Yes words when used correctly can be very powerful and meaningful, I hope Andrews words were of some comfort to all victims.
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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Cardinal George Pell, The Catholic Church and Child Sex Abuse
- Thread starter Tigers of Old
- Start date
Yeah, I don’t think “innocent” verdicts are given, either “guilty” or “not guilty”.
If this Priest does get a rap over the knuckles for this, it just reinforces what he's saying imo.
Interesting article by Jon Faine: https://www.theage.com.au/national/...-a-reality-check-20200407-p54hul.html?ref=rss
Includes this section:
And
The jury system relies on having members of the community assess the evidence on its merits. The judgement of the members of the community has now been thrown out, effectively along with the evidence given by the victim. This is hugely problematic.
DS
Includes this section:
And
The jury system relies on having members of the community assess the evidence on its merits. The judgement of the members of the community has now been thrown out, effectively along with the evidence given by the victim. This is hugely problematic.
DS
No he's innocent.
I can't say it any better than the bloke in the Australian this morning;
The exoneration of George Pell has revealed institutional flaws in Victoria that will tarnish Australian justice in the eyes of the world. Those shortcomings must be remedied.
The baseless conviction of Cardinal Pell is an international scandal that will rank alongside the jailing of Lindy Chamberlain for the murder of her baby, who was actually taken by a dingo.
Just like the Chamberlain case, the Pell disaster will inevitably find its way into a movie that will do no favours for the standing of Australian justice.
Two of the state’s most senior judges — Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and Court of Appeal president Chris Maxwell — have been shown to have made a fundamental error; the reliability of the state’s jury system has been left in doubt; and the wisdom of the state’s police in effectively advertising for complaints about the cardinal is open to question.
The immediate blame will inevitably rest with the Court of Appeal. But that court also boasts the real hero in this affair: judge Mark Weinberg, who defied the state’s anti-Pell frenzy and delivered a powerful, 204-page dissent whose reasoning has now been vindicated.
The High Court’s 44-page unanimous judgment amounts to a primer for the judiciary, particularly in Victoria, on how criminal justice is supposed to work. That primer was needed: if an innocent man can be jailed without a proper basis in law, nobody is safe.
The pain for Victoria does not end there. Pell’s tormentors in the media will need to re-examine the way they engaged in years of character assassination that has left them looking foolish.
The state government cannot escape the fallout. Victoria should join NSW by allowing high-profile criminal matters to be heard by a judge alone — without the assistance of a potentially biased jury.
The worst aspect of this case is that Victorian legislation meant the Pell jury was denied the full story about the man who claimed to have been assaulted by the cardinal.
Relevant evidence about the complainant was kept from the jury by virtue of legislation that was put in place with the clear intention of protecting those who claim to be victims of sexual assault.
The Pell jury was never told that the complainant had a history of psychological problems that required treatment. Nor were they told that Pell’s legal team was rebuffed in court — in the absence of the jury — when they attempted to gain access to records showing the extent of this man’s psychological problems.
That episode is outlined in the special leave application that was filed in the High Court by Pell’s legal team, led by Bret Walker SC. During the trial, it would have been a contempt of court for anyone to reveal this incident.
That application, which is a public document on file with the High Court, says “the applicant (Pell) could not tell the jury that the complainant had had psychological treatment and the applicant had been denied the ability to obtain records of it”.
That needs to change.
Agree. But I reckon for reasons opposite to what this article is trying say. There'll be a movie. The Catholic Church will try and stop it seeing the light of day. But Pell won't come out looking like a victim, instead he'll come out looking like someone that aided, abetted and basically hid from the law known child molesters.
The most revealing thing about that article is that nowhere is there any claim that the events as described by the witness did not happen.
This goes to the crux of Pell's defence - it rested on the argument that you could not just take the word of a witness. Really? Trials are decided on witness statements all the time. What they were denied was the opportunity to character assassinate the witness.
As for the witness's psychological state, that does not have any bearing on whether the events happened. In fact, the witness's psychological state was likely a result of their childhood experiences.
Did Pell provide any evidence that the witness's account was wrong? No, the argument was that the witness's account could not convict him on its own. Quite revealing really.
DS
It's not the club's place to put itself above the High Court.
If the Royal Commission report shows Pell has a case to answer for concealing the crimes of others, he'll no doubt be charged over it.
i think the judges were pretty clear they didnt find Pell innocent, just that he shouldnt be convicted when it is his word against the victims.
that article is nonsense too. why should the victims pyschological "problems" be relevant. this country has a long history of abuse against people with disability and mental health issues (im not sure what 'problems' means), disregarding the evidence of someone because of it will only entrench that abuse further.
Peggy, Brendon and Malcom Speed are all lawyers, there's probably a few other board members who are too.
When Pell was charged it certainly would've made things awkward for the club, I could only suggest that they thought he deserved the presumption of innocence until found guilty.
As soon as he was found guilty they removed him from his ambassadorial role.
Yes, the appeal decision points the finger squarely at the jury.
The jury made their decision on the evidence put before them, nothing more. The fact that 12 people all reached the same decision can only mean exactly that.
Yet the appeal finding said the jury could not reasonably have been convinced of Pell's guilt on the evidence put before them. It implies all sorts of possibilities.
Yeh an article in The Aust supporting Pell - amazing. And agree abuse is often predicated on the powerless. Great the author thinks we shouldn't listen to anyone with physcological issues.
None of us on PRE would get a say
I thought the points raised were entirely objective.
Depends on the nature of the psychological issues. If the witness is a fantasist or suffers from delusions, it may have been relevant.
e.g. Lesbian fantasist invented 15 rapes and sexual assaults which saw man jailed to get sympathy from girlfriends, court hears
I'm not making any specific inferences about the witness, about whom very little is known.
Yes Pell should be treated like the pariah he is. With hindsight he was a very poor choice to have at the club in any capacity.
