George Pell’s counsel withdrew his bail application today. Pell will be remanded in custody awaiting a sentence that almost certainly will include a long term of imprisonment.
This is one of the most significant moments in Australian criminal history, the conviction of a Roman Catholic cardinal for child sex offending. It has not happened anywhere on the planet.
Amid the shock and the superlatives, I fear this episode will place the real story in the shadow. What we have learned from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses of Child Sex Abuse will be overwhelmed by the magnitude of Pell’s conviction. Victims will continue to be left as line items on a profit and loss statement. Those seeking compensation under the National Redress Scheme will continue to be put on hold.
Other guilty institutions will skate away.
The history is clear. In Victoria and as far as I can tell anywhere in Australia, no Catholic priest was charged let alone convicted of a child sex offence until 1979. That in itself is a damning statistic given what we know of the rampant pedophilia of outrageously prolific offenders like Monsignor John Day, Father Ronald Pickering and Gerard Ridsdale.
But it also speaks of failures elsewhere. Simply put, that level of offending could not occur without failures within law enforcement and more broadly across the criminal justice system.
What is known is that elements within the Victoria Police Force up to and including the Chief Commissioner at the time, Reg Jackson, conspired to prevent the criminal prosecution of Monsignor Day in Mildura in 1972.
Father Ronald Pickering fled the country. When his whereabouts became known, the process of his arrest in Great Britain and subsequent extradition back to Victoria was considered too costly. The man police darkly referred to as a “two (victims) a day man” was left to his own devices. Pickering remained in the UK in full view but somehow beyond the reach of the law until his death in 2009.
Many of Ridsdale’s crimes against children were not subject to any acceptable form of investigative rigour. In the 1980s, victims’ statements alleging Ridsdale committed the worst of his crimes were lost by police. Meanwhile other statements alleging offences of lesser gravity became the basis of his first prosecution (Ridsdale was the second priest to be charged with child sex offences in Victoria in 1989).
Whether it was a matter of ineptitude or something much worse is a matter that requires further investigation. If history tells us anything, it is that the Victoria Police Force is not especially curious about examining its historical failings.
What we do know is that where police won’t act, offending will escalate. It is a one-way ticket to a crime spree.
It is not difficult to understand. Convince an armed robber that he can commit his crimes without consequence, and he will not only continue to commit armed robberies, he will continue to commit more of them.
What happened in Mildura in 1972 told the clergy within the Ballarat diocese and elsewhere in Victoria that they were practically above the law. The clerics who preyed upon children would not be pursued. The clerics who were complicit or who chose to look the other way would not be held to account.
In this context, the number of victims grew from one to ten to a hundred and finally to the point where not even the authority and weight of a royal commission could keep count.
The Mildura conspiracy effectively created an inducement to offend, a standing offer of immunity, extended to some of the worst child sex offenders this country has ever seen.
The protection of pedophile priests and complicit clerics undermines public trust and confidence in police in ways that more orthodox forms of police corruption do not. While morally indefensible, we can at least understand how police might be bribed to look the other way in the lucrative drug trade. How it was that police were protecting child sex offenders defies comprehension. And without public confidence, police cannot operate.
Unsurprisingly, the Victoria Police Force is yet to issue an apology for its role in this epidemic of child sex offending. It has barely acknowledged its culpability and quietly waits for all the fuss to die down.
The Royal Commission found that child sex offending was rife in all manner of institutions: religious and secular, government and non-government.
The Catholic Church was a principal offender but pound for pound no institution was worse than the Salvation Army. The principals of the dismal cult of the Jehovah’s Witnesses when presented with the sordid details of child sex abuse on their watch, found it beneath themselves to offer even an apology.
We need to look beyond the headlines. The real story here is not that one of the Vatican’s most senior men is set to go behind bars.
The real story is that the nation’s children, our most precious asset, were not valued. They were not protected.
The real story is, as it was before Pell’s conviction, that children were not believed. They were not believed by law enforcement, they were not believed in the courts, they were often not believed by their own parents.
Those who defend Pell today are acting in precisely the same way as the Catholic Church and every other offending institution has done in the past.
They are telling Pell’s victims (one who is deceased) “We do not believe you.”
After a three-year royal commission and a national outpouring of grief and sorrow, we have learned everything and nothing.
This column first appeared in The Australian 27 February 2018.
I have a theory that all religious writings are the work of the devil to turn humankind against itself and nature.
Bless you, Mr. Baptiste love hearing of your ‘theories”. Say that massive Flood you have predicted to wipe out Mankind only about 4 years away now.
Your humble correspondent has increased his daily swims in readiness. Cheers in fellowship
A more practical idea might be to get yourself a liferaft Henry.
“all religious writings are the work of the devil”?
How quaint, convenient and confused JB. You’re obviously attempting a spot of inappropriate comic relief via the use of Theistic Satanism.
Better to stick to your belief in anarchism, its so simple.
No I’m serious. Religion is primarily the tool of those with the least genuine interest in the common man. Obviously all religious texts are the machinations of the self interested in order to exploit and bend the masses to their own advantage.
