tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/george-pell-2831/articlesGeorge Pell – The Conversation2023-01-12T22:44:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1976832023-01-12T22:44:12Z2023-01-12T22:44:12ZHow might the latest George Pell coverage affect child sexual abuse survivors?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504161/original/file-20230112-47543-2t2hk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C49%2C5455%2C3587&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-man-leaning-on-wooden-table-3132388/">Photo by Andrew Neel/Pexels</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You might have wondered if the recent death of George Pell, who was jailed in 2019 for child sexual abuse and then later acquitted, would bring a sense of relief or closure for victim survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse. </p>
<p>After all, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found Pell had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/12/george-pell-what-the-five-year-royal-commission-into-child-sexual-abuse-found#:%7E:text=The%20royal%20commission%20rejected%20Pell's%20position.&text=The%20commission%20found%3A%20%E2%80%9CWe%20are,deceived%2C%20intentionally%20or%20otherwise.%E2%80%9D">failed</a> to do enough during his time in senior church roles in Australia to stop priests who abused children.</p>
<p>In fact, news of Pell’s death may generate a roller coaster of complex and variable emotions among abuse survivors. </p>
<p>This mix of emotions may include sadness for the ongoing consequences of the abuse for fellow victim/survivors, and anger at the lack of justice for so many.</p>
<p>There’s also the potential post-traumatic stress reactions triggered by this recent round of media coverage – such as fear, dissociation, distressing memories and sleep disturbance.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/george-pell-a-political-bruiser-whose-church-legacy-will-be-overshadowed-by-child-abuse-allegations-197613">George Pell: a 'political bruiser' whose church legacy will be overshadowed by child abuse allegations</a>
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<h2>Lifelong impacts</h2>
<p>Extensive research reveals how significantly childhood sexual abuse can affect a victim survivor’s self-identity, relationships and capacity to trust others.</p>
<p>Potential <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28864118/">mental health</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35950515">effects</a> include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, and depression.</p>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25322886/">Evidence</a> suggests clergy-perpetrated child sexual abuse can lead to very serious mental health <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040563921996044">outcomes</a>, impaired spiritual wellbeing and distrust in the church and God.</p>
<p>This can lead to significant isolation from family and the faith community. </p>
<p>Many survivors of clergy child sexual abuse <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27229919">report</a> struggling with a fragmented sense of self into adulthood. Significant grief at the loss of childhood and the freedom to develop to their true potential are common. </p>
<p>Clergy-perpetrated childhood sexual abuse is particularly toxic as the abuse is done by moral and spiritual leaders who are meant to protect the child, leading to a profound <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040563921996044">lack of trust</a> in others.</p>
<p>These effects are pervasive and can be lifelong. The impacts of trauma do not end with the demise of an abuser or the resolution of a court case. They will not end or be resolved with the death of Pell. In fact, recent widespread media coverage could exacerbate it.</p>
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<h2>Pell coverage may spark distress among survivors</h2>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25064691/">Research</a> reveals intensive media coverage of traumatic events can increase PTSD symptoms acutely, particularly in those experiencing long-term trauma.</p>
<p>Greater cumulative media exposure can <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301940831_Psychological_Outcomes_in_Reaction_to_Media_Exposure_to_Disasters_and_Large-Scale_Violence_A_Meta-Analysis">lead</a> to more adverse mental health outcomes.</p>
<p>This can occur in several ways, triggering: </p>
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<li><p>distressing and intrusive memories of a survivor’s own abuse, leading to intense fear reactions, sleep disturbance and other PTSD symptoms</p></li>
