Never have I seen such vituperation and opprobrium directed against anyone as I have seen in the press directed against Cardinal Pell over many months, if not years. . . . it seems to me that there is no chance Cardinal Pell could ever receive a fair trial, so poisoned has the public's mind been.Geoffrey Horgan, former Victorian Crown Prosecutor
At trial the accused's guilt must be established beyond reasonable doubt. On the other hand, Cardinal George Pell, one time Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne might be unique in that his innocence was established beyond any reasonable doubt - but not before he served more than 400 days in prison for a crime he could not possibly have committed.
His first trial for allegedly sexually abusing two choirboys ended with a hung jury, 10 to 2 for acquittal. Nevertheless, he was found guilty by a unanimous decision of a second jury at his second trial. On appeal, two of the three judges supported his conviction, but it was set aside by unanimous decision of the Full High Court that no jury could logically made such a decision.
And what was the substance of the trial in 1998? The sole witness for the prosecution was a former choirboy designated "J" for the second boy had already died. Nevertheless, while he was alive he had told his mother he had not been molested. According to "J", the crime occurred in 1996 when Pell had conducted a high mass at St Patrick's Cathedral. It was established that only a couple of days were possible on which this could have occurred. After the choir had processed out of the cathedral, the two choirboys broke off from the procession and, by a roundabout route, arrived at the priests' sacristy. "Poking around" inside, they happened to discover some altar wine, and took a few squigs. At that point, Pell arrived and "sprung" them, upon which he forced them to kneel and, hiking up his vestments, performed fellatio on them.
Now, you must understand the normal modus operandi of the typical pedophile involves grooming his victim over a period of time, winning his confidence, until such occasion as he can get him alone and take advantage of him. Understand, too, that this was the same year in which Pell had created the Melbourne Response to investigate sexual molestation within the church. Yet we are expected to believe that he discovered these two boys by chance and, on impulse, decided to assault them, despite the fact that he did not know them, that they might immediately inform their parents, and that at any moment somebody else might arrive in the room.
Ex-choirboy "J" was the sole witness for the prosecution. No corroboration was provided, and some of his testimony was questionable. Thus, he described the priests' sacristy in detail - but as it was at the time of the trial, after it had been extensively renovated and remodeled, not as it had been in 1996. Meanwhile twenty witnesses for the defence testified as follows:
- After every service Pell spent a long time - usually about 15 minutes - at the cathedral door meeting and greeting worshippers. After that he was always escorted back to the sacristy by the Master of Ceremonies, who helped to disrobe him. In fact, it was required by canon law.
- A lot of other people had to use the priests' sacristy, which was a "hive of activity" as soon as it was unlocked. This, of course, was the time the boys allegedly found it empty and Pell walked in on them.
- In any case, so heavy and complex were his vestments that he could not even go to the toilet. It would have been physically impossible for him to hike them up and assault the boys as alleged.
In other words, the ex-choirboy's story was completely impossible. This was not a simple case of reasonable doubt being raised about the accused's guilt. His innocence had been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
I knew all this, because I had been following the trial in detail. However, I was not aware of how vast and deep had been the "get Pell" movement until I read the late Keith Windschuttle's 2020 book, The Persecution of George Pell. Windschuttle was a professional historian and journalist, and provided sources for every part of the story. But, basically, it was based on public sources available to everyone.
As I said before, early in 1996 Archbishop Pell started the Melbourne Response to investigate sexual abuse by the church and to assist victims. However, beginning in 2002 he became the target of various scurrilous accusations, and a pattern began to emerge. The accusations were loudly trumpeted by the press, but when evidence emerged disproving them, it was either ignored or relegated to a minor paragraph where it was bound to be overlooked or forgotten. Sometimes, the accusation would be brought forth again even after it had been disproved. It was clear that the press had it in for Pell and were determined to cast as much mud as possible at him in the hope that some would stick.
To understand the first accusation, you must understand that a certain priest, Gerard Ridsdale came under police investigation in December 1992 and was arrested in February 1993, after which he was jailed for 18 years for at least 179 acts of sexual abuse of 69 children between 1961 and 1988. And here we have an example of what genuine pedophilia looks like: once a victim comes forth and his claim is investigated, a whole regiment of other victims speak up. And that was why Pell's conviction in 2018 was so unusual; no other victims turned up after "J" had made his accusation.
Nevertheless, in 2002 one of Ridsdale's victims, his nephew, David contacted Channel 9's program, Sixty Minutes and told them that he had phoned Pell in 1993 and the latter offered him a car or a house to silence him. Pell himself was booked to be interviewed by Sixty Minutes, and they sprung Ridsdale's accusation at him in front of the camera. This makes good dramatic television, but it hardly amounts to fairness. Pell remembered the telephone call, but he pointed out that he had no authority to make such an offer and, in any case, Ridsdale's silence would not protect the church, because his uncle was already under investigation. But, of course, mud sticks.