I got this from God, Who is very disappointed in how humanity has fallen for all that tosh, so in response to your instructions I suggest you watch what you say. I will of course intercede on your behalf insofar as I can, because clearly you have been led astray by dark forces , but you are skating on thin ice so close to the end times.
“Religion is primarily the tool of those with the least genuine interest in the common man.”
What a load of ignorant superficial nonsense JB.
Your breadth of understanding of the subject is even less credible than your vain attempt at jocularity. You’re obviously totally ignorant of the many and varied systems of faith and worship. What, for instance is you view and understanding of the religious practices of Buddism? Or animism? Or the Australian Aborigines practice and worship of their Dreamtime?
To name just a few.
Name them all if you like. It’s a load of horseshit invented by powerful individuals or groups to manipulate people to forgo
their gift of curiosity and individuality and be subservient to the advantage of elites.
I had thought of giving you a free upgrade when you finally come to your senses and apply for one of our guaranteed passes into the heavenly hereafter but you’ve blown it pal with your hectoring and insolence.
and it works eh?
sigh. cotc you only know one way, obfuscation. No surprises. Get off your knees and stop swallowing the religious superstitions you have been force fed.
You even got that from the Ten Commandments, JB? Was Charles Manson overseeing your thesis? Personally I think humankind has an inherent capacity for evil and good, regardless of religious writings. And how many lay people read religious writings? The only people I’m aware of that widely study that sort of stuff are of the Jewish faith.
And be sure nature has a long history of turning against us.
The rest of my family, like many other protestants, have been reading and studying their bibles ‘religiously’ my whole life. Daily. They have study groups and all. Complete waste of time in my opinion but the you go.
If you go to many Muslim countries, people (men) are reading the Koran every spare moment. Many know it off by heart already. Most know long passages at least. Add o to answer your ‘how many’ question- shitloads
Ok, so I left out a billion people or so! An easy mistake, or oversight, but I never misspoke.
A very simplistic view Milton. Lay people are still subject to the influences of societies foundations formed by the religious.
Interesting that Manson comes to mind for you. You have some demons you struggle with old boy?
little milton, first you were espousing the virtues of jim jones now Manson? projecting much?
Dear DimSayed – I never espoused the virtue of Jim Jones, I simply repeated a quote he used that he paraphrased from George Santayana: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. The Manson comment was for amusement! Go on, look it up. Oddly enough, Jean would have appreciated some of Manson’s views as he was an early advocate for the environment, suggesting man was destroying the planet. If things had turned out different, Charlie wouldn’t have looked or sounded out of place as a Green’s senator. Come to think of it, his association with bikie gangs could have given him a head start in the union/labor movement.
Now you get back to playing with your scissors and glue!
Jesus! So much knowledge! What are you planning for , “The Church of The Messianic Milton?”
Dont drink the home brew kids.
Nope! They are all about control and convincing those at the bottom of the pecking order that, by enduring the privations in this life, there will be paradise in the after life.
Without the latter, the ruling classes cannot function.
It’s been like that since the ancient Egyptians.
Well thats sounds pretty darn evil to me.
The gypos were late into the game – Göbekli Tepe had a priest class 15,000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
I daresay witchdoctors and chiefs were scamming in partnership long before that.
now what am I doing posting this …umm umm …I know I’ll ask Richter
https://www.wikihow.com/Attach-a-Merkin
Odd thing. Whenever I hear the word merkin I think of Abbott or Howard or Morrison with a beard.
Easily the best assessment I have read of this torrid affair…well done Bald! Richo had some savage
things to say on radio today about Abbott and Howard. He could not believe how Pell could be judged a man of good character by Howard when he had clearly molested children. And Abbott…OK a friend is a friend as Abbott called him but when that ‘friend’ forces himself on children surely that person could not be still considered a ‘friend’. Then there are the cover-ups by Pell. He knew what was going on and did nothing about it.
Poodles Pyne may go Steve Ciobo taking the family option. Will there be anybody left to turn the lights orrff? Sadly the wrong people are going….Sadly for the Liberals and the Coalition, the ones that need to go so the party can rejuvenate-Abbott, Kelly, Andrews, Abetz, Joyce, Cash, Dutton, Fifield, Christensen,Katter are staying! They are going nowhere. As a group it will be this cohort that loses the Liberals the election and will remain a cancer eating the party to oblivion.
“Abbott, Kelly, Andrews, Abetz, Joyce, Cash, Dutton, Fifield, Christensen,Katter are staying! They are going nowhere.
well then the lnp is going nowhere, which means the graveyard for them.
I wont miss ’em
Wonderful how the Coalition is renewing and refreshing BASSMAN old fruit ready to knock out poor old “Electricity” Bill Shorten or as many call him “Bruvver” Bill Shorten the ex Trade Union Boss.
My only regret is I did not put more money on the Coalition to win, that’s a damn but did get some nice odds. Cheers in excitement.
If you call rats leaving a sinking ship ‘renewing’ you need Brain Salad Surgery!
Katter? Liberal?
Ciobo is/was a fitting member of the group you listed
Katter votes with them all the time…Liberal enuff for me…took bribes for his vote.
Katter only gets elected on Labor preferences in Kennedy.
