Accusations of sloppy journalism unfortunately is
one well worn tactic used by some of Pell's supporters.
That and of course the "witch-hunt"scenarios.

Reading a summary of the key events such as:

The Jury decision

The Court of Appeal decision

The case goes to the High Court

What did Pell argue in the High Court

And finally:

Pell won on a legal technicality

Reading these summaries would
certainly go a long way towards a better grasp
of the issues involved. For most people.

Hi Foxy, I'll tell you about a particular Marist Brother, Br Romuald, real name Francis Cable, and my school encounter of nearly 50 years ago with this cretonne. For the first time I told my son about it a couple of nights ago over the phone. Its nothing really, we joked about it. The year 1969/70, I was at Marist Brothers HS Pagewood in Sydney, Romuald a sadistic bastard, held several positions at the school, Master of Discipline, Cadet Master and Science Master, Br Kevin was the headmaster, all this can be checked. In 2nd Year you could "volunteer" for The Cadet Unit, this was done by having Romuald come into the classroom grab the class roll, read out names, tick off the "volunteers", only I and one other had the nerve not to "volunteer".

Was that the end of the matter, no way. I had Romuald for Science class, where he made my life hell, regular caneing there and at his office for very trivial offences. One day I was out of class for a reason, a note to the office, Romuald was in the office, as I returned rather slowly to class, who should unexpectedly come up the other stairs, none other than Romuald and cut me off. Away from the class rooms he pushes me up against the wall by the throat with his forearm. The short conversation; Br "Wont join the cadets, make a man of ya!"..."No Brother." Br "Are ya one of them?"..."What Brother"...Br "FANCY BOY!"..."No Brother" with that he tried to grab my testicles with his other hand. Me; "F off C" (words that would get you expelled)... then a door opened near by and kids came streaming out of that class room early. They probely saved me, Romuald backed off and back down the stair he went. He still made my life hell, but I learnt that paedophiles targeted the meek and vulnerable boys mostly. Isn't there a saying in the Bible; : "The paedophiles shall inherit the meek," or some such thing.

Dear Foxy,

I'm afraid I will have to agree in part with Is Mise on this one.

To call it a technicality would be a stretch I think. The protections afforded to those who face our courts need to be robust and the avenues for recourse to have decisions tested is very much part of that.

I don't have a problem with how this played out given our legal system at the moment. Banjo discussed altering the way we handle historical child sex cases including having the accused forced to testify at trial. I would certainly support some modification for how these trails and investigations are handled. We most definitely need to do better.

What does rankle is that for 99% of criminal cases funding this type of review of ones case would not be possible. But that is a whole different story.

Foxy,

You should apply for a journalistic position with that paper as you seem to have equal trouble differentiating between singular and plural and you have absolutely no idea of legal processes if you think that a convicted person serving time in gaol will be tried again for the same offence.

Don't you think that it is sloppy journalism to use the plural when something is obviously singular, something that one might expect in First Class but not in the second year of primary school?

Dear Paul,

Thank You for sharing your story.

My husband went to a Christian Brothers school.
At the time their Principal was also a sadistic
monster. One day my husband was called into
the man's office - nothing happened but when my
husband came out of that's man's office there
were several of my husbands class mates waiting
for him and they asked - "Did he do anything to
you?" "Did he lock the door?"and so on.
My husband was lucky.

However there was a young lad in the class who was
the Principal's favourite. My husband does not speak
about it in detail only to say the young lad killed
himself.

Dear Steele,

I understand your reasoning.

Those who have been convinced of Cardinal Pell's
innocence will believe that justice has been served.
The High Court's decision for others is devastating.

The verdict was about one case only and there are larger
problems within the Church. The church needs greater
transparency and to more broadly reform the way it
deals with allegations of sexual abuse.

I agree with the comments that Banjo Paterson made.

I found the article in The Canberra Times worth reading
due to the fact that it was written by a law professor and
a senior law lecturer. I thought the issues raised were
worth discussing.

Dear Steele,

You may find the following link interesting:

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/09/child-sexual-abuse-victims-should-not-be-put-off-by-george-pell-decision-experts-say