CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
Associated Press via Washington Post
April 6, 2020
By Rod McGuirk
Australia’s highest court on Tuesday will judge Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against convictions for molesting two teenage choirboys more than two decades ago. But the legal battle over the world’s most senior Catholic convicted of sexually abusing children may not end there.
The High Court could deliver Pope Francis’ former finance minister a sweeping victory or an absolute defeat. Or the seven judges could settle on one of several options in between that could extend the appeal process for another year or more.
The 78-year-old cleric cleric has spent 13 months in two high-security prisons at high risk of having a coronavirus outbreak, and he would have strong grounds for being released on bail if the court case is extended.
Pell was sentenced by a Victoria state County Court judge in March last year to six years in prison for sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in a back room of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in December 1996 while he was archbishop of Australia’s second-largest city.
Pell was also convicted of indecently assaulting one of the boys by painfully squeezing his genitals after a Mass in early 1997. Pell must serve three years and eight months behind bars before he becomes eligible for parole.
One of the former choirboys died of a heroin overdose in 2014 aged 31. Pell has largely been convicted on the testimony of the survivor, now the father of a young family aged in his 30s, who first went to police in 2015. The identities of both victims are concealed by state law.
A jury had unanimously convicted Pell of all five charges in December 2018, but he was spared prison for three months while he underwent replacement surgery for both knees.
The High Court has examined whether the Victorian Court of Appeal was correct in its 2-1 majority decision in August to uphold the jury verdicts.
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