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.
John Silvester in The Age, re Richter:
“Much has been made of the fact that Pell did not take the witness box to defend himself. His lawyer, Robert Richter, QC, who is about the best in the business, has only ever let two of his clients take the box. One was the colourful Mick Gatto, charged and acquitted of the murder of hitman Andrew ‘‘Benji’’ Veniamin. I asked Richter why he allowed Gatto to testify and he replied, ‘‘Because he insisted.’’ Wise move.”
and
“In all probability Richter thought the case was so weak and, as Pell can come over as cold and aloof, that his testimony could do more harm than good.”
A fair response to Bolt, and even me, and a summing up of the hard yards still to be dealt with in the present and future:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/04/andrew-bolt-please-stop-implying-that-you-know-all-the-facts-about-george-pell
Too right it is. Well done Clare Linane.
If Pell wins his appeal Jack he might sue every journo that has written derogatory articles about him like this one.
I gather you’re not a lawyer so let me spell it out for you. Pell is a convicted child sex offender, convicted on five counts including the oral rape of a child under 15. He will be given a prison sentence long before his appeal gets underway. Putting his appeal to one side, while he is in prison the Royal Commission’s reports (redacted until now) will almost certainly hand down adverse findings in relation to Pell’s role as a consultor in the Ballarat diocese and his role both as an adjunct bishop and as Archbishop of Melbourne where he failed to remove offending priests despite considerable evidence of their offending and pleas from the community that these priests posed dangers to children.
he might just learn to shut up, more likely
Four Corners was pretty compelling viewing last night, particularly the interviews with those who had personal experience of George Pell’s behaviour.
I haven’t watched QandA for years as I consider it silly – but I have to commend tonight’s show.
Putting the Pell case aside for the moment, it was a truly excellent panel who rationally discussed the cause and effect of the problems within the Catholic church. Everyone on the panel presented well – even the Jewish rabbi.
If for nothing else, Julia Gillard should go down in the history books as the PM who initiated the RC.
That bloody dill pickle stupid NZ jihadi knob should be publicly sterilised. A good start for the War on Stupid.
It’s too late for the public lobotomy. It appears that’s already been done. Christ on a bike, he may be the world’s dumbest person. Or as my Dad would say “If brains were elastic, this bloke’s wouldn’t fit around a spoggy’s kneecap”
One excellent read imho, Mr. Insider and Bloggers, from the very astute Niki Savva and it called “The Road To Ruin” and tells about how ex ousted PM Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own Government.
Been out since 2016 but am sure still a lesson to all budding PM’s.
https://tinyurl.com/y4ckhytu
I have an autographed copy Nossy. I was thinking of sending it to Milton for his birthday.
Savva is one of the more intelligent scribes at the Oz and always proves the most insightful on Insiders…BRING HER BACK ON.
Interesting to further note in this book, Niki Savva calls Bill Shorten the worst Labor Leader since Arthur Calwell, something many agree with wholeheartedly.
berserkian getting dumped on
“It’s a pretty unambitious target,” said Gareth Aird, an economist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. “Two-hundred-and-fifty thousand jobs over four years is 1.5 per cent jobs growth a year, which is in line with population growth”…
“What I always think when politicians say they will create jobs is that politicians don’t create jobs, business creates jobs, unless they want to create 250,000 jobs in government,” said Richard Holden, an economics professor at the University of NSW.”
https://www.afr.com/news/politics/economists-say-nsw-premiers-ambitious-job-target-isnt-20190301-h1bvkx
The Outsider,
Determining whether to let a witness give evidence is an art form: strength of case, relevant need to counter evidence and of course the degree to which a jury may take an instant dislike to the client.
One of the most infamous errors of judgment was the famous lobster restaurnat case, in which the plaintiffs’ (civil) case seemed weak and mere justifiable opinion, until the arrogant journalist/commentator was in the witness box and you could watch the jurors’ faces to assess the sentiment….
My guess is that Richter thought the prosecution case based on a sole uncorroborated complainant but otherwise awash with contradictions, logical difficulties etc to be insufficiently strong to to justify a verdict byeond reasonable doubt – and certainly not sufficient to risk George Pell giving evidence which both subjects him to cross-examination , and in this case was likely to display his wellknown arrogance which would count against him.
Richter rarely assesses these matters wrongly as his record shows….
A large part of the problem is Pell as figurehead for the Catholic Church and the matters for which he was not on trial in the courts – but quite possibly was on trial in the minds of the public and jury. The ability of certain individuals to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is notorious….
cheers
Reading summaries of the trial, it occurred to me that Mr Richter, who is a brilliant fellow, had a bit of a shocker. Many people seem to be missing the point that sexual assault trials are almost invariably the alleged victim’s account versus the alleged perpetrator’s with little direct corroboration. It is the way of these sorts of offences. They don’t usually happen in front of a crowd. Child sex offences are more difficult to prosecute again with victims taking long periods to report, on average according to the Royal Comm, 25 years.
Good point. And if the $15K a day is anywhere near the the mark, he shouldn’t be having too many “shockers”. A case of the arrogant being represented by the arrogant?
Thanks, Voltaire – that clears things up a bit.
Morning cuppa with a free thinking intelligence. Im growling,… ‘there is no damn god’, and he smiles ‘well no, of course not, however, what we expect is what we receive’.
I do my best blank face. He elaborates and the theory is this;
The reason people in western culture return from near death experiences with tales of lights, family and fatherly figures, is because that is what they truly believe they will see in a dying situation. Their minds, fed images of gods and the afterlife since early childhood, provide a ‘goodbye video’, long entrenched self held truths of what to expect. right down to who will be there on the welcome list. This is what ‘good’ true people of Christian faith, expect and receive, if only while their brain lives.
He goes on,… an ancient Egyptian seeing the same ‘footage’ in his dying mind, would think something had seriously gone awry. He also notes that many non-believers surviving an NDE report that there is ‘nothing’ after expiration.
I now have a warm inner glow and a small, nay tiny, feeling of some justice. If my very clever friend is right, in the dying moments of a paedophile, drenched in religion to the point of self delusion, that which greets them will be manufactured by their own minds. Fertile, church horror story filled minds of what happens to their ‘sort’ and where they are headed. (my big red friend) I hope they are very afraid. Odds on it will actually happen, this will be the last things they know, the everlasting nightmare and despair is coming for them, guaranteed in their own guilty minds.
Yes!
ps. Sorry if this is long JtI, its a difficult concept to explain in one paragraph. (love and hugs, hope you are travelling better brother)
I had a near death experience Wraith. Was sucked through a tunnel into a cavernous void of brilliant light. As my eyes adjusted I saw I was surrounded by billions of blissfully smiling humans from throughout the ages.
A few shifty looking men in fancy long dresses and silly hats wandered amidst the throng carrying boxes supported from their necks with straps. They sang “get your opium here children.”
I panicked! Came back. I sensed a trap, like I mean is that s*&t legal there? Anyone?
“There’s nothing there” – K. Packer.
I think it’s a reaction to the drugs.
That would mean suicide bombers do get to enjoy 72 virgins. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.