By\u00a0Louise Milligan, Analysis, August 21, 2019<\/p>\n
In the end, just as in the beginning, this was a case about two little boys.<\/p>\n
Two 13-year-old choristers from humble backgrounds, who received scholarships to an expensive Catholic school because they could sing their little hearts out.<\/p>\n
Two boys whose childhoods, a court has again found, were stolen from them in 1996 by a man who was supposed to represent all that was good in the world: the then Archbishop of Melbourne.<\/p>\n
Neither chorister was in court this brisk Melbourne morning.<\/p>\n
Victoria’s Court of Appeal delivered one of the most significant judgments in Australian legal history. So what’s the next step?<\/a><\/p>\n One succumbed in 2014 to the heroin addiction that overwhelmed him from the age of 14 \u2014 the year after the event that changed their lives.<\/p>\n He was only 31 when he died.<\/p>\n The other choirboy remained silent about what George Pell did to them until his friend’s death.<\/p>\n Then, four years ago, with private and resolute determination, he told his truth to Victoria Police.<\/p>\n Today, beamed to the world through a scratchy feed from a Supreme Court building several blocks away from where the boy was orally raped at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, two judges of the Victorian Court of Appeal agreed with a jury of 12 that this young man was a truth-teller.<\/p>\n That finding meant Cardinal George Pell’s appeal was dismissed.<\/p>\n The world’s third most-senior Catholic will return to prison.<\/p>\n “Throughout his evidence, [the complainant, known only to the court as ‘J’] came across as someone who was telling the truth,” Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and Justice Chris Maxwell found in their majority judgment.<\/p>\n “He did not seek to embellish his evidence or tailor it in a manner favourable to the prosecution.”<\/p>\n As the only journalist who has met J and other complainants against George Pell, and who wrote about these allegations in my book, Cardinal, The Rise and Fall of George Pell, I do not speak for J as he is fiercely private.<\/p>\n But I can comfortably say that their Honours’ finding is not a surprise to me.<\/p>\n I have never had any reason to believe that J is not telling the truth.<\/p>\n How one man’s testimony brought down George Pell, a giant in the Catholic Church, and Australia’s most senior cleric.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Indeed, I have often said I would defy anyone who had met him to find any reason why this young man would invent this story and to go through what has been a four-year ordeal through the police investigation and a court case.<\/p>\n He released a statement today through his lawyer, Dr Viv Waller, who acted pro bono for him during this process.<\/p>\n “The journey has taken me to places that, in my darkest moments, I feared I would not return from,” J wrote.<\/p>\n “The justice machine rolls on, with all of its processes and punditry, almost forgetting about the people at the heart of the matter.”<\/p>\n It was a characteristically measured statement, too, with J saying he appreciated that the criminal process had afforded Pell “every opportunity to challenge the charges and every opportunity to be heard”.<\/p>\n “I am glad he has had the best legal representation that money can buy. There are lots of checks and balances in the criminal justice system.”<\/p>\n It’s the ultimate David and Goliath tale of a young man who never sought fame, just wanted justice, against a well-resourced defendant who has for years cultivated and been supported by the powerful.<\/p>\n Imagine taking on Cardinal George Pell: the third most senior person in the worldwide Catholic Church. A man supported by two former prime ministers who didn’t spend a minute in court, didn’t hear or read a word of your evidence and yet nonetheless, by implication, branded you a liar.<\/p>\n The trauma and anxiety for all involved \u2014 J, the family of his dead friend, the entire community of people who have survived industrial-scale abuse by Catholic clergy in this country \u2014 cannot be underestimated.<\/p>\n As someone who became a witness in this case \u2014 I was cross-examined for a full day by Pell’s combative QC, Robert Richter \u2014 I can attest that this process is brutal and one you would be mad to seek out for any other reason than that you spoke the truth.<\/p>\n And I am not, like J, a child rape survivor.<\/p>\n I am not, like J, grieving a friend who was also abused by a powerful man the day I was raped.<\/p>\n I am not, like J, someone who has been falsely accused of trying to do this for my own personal gain.<\/p>\n “Nothing could be further from the truth,” J said in his statement about claims he was somehow after compensation.<\/p>\n “I have risked my privacy, my health, my wellbeing and my family.<\/p>\n “I have not instructed any solicitor in relation to a claim for compensation.<\/p>\n “This is not about money and it never has been.”<\/p>\n‘Someone who was telling the truth’<\/h2>\n
Inside the Pell abuse trial<\/h2>\n
The trauma can’t be underestimated<\/h2>\n
More on this story:<\/h2>\n
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