George Pell was due to take the stand in civil trial over sexual abuse allegations

George Pell was due to testify under oath for the first time at a civil trial over allegations he sexually abused a choirboy while Archbishop of Melbourne – but his testimony dies with him.

Pell was this year expected to testify under oath for the first time over allegations he sexually abused a choir boy at St Patrick’s Cathedral.

Despite having convictions on five child sexual abuse charges over the abuse of two choir boys quashed by the High Court, the Cardinal is now being sued by the father of one of the boys.

The boy died of a heroin overdose in 2014 before Pell was charged and before his death denied ever being abused.

His father launched legal action against the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and Pell, claiming he suffered psychological harm upon learning of the alleged abuse against his son.

The Herald Sun understands that as part of the trial both Pell and the surviving choir boy, known only as Witness J, were expected to be called to testify as witnesses.

Sources familiar with the case said the civil trial would rehash all of the evidence heard at Pell’s two criminal trials and appeals before the Supreme Court and High court.

Cardinal George Pell had previously been accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy, which was investigated by the Southwell inquiry that handed down its findings in 2002.

Pell at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. Picture: Getty

The allegations made against the then Archbishop of Melbourne related to an alleged incident in Phillip Island in 1961.

They were unsubstantiated.

A lawyer, who did not want to be named, said he had gotten to know Pell almost two decades ago and found it difficult to believe any of the accusations levelled against him.

“It rattled me a bit,” he said.

“I really got on well with him. I found it hard to believe.

“But paedophiles are known for having two faces, and maybe he was a paedophile, but you have to keep an open mind.

“Everyone is in one camp or the other. You have to be open to the possibility, but I didn’t believe it.”

He recalled a story he has been told about how the then Archbishop Pell had asked his numerous advisors about whether he should step down until the Southwell inquiry was completed.

“Everyone said no.

“But he still decided to stand down. This guy has morals, I thought”.

George Pell was Archbishop of Melbourne and later Archbishop of Sydney. Picture: Jeff Darmanin

The evidence of Witness J, the only surviving witness who claims to have first-hand knowledge of the abuse, would be central to the trial.

His evidence before the County Court trial that saw Pell convicted was given in a closed court and remains secret.

The evidence of Pell was also expected to be crucial to the civil case, and would have resulted in him being forced to answer questions over the allegations under oath for the first time.

Shine Lawyers chief legal officer Lisa Flynn, who is acting on behalf of the father, said his civil claim would continue despite Pell’s death.

“The claim will continue against the church and whatever estate Pell has left behind,” Ms Flynn said.

“A civil trial likely would have provided the opportunity to cross-examine Pell and truly test his defence against these allegations.

“There is still a great deal of evidence for this claim to rely on, and the court will be asked, in due course, to make its ruling on that evidence.”

Pell spent 405 days in jail after being convicted on four counts of indecent assault and one of sexual penetration of a child over the alleged abuse of the two choirboys.

He was released after the High Court quashed his convictions, finding the jury had not considered all the evidence.

The investigation resulting in charges being laid against Pell began in 2013 before any complaint had been made against him.

In December 2015, after receiving a single complaint, Victoria Police announced in a press release it was probing sexual-assault claims at St Patrick’s Cathedral, in East Melbourne, between 1996 and 2001 – the period Pell was Archbishop of Melbourne.

No further complaints were made.

Pell’s conroversial rise to power

A boy from Ballarat, George Pell rose to become one of the most powerful Catholics in the world.

Ordained a priest in 1966, he was a bishop by 1987, and Australia’s most senior Catholic — a cardinal — by 2003.

In his almost 57 years as a priest, he firmly stood by his beliefs and conservative views, despite the controversy they often attracted.

He was a popular young student, promising ruckman and Oxford scholar before becoming Archbishop of Australia’s two largest cities, Melbourne then Sydney.

Pell rose to become Australia’s most senior Catholic. Picture: Getty

When he was appointed as Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, in charge of the Vatican finances in 2014, he became the world’s third most senior Catholic and right-hand man to Pope Francis.

