sunday solemn mass at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral represented all of these things to the outside observer.

A procession into the cathedral with altar boys, the sacristan, the choristers two-by-two, boys and men, in red and white robes and, of course, the archbishop.

A homily; hymns honouring the Lord; the acceptance of communion, Christ’s body and blood.

Local worshippers, foreign pilgrims, tourists murmuring “amen” and “peace be with you”. And ­afterwards the archbishop again, outside the cathedral, pressing the flesh and kissing babies.

In 1996 it was the newly ­appointed archbishop George Pell who stood on the cathedral steps in East Melbourne, clad in his long robes, the smock-like alb, an ­ornate tunic known as a chasuble above it, a stole over the shoulders, and tied with a cincture.

The tall mitre on his head added gravitas as he spoke to ­parishioners.

It was in this most holy of places, after the Catholic faith’s most sacred ritual, that Pell was found to have committed a sex attack on two 13-year-old choirboys that could see him jailed for more than 10 years.

One of the boys, now in his 30s, claimed mass was followed by what he called in court “an ­anomaly”, what police officers and prosecutors call “rape”.

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Pell was charged in June 2017 and was committed to stand trial in May last year.

A jury deliberated for a week in September over whether Australia’s most senior Catholic had raped a child, but couldn’t reach a majority verdict.

A second jury took 3½ days in December to find Pell guilty of one count of sexual penetration of a child under the age of 16 and four counts of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16.

The first four charges were based around the assault of two teenage choristers who had “nicked off” from procession, snuck into the priests’ sacristy and were swigging the sacramental wine.

“The wine was in, like, a dark-brown-stain bottle,” one of the boys told the court.

“We were excited, feeling mischievous.

“We found the bottle and we opened it and started having a couple of swigs out of it.”

Prosecutor Mark Gibson SC told the court Pell caught the boys and exposed his penis while dressed in his ceremonial robes ­before molesting them.

One of the boys subsequently died without making a complaint to police.

The court heard he had denied ever being “interfered with or touched up” when questioned by his mother in 2001.

The surviving chorister, however, gave evidence against Pell.

“(Pell) planted himself in the doorway and said something like ‘What are you doing here?’ or ‘You’re in trouble’,” the chorister said.

“There was this moment where we all just sort of froze and then he undid his trousers or his belt, like he started moving underneath his robes.

“He pulled (my friend) aside and then he pulled out his penis and then grabbed (my friend’s) head.”

The chorister said his friend was “sort of crouched” and “sort of flailing around”, squirming and struggling while one of Pell’s hand’s was around his friend’s head and shoulders.

“(My friend’s) head was being controlled and it was down near Archbishop Pell’s genitals.

“I couldn’t see his penis at that time.”

The chorister told the court he said something like: “Can you let us go? We didn’t do anything.”

He said Pell then turned to him and pushed his penis in the boy’s mouth.

“I was pushed down and crouching or kneeling,” the chorister said.

“Archbishop Pell was standing. He was erect and he pushed it into my mouth.”

The chorister said Pell then told the boy to take off his pants.

“Then he started touching my genitalia, masturbating or trying to do something with my ­genitalia,” the chorister told the court.

“Archbishop Pell was touching himself on his penis with his other hand.”

The chorister said the boys didn’t yell during the abuse or after. “I made some objections,” he said.

“We got up and left the room and went back into the chorale changeroom area.”

A second incident occurred weeks later when Pell pushed the boy against a wall and touched him in an incident lasting two or three seconds.

“I saw him and he pushed himself up against me on a wall and he squeezed my genitalia, my ­testicles, my penis,” the chorister said.

“Nothing was said … he squeezed and kept walking.”

The chorister said he didn’t tell anyone of the assaults at the time because he didn’t want to jeopardise his school scholarship, which was contingent on being in the choir.

“I didn’t caution (my friend) about watching out for what Archbishop Pell might do because I had no intention back then of telling anyone ever,” he said.

“I was young and I didn’t really know what had happened to me. I didn’t really know what it was, if it was normal.”

Central to the case was whether the two choirboys, and Pell himself, could have slipped into the priest’s sacristy, a changeroom and storeroom, where the attack took place, without being seen.

Gibson and high-profile defence barrister Robert Richter QC pressed former choirboys and church officials on whether Pell was ever alone in the cathedral and whether choristers could sneak away from procession.

Former choirboy David Dearing said rules were relaxed after the mass once the choir passed out of public view.

“Once we hit that gate it was like game on to get out of there and go home,” he told the court.

“It happened in that point because we were out of public view and it wasn’t necessarily needing to be as military-like, if you could put it that way.”

