Legal errors blamed for George Pell convictions

By James Madden
Australian
January 04, 2020

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/legal-errors-blamed-for-george-pell-convictions/news-story/770600482f1064d6dd169b597f6462b8

George Pell’s legal team will seek to have the cardinal’s conviction for child sex offences overturned on the grounds that the Victorian Court of Appeal erred by overlooking the fact that there was reasonable doubt about whether opportunity existed for the crimes to have occurred, and that the onus of proof wrongfully lay with the defendant.

Pell’s final submissions, filed with the High Court on Friday, were signed by barristers Bret Walker and Ruth Shann.

In a hearing set down for March 11 and 12, all seven High Court judges will decide whether to hear the jailed cardinal’s argument that he is in prison only because two judges on Victoria’s Court of Appeal ­rejected his ­appeal after engaging in circular logic and making a ­series of legal errors.

In the submissions, Pell’s legal team argued that his convictions risk a fundamental ­departure “from the defining safeguards of the accusatorial system of criminal justice”.

Pell, 78, was found guilty by a jury of the rape of a 13-year-old choirboy and sexual assault of another at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in 1996, but Australia’s most senior Catholic has ­always denied any wrongdoing.

Victoria’s Court of Appeal in August upheld Pell’s convictions by two votes to one.

He is serving a maximum six-year jail term.