<li><p>thoughts of injustice and institutional cover-up, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27229919">leading</a> to anger, self-blame or lower self-esteem</p></li>
<li><p>rumination on what survivors have lost due to such abuse, promoting grief and sadness. </p></li>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people hold hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504164/original/file-20230112-40319-ug2h7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Childhood sexual abuse can affect a victim survivor’s self-identity, relationships and capacity to trust.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Many recent media reports and obituaries have highlighted the career success of Pell in reaching the upper echelons of the Catholic Church and his role as a spiritual leader.</p>
<p>Yet these accolades strike a highly discordant note with the findings of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/12/george-pell-what-the-five-year-royal-commission-into-child-sexual-abuse-found">Royal Commission</a>, which criticised him sharply for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/11/george-pell-dead-australian-cardinal-dies-aged-81-rome-vatican#:%7E:text=A%20royal%20commission%20into%20institutional,priests%20removed%20from%20the%20church.">not doing more</a> to protect children from dangerous priests.</p>
<p>Glowing media reporting about Pell may inadvertently increase distress among survivors.</p>
<p>Coming forward about child sexual abuse is incredibly, incredibly difficult and good psychological support following a disclosure is very important.</p>
<p>Not being believed, or being swept up in institutional cover-ups of sexual abuse makes poor mental health outcomes <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34022858">much</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040563921996044">more likely</a> for those who survive it.</p>
<p>Media reports that focus on Pell’s career success and spiritual standing, without properly acknowledging outcomes from the Royal Commission, may reinforce this sense of not being believed and injustice at institutional inaction.</p>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25846196/">Research</a> reveals key predictors of not disclosing sexual abuse include fear of not being believed, shame and self-blame.</p>
<p>It is likely survivors of abuse are having a particularly tough time during this recent uptick of reporting around Pell and the broader problems of clergy child abuse. </p>
<p>It is vital their experiences and the impact of these experiences are fully acknowledged and validated, and survivors are provided with ongoing support.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-trauma-takes-the-media-gets-wrong-157403">3 trauma takes the media gets wrong</a>
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<p><em>If this article has raised issues for you or you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.</em></p>
<p><em>Correction: a previous version of this article used the incorrect name for the royal commission.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Felmingham receives funding from the NHMRC. </span></em></p>News of George Pell’s death may generate a roller coaster of complex and variable emotions among abuse survivors.Kim Felmingham, Chair of Clinical Psychology, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1976132023-01-11T01:50:18Z2023-01-11T01:50:18ZGeorge Pell: a ‘political bruiser’ whose church legacy will be overshadowed by child abuse allegations<p>Former senior Vatican figure George Pell has died in Rome from <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-11/cardinal-george-pell-dies-vatican-aged-81/101843096">complications</a> following hip surgery. He was 81.</p>
<p>Pell, often described as a conservative Catholic, was jailed for <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/what-cardinal-george-pell-hated-most-about-his-time-in-prison/news-story/1ec0d4d2112e1d7af745189b397e1be5">13 months</a> for child sexual abuse in Australia in 2019 but maintained his innocence and was acquitted the following year.</p>
<p>Once a top official in charge of reforming the Vatican finances, and also Australia’s highest-ranked Catholic figure, Pell leaves behind a complex legacy.</p>
<p>His death will be sad for the Catholics who held him in high regard but less so for the many critics he attracted in Australia and elsewhere over the course of his career. </p>
<p>It’s hard to believe he will not be remembered most vividly for the trial in 2019 and 2020, when he was accused and then convicted of several counts of sexual abuse of children within the St Patrick’s Cathedral complex itself. His conviction was later overturned.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156">How George Pell won in the High Court on a legal technicality</a>
