The Catholic Weekly 29 August 2021

catholicweekly.com.au 3 29, August, 2021 The sting operation that came apart What happened to Cardinal Pell was a travesty of justice that failed Victoria - and the nation - just when justice was needed the most, declares Australian legal expert. VICTORIA’S POLICING and criminal justice systems erred so seriously in relation to Car- dinal George Pell that it shows that not even victims of abuse or bona fide complainants, let alone an accused person like the cardinal, could rely on them, says Australian legal ex- pert Fr Frank Brennan SJ. The law professor and rec- tor of Newman College at the University of Melbourne attended key parts of Cardi- nal Pell’s trials and appeals and had access to court tran- scripts. He became convinced that the cardinal was innocent of the historical sexual abuse charges brought against him, and that he should never have had to face them. In an exclusive interview with The Catholic Weekly , Fr Brennan was scathing in his assessment of the police work conducted under the former Police Commissioner Graham Ashton and subsequent fail- ures which saw Cardinal Pell imprisoned for 13 months un- til his release through a unan- imous decision of the High Court of Australia in April 2020. His latest book, Observa- tions on the Pell Proceedings , was published in April. An exclusive 8-page analy- sis by Fr Brennan of the entire case will appear in next week’s 5 September edition of The Catholic Weekly . Fr Brennan said that he “cannot forgive” the actions of the Victorian Police and the Victoria Director of Public Prosecutions in the Cardinal’s matter and believes they were the result of a political vendet- ta against the prelate. These caused both the Car- dinal and his accuser months of unnecessary “agony” and had consequences for genu- ine complainants and victims of abuse, he said. “All of us, including those of us in the Church, but also vic- tims and bona fide complain- ants need to be assured that the legal system was doing its job,” said the priest. Fr Brennan said the Royal Commission into Institution- al Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had done the necessary work in shedding light on “de- ficient” management struc- tures in the Church which had put children at risk, but along with a separate Victori- an parliamentary inquiry, also resulted in an environment where the cardinal could be- come a scapegoat. Upon his appointment as Archbishop of Melbourne in ¾ Marilyn Rodrigues Scenes from a nightmare: Cardinal Pell arrives at trial with the media held at bay by Victorian police, legal expert Fr Frank Brennan SJ, and the court where justice failed. PHOTO OF COURT: JOHN O’NEILL/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, CC BY-SA 3.0, PHOTO OF CARDINAL PELL: CNS PHOTO/DANIEL POCKETT, VIA REUTERS How deep the poison ran: even after Cardinal Pell’s unanimous vin- dication by the High Court, St Patrick’s cathedral was vandalised by those convinced by years of media coverage and a Victoria Police sting operation that he must be guilty. PHOTO: CNS/DANIEL POCKETT, AAP 1996, Cardinal Pell had es- tablished the Melbourne Re- sponse in consultation with the Victorian Police and Victo- rian legal authorities, yet there was still a perception that he had failed to make neces- sary changes in the interests of children in the Church, Fr Brennan added. “By the time it came to [his] trial there’s no doubt that a lot of people in Australia, par- ticularly in some of the media, particularly in the Victoria Police, were looking for both a scapegoat and a victim,” he said. “Sadly, the two most senior judges of Victoria, the Chief Justice and the President of the Court of Appeal, I think were infected with the same sort of mentality that the ju- ries had when they came to this case. “They were not sufficiently dispassionate to look at the evidence and say there’s no way at all that a jury could be convinced on this.” Fr Brennan was commis- sioned by the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference to observe the court proceed- ings and report on them once a suppression order was lifted. He became convinced of the Cardinal’s innocence when prosecutor Mark Gib- son QC whom he knew to be “an honourable man and a good lawyer” struggled in vain to find the six minutes when the offending against two choristers after a solemn high Mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral was alleged to have occurred. But that was only one of the many serious problems with the case against the Cardinal. “You’re left thinking of the enormous resources the po- lice invested [when all they were] interested in was get- ting Pell charged,” Fr Brennan said. “They knew that by getting him charged, they would have destroyed his reputation, and that’s what it was, a sting op- eration.” While the case “did no fa- vours” to Cardinal Pell or the Catholic Church it also did not help victims or bona fide complainants, Fr Brennan said. “That’s because what was shown was the police force was not constrained by the DPP and the police force was engaged in a political vendet- ta.” Fr Brennan’s new book is dedicated to “those who seek truth, justice and healing and to those who have been de- nied them”. He is appalled that both the cardinal and his accuser known as Witness J “were put through extraordinary agony of different sorts by incompe- tent policing and by a Director of Public Prosecutions who should have known much better than to make a show trial of this one”. Despite some public differ- ences on a number of issues, the Jesuit priest said that his relationship with the cardinal has grown “quite friendly” over the past two years. “I would say that he is an honourable man, and having got to know himmore as I did I was left in even less doubt, if that was possible, that he could have possibly done what was alleged,” Fr Brennan said. Observations on the Pell Pro- ceedings is available from The Mustard Seed Bookshop www. mustardseed.org NEXT WEEK: ANATOMY OF A TRAVESTY They knew that by getting him charged, they would have de- stroyed his reputation, and that’s what it was, a sting operation.” Fr Frank Brennan SJ EXCLUSIVE