MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Guardian
August 19, 2019
By Melissa Davey
Senior Catholic cleric has been in custody in Melbourne since being sentenced in March to six years in prison
On Wednesday the most senior Catholic cleric to be convicted of child sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell, will find out if his appeal has succeeded and if he will be released from custody.
The 78-year-old has been in Melbourne assessment prison since being sentenced in March to six years in prison for sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in 1996 when he was the archbishop of Melbourne. He was ordered to serve a non-parole period of three years and eight months.
The jurors heard Pell sexually assaulted the two boys after Sunday solemn mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the priest’s sacristy. Pell orally raped one of the boys during this incident and indecently assaulted both of them. Pell offended a second time against one of the boys one month later, when he grabbed the boy’s genitals in a church corridor, once more after Sunday solemn mass. He was convicted on four counts of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16 and one count of sexual penetration with a child under the age of 16.
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