Cardinal George Pell, 77, wore a black suit and black shirt with a cleric’s collar when he appeared for the Victoria state Court of Appeal hearing before three judges.
He came and went from the court as the sole occupant of a prison van, and said nothing during the hearing.
Pell’s lawyer Bret Walker argued for more than five hours that the five verdicts against Pell were “unsafe and unsatisfactory” and should be overturned.
The lawyers cited former High Court Justice Michael McHugh, who said “juries are likely to be affected by the prejudices and even the hysterias that from time to time are found in the community”.
The prosecution will argue on Thursday why the verdicts were sound and should stand. Whoever wins, the case could reach the High Court, Australia’s ultimate arbiter.
A jury unanimously convicted Pell in December of orally raping a 13-year-old choirboy and indecently dealing with the boy and his 13-year-old friend in Melbourne’s
St Patrick’s Cathedral in the late 1990s. Pell had become archbishop of Melbourne only months before.
Court orders had for months prevented publication of the details of that trial and an earlier trial on similar charges that had ended in September with a deadlocked jury.
Pell was sentenced in March to six years in prison, and is held in special protective custody.
While Pell remains Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic, the…
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