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<h2>Heavily criticised</h2>
<p>Though his conviction was overturned by the High Court, there are many in Australian society who still felt Pell didn’t do enough when he was Archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney to act against abuse by priests in the dioceses he controlled.</p>
<p>He was heavily <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/pell-knew-in-1982-that-ridsdale-was-moved-to-save-church-from-scandal-20200507-p54qr9.html">criticised</a> by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. When its report was released after Pell’s conviction was quashed in 2020, it condemned him for his failures to take action against abusive priests – particularly against serial paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.</p>
<p>One thing I think Pell’s own court case highlighted is a particular absurdity about legal reporting in Australia, in that everyone outside Australia knew he had been convicted but no one in Australia could report it. </p>
<p>That’s part of his legacy; this case exposed the difficulty in legal reporting. It’s actually quite important.</p>
<h2>A political bruiser</h2>
<p>Pell was, without a doubt, the most powerful Australian ever to rise through the ranks of the Catholic church. He put Australia on the map in the Vatican in a way it had not been at any other time in history.</p>
<p>It’s testament to how well he was regarded as an administrator in the church that even though he was one of the most staunch conservatives of his generation, the comparatively liberal Pope Francis still turned to him to ask him to regain control of Vatican finances. In other words, his talents were recognised even by liberals within the church.</p>
<p>He was an outsider to the nexus of Italian cardinals who usually controlled that aspect of Vatican activity. </p>
<p>When you talk to people who knew him, they say that in private Pell could be quite charming. But his public personality was as a political bruiser who was simply able to sweep aside opposition, which is what allowed him to ascend the hierarchy so quickly.</p>
<p>He was an ideological fellow traveller with Pope Benedict in many ways, but their style and personality couldn’t have been more different. Benedict was the softly spoken professor type, whereas Pell learned how to do politics in the boxing ring and on the footy field. That shaped his response to any given problem. </p>
<h2>Before and after the court cases</h2>
<p>Pell came from Ballarat, and had, in many ways, a difficult childhood where he wasn’t always physically well. </p>
<p>But he came through it and channelled a lot of his energy into physical pursuits. He <a href="https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/richmond-removes-cardinal-george-pell-as-club-vice-patron-following-child-sex-crime-conviction/news-story/b7fa3681fb5d80c11d44a3346a78a2a7">signed</a> for Richmond Football Club in 1959 and was on the verge of becoming a professional player. Yet he decided instead to give it all up to go into the seminary. I don’t think anyone but he could explain exactly why he made that choice.</p>
<p>His talent to cut to the heart of the problem and impose his solution is what got him noticed by his superiors in Australia and the Vatican and helped his rise though the ranks.</p>
<p>After the court case, Pell quietly returned to Rome, where he has been living in semi-retirement since. He’s only made a handful of public statements and he also published some writing he did during his time in prison.</p>
<p>In Easter last year he urged the Vatican to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/cardinal-george-pell-and-the-status-of-gay-catholics/13809320">intervene</a> to stop German priests who were advocating that homosexuality might be OK. </p>
<p>All in all, Pell had an important impact on making Australia central to the church but that will be overshadowed by the accusation he didn’t do enough to stop abuse by priests and by his own court cases. </p>
<p>This period will no doubt be triggering for survivors and it’s important to remember that. Many adults in the Catholic church and other institutions failed children in a lot of ways and it’s important we remember survivors of abuse and the profound effect public discussion of this case will have on them. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-have-media-outlets-been-fined-more-than-1-million-for-their-pell-reporting-162173">Why have media outlets been fined more than $1 million for their Pell reporting?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miles Pattenden has previously received research funding from the British Academy, the European Commission, and the Government of Spain.
