JUSTICE

Shamed Cardinal Pell Appealing Sex-Abuse Conviction on Technicality

Australian prelate, 77, found guilty of five counts of sex abuse against a minor in December.

Shamed Australian Cardinal George Pell is hoping his sex-abuse conviction will be overturned on a technicality. Pell was convicted in December of five counts of sex abuse against two choirboys in the 1990s. He was jailed on Wednesday awaiting sentencing in mid-March. “There was a fundamental irregularity in the trial process, because the accused was not arraigned in the presence of the jury panel as required,” according to the appeal filed by his lawyer Robert Richter. Pell is also appealing the conviction on the grounds that only one victim testified. “The verdicts are unreasonable and cannot be supported, having regard to the evidence, because on the whole of the evidence, including unchallenged exculpatory evidence from more than 20 crown witnesses, it was not open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt on the word of the complainant alone,” according to the appellate brief. A second reported victim died of a drug overdose in 2014. Pell’s lawyer drew scorn this week for calling the case “plain vanilla sexual penetration.” He later apologized for those comments, calling them a “terrible choice of phrase.”

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Lachlan Cartwright