Dearing’s father, Rodney, was also in the choir and said people would have noticed two boys running off with their robes on.

“The choir dress is very distinctive,” he said. “You’d notice two boys and, if they were running off with their robes on, you’d very quickly notice them.”

But he also said the choristers bunched up as they neared a rear building and from a point near there “I couldn’t see half the choir”.

Organist Geoffrey Cox said former brother Peter Finnigan kept a watchful eye on the choristers.

“The entire choir usually returned together to the rehearsal room. If anyone wished to leave from there, maybe to go to the toilet, they would seek permission,” he said.

“(The rules) were observed because it was a disciplined group.”

Former choirmaster John Mallinson told the court he wouldn’t have known if Pell had moved back inside the cathedral following a Sunday solemn mass.

“If I was playing the organ, I would not be aware of anything else going on in the cathedral,” he said.

He said he saw Pell in the sacristy corridor on his own and ­accompanied, both robed and disrobed. “I’ve seen him both ways, for instance, after he’d gone to the sacristy and disrobed and he’d be in his normal clerical garb.”

Monsignor Charles Portelli, who served at the time as master of ceremonies, told the court he ­recalled only twice in five years not assisting Pell to robe and disrobe.

The jury heard details of Pell’s attire during mass and had to consider if he able to easily push aside the heavy garments and sexually assault the two boys.

The robes included the alb, an ankle-length white under-tunic, which included a slit for ­access to pockets, and a cincture which was a rope that knotted around the waist to prevent the alb moving.

“When he went to the toilet, for example, what would one do wearing an alb?” Gibson asked.

“Well you just don’t,” Portelli replied.

Sacristan Max Potter told the court it would be “inhumanly possible” for Pell to have exposed himself while wearing the ceremonial robes.

“The alb is tied with a cincture and locked in and it can’t be moved,” Potter said.

“The cincture ties around his waist, and then with the cincture then a stole is placed over, in that area as well, and no way could the alb be moved in that area.”

Potter said Pell wore a decorative chasuble and dalmatic on top of the vestments on particularly solemn occasions.

“The weight of those vestments are not light,” he said.

Potter said someone always helped Pell disrobe, but under questioning from Gibson admitted he couldn’t categorically say someone else had been with Pell the entire time the archbishop was in the cathedral.

“I’m not going to say I saw them every time,” he said.

Potter went on to say ­that ­sacramental wine was sometimes left out between masses and could be accessible to anyone coming through the sacristy.

“It would be a rare occasion,” Potter said.

Pell did not give evidence in the trial, as is his right as the accused.

Instead the court saw a recording of the cardinal’s police interview in Rome in 2016 when he first became aware of the detail of the allegations.

The jurors watched the screen in courtroom 4.3 as Pell described the accusations as “madness”.

“What a load of absolute disgraceful rubbish. Completely rubbish,” he said.

Pell said the allegations were “products of pure fantasy”.

“It’s vile and disgusting conduct contrary to everything I hold dear,” he said.

“And contrary to the explicit teachings of the church, which I have spent my life ­representing.”

Pell told police the master of ceremonies, Portelli, was always with him after the ceremonies until they were back in the carpark or presbytery.

“The sacristy after mass is generally a hive of activity,” Pell said.

“You could scarcely imagine a place that was more unlikely to be committing paedophilia crimes than a sacristy at the cathedral after mass.”

In his closing, Gibson said the victim knew details about the priest’s sacristy, including ­recollections of wood panelling and an alcove where the wine was kept.

He said the chorister was ­simply a person who was doing the best he could to describe what happened when he was a ­teenager.

“What we submit to you is that he was not a person indulging in a fantasy or imagining things … to the point where he now believed his own imagination mind,” Gibson said.

“But rather was simply telling it as it was and is.”

Richter, however, derided the victim’s evidence as “fanciful”.

“Who in their right mind would take the risk of doing what (the ­victim) says happened?” Richter said.

“There is no support by a single witness for (the victim’s) version of events.”

He said it was impossible for the acts to have occurred in the six-minute window described because of the number of adults moving around the cathedral, impossible for the choirboys to have snuck away, impossible for Pell to have been alone, and impossible for him to part his robes to expose his penis.

Chief Judge Peter Kidd warned the jury not to “scapegoat” the archbishop.

“You mustn’t in any way be influenced by knowledge you might have of childhood sexual abuse in the Catholic Church or cover-ups of abuse in the Catholic Church,” he said.

Less than four days later the jury found Pell guilty of the ­charges of child sexual abuse.