</span></em></p>Pell, often described as a conservative Catholic, was jailed for child sexual abuse in Australia in 2019 but maintained his innocence and was acquitted the following year.Miles Pattenden, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1621732021-06-04T08:39:15Z2021-06-04T08:39:15ZWhy have media outlets been fined more than $1 million for their Pell reporting?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404440/original/file-20210604-19-1gsdzmt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=80%2C72%2C5311%2C3370&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cardinal George Pell preparing to make a statement at the Vatican in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gregoria Borgia/AP/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In February, Australian media companies <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/media-companies-plead-guilty-to-breaching-suppression-order-in-pell-stories-20210201-p56yh3.html">pleaded guilty</a> to contempt of court over their reporting of Cardinal George Pell’s conviction on sexual abuse charges.</p>
<p>On Friday, the Victorian Supreme Court <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/04/cardinal-george-pell-news-organisations-contempt-court-fined-more-than-1m-over-reporting-of-sexual-abuse-verdict">handed out more than A$1 million</a> in fines against 12 media organisations. </p>
<p>The most heavily hit were the The Age ($450,000) and news.com.au ($400,000). Other high-profile programs, such as the Today Show also copped fines ($30,000). These heavy fines were meted out despite the fact that the media companies had apologised to the court and had even agreed to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/10/george-pell-contempt-hearing-news-companies-to-pay-cost-of-prosecution">pay the prosecution’s legal costs</a>.</p>
<p>There are many ways the law restricts media freedom in Australia, including laws regarding <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-defamation-suits-in-australia-are-so-ubiquitous-and-difficult-to-defend-for-media-organisations-157143">defamation</a>. But contempt of court, seen here by the media’s breaching of a suppression order, is one of the more <a href="https://www.minterellison.com/articles/vlrc-contempt-of-court-report-implications-for-the-media">controversial mechanisms</a>. It is, however, a limitation the courts impose regularly, and take very seriously.</p>
<h2>How did this start?</h2>
<p>Back in December 2018, the court placed a suppression order on the Pell conviction when he was initially found guilty by a jury (his conviction was <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156">quashed in April 2020</a>).</p>
<p>At the time, various media outlets referred to a trial of great importance and, by implication, a guilty verdict that would have been of great interest to the public.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-jury-may-be-out-on-the-jury-system-after-george-pells-successful-appeal-135814">The jury may be out on the jury system after George Pell's successful appeal</a>
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<p>The implicit, not explicit, nature of the reporting raises an important point. No Australian media company actually named Pell, but some directed their audiences to international online stories. The Herald Sun published a white headline “CENSORED” across a black front page, thereby piquing Victorians’ interest in seeking out international media reports and internet commentary. </p>
<p>As the paper reported,</p>
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<p>The world is reading a very important story that is relevant to Victorians.</p>
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<p>The point is had any member of the public wanted to find out what the media were talking about, they could have done so.</p>
<h2>Why did the court issue the order?</h2>
<p>So why was there a suppression order on the conviction? </p>
<p>This was to try and ensure a fair trial. At the time of the guilty verdict in December 2018, Pell was also facing a second trial over different charges related to similar alleged conduct. Ultimately, as it happened, the second trial did not proceed after charges against Pell were dropped in February 2019. But the possibility of a second trial was alive at the time of the first trial guilty verdict.</p>
<p>There is a principle in law that a jury must decide guilt or innocence on the basis of the evidence before them, and not to allow other evidence (for example, a conviction for a similar crime) to taint their deliberations. </p>
<p>So it was important a jury in that second trial (had it gone ahead) could not know of the first conviction. Otherwise, it would be breaking the rule against using “<a href="https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/legal/guidance/witness-evidence-similar-facts-evidence">similar fact evidence</a>”.</p>
<h2>The rules are clear</h2>
<p>Suppression orders are a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/dec/14/suppression-orders-australia-why-you-cant-read-what-you-may-want-to">significant limitation</a> on the freedom of the press to report what happens in our criminal courts, but they exist to guarantee that people who come before the courts get a fair trial.</p>
<p>Contempt of court is a serious offence and can result in jail time. Indeed, journalists have been jailed in the past for similar indiscretions. However, no action was ultimately pursued against individuals here. The court determined the appropriate penalty was for fines to be imposed on media organisations. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-a-fair-trial-could-be-at-risk-suppression-is-the-order-of-the-day-109181">When a fair trial could be at risk, suppression is the order of the day</a>
