NERVOUS SHOCK

Choirboy’s Dad Sues Cardinal George Pell Over Sexual Abuse Claims

Pell was found guilty of sexually abusing the boy and another 13-year-old in 2018, but a higher court overturned the ruling.

The father of a 13-year-old boy whom Australian Cardinal George Pell was accused of sexually abusing is now suing the Catholic leader, the BBC reports. A 2018 jury ruled that Pell was guilty of molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in the mid-1990s, but the cardinal appealed after spending more than a year in prison, and Australia’s top court overturned the conviction, saying there was “a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place.” Now, one of the boys’ fathers—whose son died in 2014 from a drug overdose—is suing Pell and the Catholic Church for nervous shock, which is a legal term for a recognized mental illness or injury caused by the other party. The man also claims the church is liable for breaking its duty of care. On Thursday, a court scheduled a hearing for the lawsuit next month.