Cardinal George Pell is the most senior Catholic to be convicted of child sex abuse and is appealing those guilty verdicts in the Victoria state Court of Appeal.
Prosecutor Chris Boyce told the three judges on Thursday that the convictions largely based on the testimony of a single accuser should stand.
“The complainant was a very compelling witness,” he said.
“He was clearly not a liar, not a fantasist.”
A jury unanimously convicted Pope Francis’ former finance minister in December of orally raping a 13-year-old choirboy and indecently dealing with the boy and the boy’s 13-year-old friend in Melbourne’s
St Patrick’s Cathedral in December 1996.
Pell had become archbishop of Melbourne only months before.
One of the boys, now in his 30’s, is the key prosecution witness.
The other died or a heroin overdose in 2014, apparently without ever alleging he had been abused.
Pell was also convicted of an act of indecency against the complainant by squeezing his genitals as they passed in a cathedral corridor in early 1997.
Mr Boyce said the complainant spent more than eight hours in the witness box and underwent “searing” cross examination during Pell’s original trial in the Victoria County Court that ended with a deadlocked jury in September last year.
“If it was a fantasy, at some point you’d expect the cracks to appear,” he said.
A second jury convicted Pell after watching a…
… Read More
—
Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Premier Christianity News.