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<p>In contempt matters, the amount of any fine is open-ended and, in this case, we see very heavy penalties. This is because Justice John Dixon took a dim view of what he surmised were the motives of the media corporations. </p>
<p>He said <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-04/george-pell-trial-leads-to-contempt-of-court-fine-for-news-media/100190944">The Age and news.com.au articles</a> especially</p>
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<p>constituted a blatant and wilful defiance of the court’s authority […] each took a deliberate risk by intentionally advancing a collateral attack on the role of suppression orders in Victoria’s criminal justice system.</p>
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<p>In <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/04/cardinal-george-pell-news-organisations-contempt-court-fined-more-than-1m-over-reporting-of-sexual-abuse-verdict">his view</a> the “timing” of the media apology – made contemporaneously with the contempt guilty plea – “did not demonstrate any significant degree of remorse and contrition.” </p>
<p>The judge added media companies had not only usurped the function of the court, but had taken it “upon themselves” to decide “where the balance ought to lie” between the cardinal’s right to a fair trial and the public’s right to know about it.</p>
<p>While people might debate the politics and huge public interest in the Pell case, the law is clear — that balance is a matter for the courts and the courts alone to determine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rick Sarre is affiliated with the SA Council for Civil Liberties </span></em></p>There is a clear legal reason why publications including The Age and news.com.au have copped hefty penalties.Rick Sarre, Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1483342020-10-27T03:31:30Z2020-10-27T03:31:30ZReview: Louise Milligan’s Witness is a devastating critique of the criminal trial process<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365410/original/file-20201026-15-bqbgun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C8%2C5664%2C3756&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Book review: Witness, by Louise Milligan (Hachette).</em></p>
<p>Louise Milligan’s new book, <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/louise-milligan/witness">Witness</a>, is an excoriating critique of the failures of the criminal justice system in sexual assault trials.</p>
<p>Informed by Milligan’s two decades of experience as an investigative journalist, including her specialist work as a court reporter and her <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/cardinal-electronic-book-text">sustained coverage</a> of the trials of George Pell, her analysis is enriched by in-depth interviews with prosecutors, defence counsel, solicitors, judges and academics. </p>
<p>Witness is both a gripping revelation of rarely-heard experts’ opinions about the realities and flaws of criminal procedure, and a devastating critique of the system.</p>
<p>The book is further inspired by detailed consideration of the experience of complainants in two high-profile cases, which Milligan had previously covered in Sydney and Melbourne. </p>
<p>These include <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-07/kings-cross-rape-case-that-put-consent-on-trial/9695858?nw=0">Saxon Mullins</a>, a young woman who was the complainant in a rape case that involved two trials, two appeals, and judicial errors. Her experience influenced a Law Reform Commission inquiry into the law of consent. She is now working with criminologists and advocates to develop minimum standards in rape laws to better define consent. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-law-doesnt-go-far-enough-to-legislate-affirmative-consent-nsw-now-has-a-chance-to-get-it-right-125719">Australian law doesn't go far enough to legislate affirmative consent. NSW now has a chance to get it right</a>
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<p>Also examined in detail is the case of former St Kevin’s student <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-17/st-kevins-college-supported-sex-offender-over-student-victim/11957510">Paris Street</a>, who allowed Milligan to reproduce a letter he wrote about his experience of being cross-examined at the age of 15.</p>
<p>Witness is informed, too, by Milligan’s own experience of being cross-examined as a witness in the 2018 committal hearing of Cardinal George Pell. Here Milligan displays courage in divulging the personal toll taken. </p>
<p>“You don’t sleep the night before that first day in court …” she writes. “You vomit … Your mind spins … You cry …”</p>
<p>Her visceral description of the attempted destruction of her own character and credibility in cross-examination testifies to the brutality of many witnesses’ encounters with the criminal trial process.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/media-files-investigative-reporter-louise-milligan-on-cardinal-pell-and-redactions-in-the-royal-commissions-report-117981">Media Files: Investigative reporter Louise Milligan on Cardinal Pell and redactions in the Royal Commission's report</a>
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<h2>Victims’ trauma</h2>
<p>Witness recognises that for many complainants, their experience of the criminal justice system is traumatic. Through multiple case studies of cross-examination, centring mostly on cases in Victoria and NSW, Milligan demonstrates the best known dimension of this brutality, laying bare the chasm between complainants’ expectations of the system, and the reality of its operation. </p>
