Pell’s High Court Appeal and ‘This Hiatus, This Gap’

Following the rejection in August by the Victorian Appeal Court of Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against his conviction for historic sex abuse of two under-age choirboys after a Sunday Solemn Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, in December 1996, his legal advisers have now sought leave to appeal to the High Court. There are two proposed grounds for that appeal. The first is that the majority judgment of Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and Appeal Court President Chris Maxwell erred by having so much faith in the credibility of the accuser that they reversed the accepted onus of proof required in…