No one on the cold, packed Melbourne sidewalk outside the Supreme Court expected today to go down the way it did.
Before the verdict, members of the Care Leavers Australasia Network (CLAN), a group for both abuse and institutional survivors, railed against George Pell. They called him an elite, too big to fall, while holding placards calling for “JUSTICE FOR WITNESS J” (Pell’s surviving accuser). Before the news dropped, journos swapped stories of legal sources both shocked at the former Vatican treasurer’s initial conviction for child sex abuse and confident that “reasonable doubt” would see judges overturn the jury.
On the street police are perhaps unsurprisingly brusque. One tells me he shouldn’t ask me twice to clear a path (it’s the first time he’s spoken to me). The queue into the court is enormous and filled with slightly peeved lawyers running late for other cases . Further away, cops can also be seen swapping maps of some kind, presumably working out a game plan for crowds and, possibly, the former archbishop himself, who is later brought in through a secret back entrance.
Cameras glare and teleprompters face directly at the crowd, pre-filled with sentences like “George Pell has XXXX (sic) in his appeal of child sex abuse”. You can’t take a step without hearing a television live cross about “D-day” or “red-letter day” for Australia’s former highest ranking clergy official.
Crikey spies both Lucie Morris-Marr — who has doggedly covered the case — and David Marr, who wrote easily the definitive account of the first conviction.
During one low point in the scrum, I spy one journalist trying to wedge himself closer to a source. Behind him, a helpful colleague shoves him forwards and down to help get through the sea of legs.
At any rate, with everyone either too late or too “TV journalist” — i.e. encumbered by camera gear — to make it into the courtroom itself, things are tense, busy and frustrating prior to the 9.30am verdict. After all, whatever happens today may well be subject to a High Court challenge. Is it really the end of the matter?
While the news breaks slowly over my lagging smartphone, I’m informally told of the verdict by the CLAN survivors’ cheers. Pell’s appeal has failed. His return to the Melbourne Assessment Prison is, for survivors at least, a wonderful day that “upholds hope”, as CLAN’s Robert House described it. One activist dedicates the shared victory to, among others, survivors who have died by suicide.
They handle the immediate scrum of interviews with grace, repeating answers, lauding the bravery of a survivor who went with a complex truth in lieu of a “more believable story”, and explaining that, even with the High Court challenge, Pell will have to spend another six months in jail.
Tension finds an outlet — an older woman from CLAN is harassed by a Pell supporter, who shouts about assumptions about priests. They shout that the survivor’s pain has nothing to do with Pell, and that the abuse Pell has been convicted of could not have been possible.
Finally, after lawyers shuffle out, prominent survivor and advocate Chrissie Foster exits the court. She leaves everyone with what’s become something of her battle-cry: that the Catholic Church cannot continue with a compensation scheme set up by a man who, as of today, has been found by both judge and jury to have committed child sex abuse.
Whatever happens at the High Court, justice for victims now rests with that religious giant.
Survivors of abuse can find support by calling Bravehearts at 1800 272 831 or the Blue Knot Foundation at 1300 657 380. The Kids Helpline is 1800 55 1800.
May we keep our footpaths please?
I completely agree!
Even pavements; certainly not “sidewalks!”
Hear hear!
Does George Pell have an automatic right to appeal to the High Court? First of all, he has to apply for Leave to Appeal in front of 2 or 3 Justices of the High Court, which if approved would then go to the High Court.
But an appeal isn’t a certainty.
I would guess that since one of the Judges has dissented on the first ground of appeal, the High Court will feel the need to have a look. They have not been afraid of looking at “obstacles to conviction” in the past which is what Justice Weinberg seems to be most concerned about. It would seem that Justice Kidd did an excellent job presiding over the trial which was a very difficult and high profile case.
Reading through the 300 pages I am even more convinced that trial by jury is the least worst of any other system and that the people at the higher levels of our judicial system agree with this. Given the simple minded approach of our Federal Police trial by jury provides some comfort that we haven’t succumbed to the police state.
Technically not an automatic right – he would need to apply to a bench of two justices for special leave and only if that is granted, would it go to a full appeal (either a bench of five or a bench of seven).
“No one on the cold, packed Melbourne sidewalk outside the Supreme Court expected today to go down the way it did.”
We don’t have sidewalks in Melbourne, we have footpaths.
Thank you PaulM, thank you.a man after my own heart, we must defend Australia from these Americanisms with our last breath.
Yehh,
The footpaths are about all we have left.
The US have all of our gas and anything else that matters. The UK, Singapore, China, the French etc have anything else that the Americans haven’t got their hands on.
As interesting as the conviction is that recipients of compensation under the Melbourne Response may have grounds to appeal for higher payments on the grounds that the architect of the scheme is a proven pedophile, and thus not a fit and proper person to determine the scope of their original payments.
Also worth noting is that the lawyers defending the Church’s Response position were it is reported paid more for their work than was made in restitution to the victims. How very unchristian!
Unchristian?? I dunno, seems on form to me.
Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed wrote in a press release “that through the work of the Royal Commission, the Australian public has learnt about the multiple and persistent failings of institutions to keep children safe, the cultures of secrecy and cover-up, and the devastating affects child sexual abuse can have on an individual’s life.”
“The Final Report tells the story of institutional child sexual abuse in Australia, and provides recommendations to shape a safer future for children. We have now completed our work. It’s up to governments and institutions to take the next steps and implement the Royal Commission’s recommendations.”
The Final Report contains 3,955 de-identified narratives based on survivors’ personal experiences of child sexual abuse told during private sessions and shared in written accounts.
Yet for all its pretended apologies and all its’ talk of doing better, the Catholic Church still fights claims to the end, happy to further destroy today the people abused in their care in the past in order to focus what must be seen as their over-arching goal, the protection of their religious organisation’s assets.