<p>Complainants, she shows, are stunned to realise the trial process is not about establishing truth. Often, they feel they are on trial.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365386/original/file-20201026-13-p09838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Witness book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365386/original/file-20201026-13-p09838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365386/original/file-20201026-13-p09838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365386/original/file-20201026-13-p09838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365386/original/file-20201026-13-p09838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365386/original/file-20201026-13-p09838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365386/original/file-20201026-13-p09838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365386/original/file-20201026-13-p09838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Milligan recognises this experience is only partly due to the adversarial criminal justice system being centred neither on the complainant, nor on truth. Our system enables prosecution by the state: the complainant is simply a witness, subject to rules of evidence and procedure.</p>
<p>Core doctrines protecting the accused exist to prevent state abuse of power. This systemic environment is overlaid by features of sexual assault trials, which often turn on the complainant’s credibility and word against that of the accused.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pell-decision-why-sexual-offence-trials-often-result-in-acquittal-even-with-credible-witnesses-135932">Pell decision: why sexual offence trials often result in acquittal, even with credible witnesses</a>
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<p>Milligan’s book is balanced. Neither she, nor her interviewees object to principles of presumed innocence until proven guilty, or the standard of proof. She accepts counsel’s obligation to strongly defend their client, but focuses on the professional ethic of choice in how this is achieved. </p>
<p>Crucially, Witness emphasises that many defence counsel do treat complainants with dignity and respect, and still defend their client admirably.</p>
<p>But at the book’s core is a justified sense of outrage at those who choose to treat complainants and witnesses with a hostility causing its own trauma; a special kind of systemic abuse.</p>
<h2>Tactical shifts and empathy deficits</h2>
<p>The interviews in Witness trace fascinating shifts in professional culture. Milligan identifies a change in defence cross-examination tactics from the outright aggression of the past. One interviewee admits “there was a time when you’d just try and eviscerate [the complainant]. And I don’t think juries are impressed by that now.” </p>
<p>Still, Milligan finds much room for improvement. Several defence counsel reveal they changed their approach — not because they have greater understanding about the nature of sexual assault and trauma, or <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/jphp.2016.21">empathy</a> for the complainant, but because it was no longer effective for their client. </p>
<p>Others, still reliant on aggression, rationalise their approach as simply doing their job, to “ask the hard questions”. However, Milligan suggests this is simply a disingenuous cloak for cruelty, starkly contrasting it with defence counsel who do a brilliant job without brutalising victims. </p>
<p>Elsewhere in Witness, she charts the historic male dominance of the legal profession and the limits this places on the capacity for change. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365409/original/file-20201026-13-u09j0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A judge outside the Melbourne County Court." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365409/original/file-20201026-13-u09j0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365409/original/file-20201026-13-u09j0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365409/original/file-20201026-13-u09j0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365409/original/file-20201026-13-u09j0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365409/original/file-20201026-13-u09j0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365409/original/file-20201026-13-u09j0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365409/original/file-20201026-13-u09j0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Witness looks at how generations of gender discrimination still shape the legal profession and the running of trials.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>A particularly striking dimension of Witness is its revelation that the adversarial system is brutal for legal practitioners, too. </p>
<p>Milligan’s interviews elicit numerous admissions of excessive drinking to cope with the stress, including the trauma of having to try to break down complainants.</p>
<p>One lawyer describes this activity as requiring “a complete separation of self”.</p>
<h2>Milligan’s experience</h2>
<p>Milligan’s account of her own cross-examination in the Pell committal by Robert Richter QC is exhaustive and compelling. Reflecting on the experience, she repeatedly references the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_act/ea200880/s41.html">Evidence Act s 41</a>, which imposes a duty on the court to disallow improper questions and improper questioning, including questions that are intimidating or humiliating, or are asked in an insulting way. </p>
<p>Yet, it is clear she felt insufficiently protected by this section of the Act, and by <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_act/ea200880/s26.html">other laws</a> giving the court control over how witnesses should be questioned.</p>
