LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC
April 7, 2020
The Australian man who accused Cardinal George Pell of child sexual abuse says he accepts a court’s decision to overturn the cleric’s conviction.
Cardinal Pell was freed from jail on Tuesday after Australia’s top court ruled he had not been proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
In 2018, a jury convicted him of abusing two choirboys in the 1990s. The cleric has maintained his innocence.
His accuser said he hoped the case would not “discourage” abuse survivors.
“It is difficult in child sex abuse matters to satisfy a criminal court that the offending has occurred beyond the shadow of a doubt,” the man, known as Witness J, said in a statement on Wednesday.
He said he understood why criminal cases were held to this “very high standard”, but added “the price we pay for weighting the system in favour of the accused is that many sexual offences against children go unpunished.”
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