Where is it clear Pell abused children Bassy?
Just terrorising vulnerable children with fairy tales of demons and everlasting agony and bunkum about sky fairies watching them every moment of their lives is a savage form of child abuse. No sympathy, right or wrong they can bung the lot of them in the slammer for mine.
As I have been saying all along-very difficult to prove. But Richter admitted oral sex by his vanilla statement
No, that was part of a sentencing submission, not part of the trial.
The mass departure from the Coalition is reminiscent of the time Labor lost a swag of its best when Rudd was at the helm.
These guys certainly know when to take their pensions and run! Why wouldn’t you…
Wonderful to see Boadicea makes me even more confident of a Coalition win at the upcoming Federal Election.
Fresh new Faces a wonderful thing to rejuvenate the Coalition.
God help Australia if “Bruvver” Bill Shorten was to become PM but feel the good folk of Australia when staring down the barrel of that ghastly possibility will shy away. Cheers
ta dah…good news week
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/02/28/nasa-says-earth-is-greener-today-than-20-years-ago-thanks-to-china-india/#4413388b6e13
Nah. Bad news. It’s a closed system anyway, temporary storage of C02 , the green absorbs more of the suns heat, and if we planted trees on every square inch it would only make a slight difference, in the short term.
The good news is that nearly all of the old ice in the Arctic has gone and almost anyone with a few bucks will soon be able to make the journey to the North Pole on a cruise ship.
Baptistes Enviromental Disaster Tours inc are taking bookings now. Get in early before before it becomes a been there done that ho hum destination.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/opinion/to-save-the-planet-dont-plant-trees.html
and cop the active graph in the right hand bar. Damn trees must work harder.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/oceans-routinely-break-heat-records.html
Vale Mike Willesee
Indeed, a great journo and a good bloke. Top punter as well. One of the best I’ve seen.
yes, he was all of that, and an old South Melbourne trier as well.
Love the story of K Packer wanting the Nine chopper to get out to Warwick Farm for the races, only to be told that it was booked for a story, he drives out and discovers Willacy has been flown out to watch one of his horses run, i believe Mike went back in a taxi.
Yep-he who could use a pause as a battering ram!
It would be poetic justice if he ends up in Ararat Prison with his former housemate Ridsdale
someones business is screwed.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-terminates-subscriptions-worlds-largest-scientific-publisher-push-open-access-publicly
meanwhile in mainstreet the wheels grind on
https://au.investing.com/analysis/australian-property-prices-to-fall-25-despite-rate-cuts-200199772
I am certainly glad that John Bryson wrote Evil Angels, for without it no proper light would have been shone on some very troubling police work and a miscarriage of justice.
it seems that there are quite a few experienced lawyers and court observers who see some problems with the Pell conviction.
Their concerns may be misplaced, time will tell, but they are perfectly entitled to have their say.
Only Pell and the applicant know what happened, jack. Personally I think he became the scapegoat, and a big scalp, for the sins of all paedophile clergy – possibly self-inflicted, given his avoidance of returning to Australia to testify for a while until he was forced to do so. He comes across as not a likeable persona – probably why Richter chose not to put him on the stand- although those close to him say he is. Shades of Lindy Chamberlain here.
I would not be surprised if the appeal wins. The evidence seems fragile and it would have been nigh impossible to have an impartial jury. One thing that seems not to have happened is a live reenactment of what it would have taken to clear himself of all those garments the archbishop wore for ceremonial occasions – whilst taking the jury through the cathedral on a busy Sunday after one of those masses – which did not happen.. The appeal is heard by judges only which could make a difference.
I am not a Pell supporter by any means, and the dreadful things children suffered at the hands of these men are unspeakable crimes. He may regard his time as penance for the sins of the church and spend his days in reflective prayer..Priests are accustomed to that solitary pastime.. He is close to the end of his days anyway.
Perhaps the police who were involved in coverups should be regarded as equally guilty?
The abusive screams and taunts of the mobs both in the streets and in the press are appalling, in my opinion. Dignified behaviour sends a stronger message.
Let’s hope, then, that all the proceedings related to this trial, especially the examinations made in closed session, and the activities in the jury room, have been recorded from all angles, as we expect for a “reality” TV show, and in time we will all have the opportunity to go over it from the comfort of our lounges. Until then, twelve citizens (one of them could have been myself) have given serious thought to their civic responsibilities, and that’s good enough. Isn’t it? More to the point, is there anything better? We can be pretty sure he wouldn’t even have been brought to trial in Poland, Hungary, Russia, et al. Maybe we’d be better off with a less democratic system of justice. Well, most of us law-abiding white folks, anyway.
Sure, there’s miscarriages, mischief & poor policing, etc, that’s been displayed in ‘Making a Murderer’ and a dozen after-the-facts crappy podcasts. Sure, some convictions are unsound and plain wrong, but those are usually brought on people at the low end of the scale. Yep, why on earth would sane people believe a paragon of virtue against a lesser mortal? Heaven help us all.
The problem is HU, if it wasn’t George Pell the DPP would never have run the trial. I think he’s guilty of child sexual abuse, whether by actuallity or conscious neglect. But there’s no evidence.