Cardinal George Pell is released from prison hours after Australia’s High Court quashed his conviction for child sex abuse, bringing to an abrupt end the most high-profile pedophilia case faced by the Catholic Church.
The 78-year-old left Barwon Prison near Melbourne after the court overturned five counts of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in the 1990s.
Pell, who had steadfastly maintained his innocence throughout a lengthy court process, left the jail where he has been held for the last year and issued a statement saying that a “serious injustice” had been remedied by the decision.
In this photo taken on February 26, 2019, Cardinal George Pell (C) leaves the County Court of Victoria court after prosecutors decided not to proceed with a second trial on alleged historical child sexual offences in Melbourne (Asanka Brendon Ratnayake / AFP)
A jury convicted Pell in December 2018, and that decision was upheld by a three-judge panel in Victoria state’s Court of Appeal last August in a split verdict.
But Australia’s High Court now find there is “a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof.”
— AFP
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