The younger Pell liked swimming and kicking a football; if contemporaries later recalled a stridency of thought, they also remembered a good rapport with young people.

It was a surprise to many of his school friends when he signed up for the priesthood in 1960.

He could have been a teacher, a footballer for Richmond, a lawyer, maybe.

Pell during his school days, pictured in 1955.

Pell’s friends were surprised when he signed up for the priesthood.

But with a devout Irish Catholic mother and a priest uncle, the jump to the seminary was not totally surprising.

His early contemporaries recall his hardline Catholic conservatism.

A prince of the church in the making, he bowed only to Rome.

Remembered for an impeccable work ethic, one former colleague remembers a man who believed anybody who spoke against the church was an “enemy”.

But as he climbed the ranks to become the public face of the Catholic Church in this country his detractors quickly outnumbered his supporters.

He railed against same-sex marriage, contraception, and abortion, dubbing the latter: “a worse moral scandal than priests sexually abusing young people”.

The public at large, and many inside the church, found his conservative views unfathomable.

But he was never one to be swayed by public opinion.

Sexual assault victims long blamed Pell for all the wrongs of the church.

His supporters say he worked tirelessly to implement change when he became Archbishop of Melbourne, and believe he was frustrated by a sense of powerlessness to act sooner.

Pell was right-hand man to Pope Francis. Picture: AFP

Pell and Pope Benedict in Sydney in 2008. Picture: Getty

His critics say he could have, and should have, done more earlier.

He was repeatedly forced to deny claims he has been complicit in the church’s cover-up.

He was accused of failing to take reports of abuse seriously while a young priest, helping shuffle paedophile priests between parishes as a bishop’s adviser, and trying to buy the silence of one of Gerald Ridsdale’s victims.

His support for Ridsdale, one of the Australian church’s worst ever child sex offenders, during a court appearance in the 1990s plagued Pell’s career and public perception since.

Globally though he carried more favour than he ever did at home.

After being charged with child sex crimes in June 2017 Pell confided to close aides that he was desperately looking forward to his day in court.

Pell arrives at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court to face a hearing. Picture: Mark Stewart

Pell confided to close aides that he was desperately looking forward to his day in court. Picture: David Crosling

Once and for all he could shake off the rumours that had plagued him since he was first publicly accused of sexual misconduct.

The allegations that he abused an altar boy during a camp at Phillip Island in 1961 were not investigated by police then, but were investigated by the church in 2002, with Cardinal Pell cleared by retired Supreme Court judge Alec Southwell.

Now he was confident of beating fresh, much more serious allegations.

After two County Court trials, the first jury being unable to reach a verdict, he was found guilty of all charges.

In the battle of truth they were asked to judge, the jurors backed the ex-choirboy’s version of events over Pell’s.

They believed he was a child rapist, who just months into the job as Melbourne’s seventh Catholic archbishop, brutally attacked two choirboys inside the city’s holiest site, St Patrick’s Cathedral.

At the time he was in the process of setting up the Catholic world’s first scheme for investigating and compensating claims of clerical sexual abuse.

American author George Weigel, Pope John Paul II’s biographer, blames a decades-long anti-Catholic sentiment he says has been a staple of Australian culture.

He has written that Pell was misrepresented as a “a power-hungry ecclesiastical politician, and that caricature made him a convenient scapegoat for the grave crimes of other priests.”

“Aggressive secularists couldn’t forgive him for his robust Catholicism. Most Catholic progressives couldn’t abide his orthodoxy,” he said.

“Some of Pell’s enemies had the integrity to dismiss the charges against him as ludicrous, and a few said afterward that his conviction was a travesty.”

Even before the verdicts he was dumped from the pope’s inner circle of trusted advisers, the Council of Cardinals.

The High Court later quashed all convictions.

Since then Pell spent much time commuting between Rome and Sydney, where he felt much more comfortable than in Melbourne.

“People tended to leave him alone, and leave him to it,” one friend said.

“In Sydney, he was much more free just to be.”

In the court of law, Pell died an innocent man.

In the court of public opinion, the jury will likely remain out.

Originally published as George Pell was due to take the stand in civil trial over sexual abuse allegations