Cardinal George Pell to Be Freed as High Court Overturns Sex Abuse Conviction

CNN ^ | Mon April 6, 2020 | Hilary Whiteman

[nickcarraway]

Cardinal George Pell will be immediately freed from prison after Australia's High Court unanimously overturned his conviction on five counts of historical child sex abuse.

The momentous decision, handed down Tuesday by Chief Justice Susan Kiefel, ends a five-year legal battle that started when a man in his 30s approached police alleging Pell had abused him as a child in the mid-1990s.

At the time, Pell was Vatican Treasurer and the highest ranking Catholic official to ever be publicly accused of child sex offenses. Pell strenuously denied the charges, which he dismissed in a 2016 police interview as a "product of fantasy."

In its two-page summary of the ruling, the High Court said that the jury "ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant's guilt with respect to each of the offenses for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place."

[rx]

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.   -- George Orwell, Animal Farm, 1945

[Ouchthatonehurt]

Have they directed him to the office where he might retrieve his reputation and lost time?

[nickcarraway]

No such place.

[naturalman1975]

Statement by Cardinal George Pell, 7th April 2020

[Reeses]

From wiki: Pell is a climate change denier. In a 2006 speech he said that "hysterical and extreme claims" about the natural environment were the result of the "pagan emptiness" of Western culture. He said: "In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions."

[Salvation]

Glory be to God. I think we all knew that he was innocent.