It was this, so it was claimed, that induced career criminal Phil Scott to approach the victim activist group, Broken Rites to allege he had been sexually abused by Pell in a Catholic boys' camp when he was aged 12 and Pell 19. Although Pell allegedly fondled his genitals in the presence of other boys, none of those found to have been at the camp ever witnessed it. But Scott was adroit at manipulating the press, and those who believed him downplayed, or completely ignored, his criminal record and the Costigan Royal Commission's report of his activities as a standover man in an extortion racket. And, of course, he claimed never to have thought of compensation when he made his allegations. The result was an enquiry by a former judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, who found that the only evidence for the events was the unsupported testimony of a person of dubious morality. But mud sticks.
One could continue with other dubious allegations which the press lapped up and highlighted, then failed to give the same publicity when they were proved to be incorrect. The number of lies and distortions, and actions in bad faith is astonishing. In 2002 Sixty Minutes tried to smear him as a close friend and associate of the notorious pedophile, Gerard Ridsdale. They had been to school together, attended seminary together, and shared a house as young priests. Lies! And they must have known they were false. Ridsdale was seven years older than Pell. They went to different primary schools, and attended high school at different times. They never attended seminary together. As for sharing a house, for eight months they were two of four priests assigned to the same presbytery by the church hierarchy.
In 2012 the Deputy Commissioner for Police, Graham Ashton claimed that Pell's Melbourne Response was simply continuing the cover up. According to him, since 1996 they had upheld 602 cases of criminal abuse but had reported none to the police. This was too much for the independent commissioner of the Melbourne Response, Peter O'Callaghan QC. (For my American readers, QC means "Queen's Counsel" - now King's Counsel - and is a very senior lawyer.) He produced a very detailed document revealing that the Response had received, not 620 complaints, but 330 and had upheld 304. Of these, 128 of the abusers were dead, out of the country, or unable to be identified, 76 complainants were encouraged to go to the police, and many others had gone to the police before they went to the Response.
Nevertheless, in 2013 the police instituted Operation Tethering in order to find evidence to charge Pell with pederasty. Instead of having a crime and looking for a suspect, they had a suspect and were looking for a crime. They had no luck for four years until ex-choirboy "J" came along. In 2017 the Deputy Commissioner for Police announced that Pell would face multiple charges from multiple complainants. This was a deliberate lie, presumably intended to prejudice the public against him. In the meantime a couple of books had been written painting Pell as a villain.
As far as "J" was concerned, it was his mother who started the ball rolling in 2014, when he himself was 31 years old. She approached the advocacy group, Broken Rites with the claim that her son had told her he had been abused by a Maltese priest who was, by then, dead. However, by 2015 the story had been changed such that it was Pell who had sprung the two choirboys and assaulted them when they had been poking around the cathedral after a nighttime choir practice. Unfortunately, Pell didn't live near the cathedral, and never visited it during week days. So the story changed to the final version of an assault after mass on Sunday. At first it was said that the choir had processed inside the cathedral, but since that took place only during wet weather, it was changed again to an external procession.
Interestingly, this version bears a remarkable resemblance to the case of Rev. Charles Engelhardt, whose conviction and imprisonment in Philadelphia, USA had been written up in 2011 in Rolling Stone, a magazine known to have been read in "J's" circles. (Four and a half years later the story was revealed to be a pack of lies, but not before the drug dealer and petty thief who had made up the story had got five million dollars out of the church. But it was too late for Rev. Engelhardt, who had died in prison of a heart attack, another innocent victim of a moral panic and witch hunt.)
One may speculate on the motivations of "J" but what is certain is that his story was impossible. It never happened. You cannot "believe all victims". We may also speculate on the motives of those who continued this campaign of lies and distortions. The most likely cause was antipathy towards the Church of Rome, of which Pell was the most visible face in Victoria, especially since he was an enemy of the sexual licence they themselves espoused. Perhaps the most charitable attitude would be to suggest that some of them honestly believed the nonsense, their bias causing them to put the worst possible construction on everything.
Cardinal Pell passed away in 2023, after more than 80 years of what appears to have been a blameless life. Nevertheless, if you fling enough mud some of it which stick. There are a lot of reasonable people who have just a superficial exposure to the news who still think he was a villain, and that he was acquitted just on a technicality.
The witch hunt still continues. I note that in 2025 the National Redress Scheme found that he had anally raped a nine year old boy and sexually groped an eight year old during the 1970s, and paid out $95,000 and $45,000 to them respectively. The standard of proof was "reasonably likely", which is lower than even the balance of probabilities in a civil case. Of course, it is also "reasonably likely" that anyone who committed such abominable crimes in his 30s would have racked up a whole lot of other victims over the following decades, but none have come forward. But then again, it was only taxpayers' money, and I know from my career as a public servant that the best way to get hold of that is to tell a story which cannot be disproved. Best to wait till the accused is dead and can't fight back, and instead of going to the church, which will contest it, to go straight to the government. Nice work if you can get it!
