George Pell swimming pool sexual assault charges dropped

George Pell’s trial for sexual assault of two boys at a Ballarat pool in the 1970s collapses as prosecutors drop the case.

George Pell arrives at County Court in Melbourne today. Picture: AAP.

George Pell’s trial on charges that he sexually assaulted two boys at a Ballarat swimming pool in the late 1970s has collapsed after prosecutors dropped their case.

It was alleged Pell molested the boys while playing with them and throwing them in visits to Ballarat’s Eureka swimming pool in the late 1970s.

But Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions today dropped the charges after a judge, in an earlier hearing, disallowed tendency and coincidence evidence from other complainants.

The removal of the “swimming pool” charges means suppression orders on Cardinal Pell’s recent conviction for abusing two boys at St Patrick’s Cathedral have been lifted.

The allegations of sexual assault by Pell around water were the first to be raised publicly and attracted a number of alleged victims.

One of the alleged victims however died before committal, and charges related to him were dropped.

Charges relating to another complainant were thrown out in the Magistrates Court after the committal hearing.

A charge relating to another alleged victim was withdrawn during pre-trial argument in the County Court and prosecutor Fran Dalziel sought to proceed with two charges of indecent assault relating to two complainants.

Ms Dalziel asked Chief Judge Peter Kidd to allow for tendency or coincidence evidence to link the two complaints with a third man who also made a complaint against Pell but lacked the evidence to substantiate a criminal charge.

Judge Kidd rejected the application for tendency and coincidence evidence at a hearing in February.

The judge heard the first alleged victim described persistent sexual abuse by Pell.

The first victim alleged Pell molested him and fondled his penis, testicles and anus area with one hand before throwing him in the air.

He claimed half the time Pell touched him under his bathers and half the time over his bathers.

The second alleged victim recalled only one incident of alleged touching and was unable to say whether the touching was deliberate or accidental. Prosecutors said the second victim recalled it felt like a finger touched one of his testicles.

In his written reasons for rejecting the tendency evidence, Judge Kidd said any inference of deliberate touching on the second victim was very faint.

“The touching occurred in the course of what the Crown accepts was an otherwise legitimate and innocent activity,” he said.

He described the touching as “of the briefest of possible durations” and a “superficial or light touching with a solitary finger”.

“It was not a grabbing, rubbing or molestation of his genitals,” Judge Kidd said.

“There is otherwise nothing in the evidence which would imbue the episode with an obvious sexual connotation.”

Judge Kidd said it wasn’t surprising the prosecution conceded the second victim’s account, on its face, was incapable of sustaining a conviction of indecent assault.

Judge Kidd said he didn’t consider the second victim’s “isolated, fleeting, apparently innocent touching” could shed any real light on whether the first victim’s complaint of “obviously deliberate and persistent sexual groping” was true.

A third man, whose allegation didn’t result in a charge, claimed Pell had an erection while throwing him in a lake in the 1970s.

The man alleged he slid down Pell’s front and felt Pell’s erection hit him in the chin.

He claimed Pell smiled at him and said: “Don’t worry, it’s only natural.”

Judge Kidd said the touching of the third man’s groin area in this account was highly equivocal, and the man’s description did not encompass his genital or anal area.

He said Pell’s erection was allegedly felt on the last throw when Pell held the boy around the thighs.

“This touching was an intrinsically legitimate and innocuous act,” he said.

“This touching is incapable of possessing a sexual connotation.”

Judge Kidd said the three episodes all occurred in the mid to late 1970s and in a body of water.

He said they also allegedly occurred during a throwing game while other people were around and each complainant was a prepubescent or young adolescent boy.

“The similarities, however, are not as great as they may first appear,” he said.

Judge Kidd said there was a real risk of prejudice if the jury accepted the first victim’s complaint of persistent sexual molestation.