<p>Virtually every question was asked, she writes, in a belittling or insulting way. By the end of the day, she “had never felt more alone”, despite all her experience, preparation, and team of lawyers. What hope do complainants have, she asks, who lack these resources, and were already traumatised? </p>
<h2>An argument for change</h2>
<p>Witness eloquently affirms how the criminal justice system is maladapted to meet the <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/publications/family-matters/issue-85/what-justice-system-willing-offer">needs</a> of complainants. </p>
<p>The system is broken. For sex crimes, rates of complaints, prosecutions, and convictions are <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/criminal-justice">persistently low</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/queensland-rape-law-loophole-could-remain-after-review-ignores-concerns-about-rape-myths-and-consent-141772">Queensland rape law 'loophole' could remain after review ignores concerns about rape myths and consent</a>
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<p>Knowing the brutal experience awaiting them, victims often do not complain, or withdraw from proceeding, undermining the rule of law. Because these are qualitatively different kinds of cases, leaders in the field have long argued that sexual assault trials require more fundamental changes.</p>
<p>Yet, even without more radical change, Witness insists a minimum acceptable standard of professional practice – treating witnesses with dignity and respect – is required and achievable, without compromising fair trial rights. </p>
<p>Protections against humiliating treatment of witnesses need to be properly enforced by judges and prosecutors. As one QC admits to Milligan, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10345329.2020.1743904">reforms</a> about judicial directions and improper questioning “don’t mean anything if the prosecutor doesn’t intervene and the judge or magistrate isn’t in control of the courtroom”.</p>
<p>Milligan also suggests complainants would benefit from an expert advisor to assist them in navigating the system, and to protect against unduly intimidatory tactics. </p>
<p>This suggestion is supported by many of her interviewees, including both prosecutors and defence counsel.</p>
<p>Having interviewed so many witnesses, having borne witness to these trials, and having been a witness herself, Milligan is uniquely placed to reflect on the process. </p>
<p>She challenges legal practitioners to be part of the problem, or part of the solution. With Witness, a triumph of intellect and empathy, Milligan has chosen to be part of the solution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Mathews does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new book by journalist Louise Milligan exposes the brutality of many witnesses’ encounters with the criminal trial process.. It is informed, too, by her own experience of cross-examination.Ben Mathews, Professor, School of Law, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1381022020-05-07T06:49:47Z2020-05-07T06:49:47ZHow George Pell failed child sex abuse victims: the full findings of the royal commission report<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333268/original/file-20200507-49569-3eew8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=448%2C27%2C4149%2C2961&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Crosling/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=date-eFirst;query=Dataset%3Atabledpapers%20Decade%3A%222020s%22;rec=4;resCount=Default">Significant sections of the final report</a> of the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/final-report">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a> were released today. </p>
<p>When the report of the world-leading, five-year investigation was presented to the governor-general in December 2017, large sections of three volumes were blacked out. They had been redacted so as not to prejudice a number of ongoing or forthcoming criminal proceedings, including the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156">cases against Cardinal George Pell</a>. </p>
<p>The three redacted volumes were the report of Case Study 28 (on church authorities in Ballarat), the report of Case Study 35 (on the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne) and <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_16_religious_institutions_book_2.pdf">Volume 16, Book 2</a> of the final report, which focused on the Catholic Church generally. </p>
<p>The majority of the redactions related to what Pell knew about accusations of clerical child sexual abuse against various clergy in Ballarat and Melbourne, and what he could and should have done at the time. They remained redacted while he was <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156">facing legal action</a> in relation to child sexual abuse allegations against himself.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156">How George Pell won in the High Court on a legal technicality</a>
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<p>Victorian police <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria-polices-full-statement-concerning-charges-against-cardinal-george-pell-20170629-gx0xh5.html">announced</a> they were charging Pell with a series of offences in June 2017. Almost half the charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence, including after the death of one complainant, and another being ruled medically unfit to give evidence. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/26/cardinal-george-pell-vatican-treasurer-found-guilty-of-child-sexual-assault">Pell was convicted</a> in December 2018 of five counts of sexually abusing two boys in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s. Additional charges relating to allegations of sexual misconduct in Ballarat were dropped. </p>
<p>Pell’s conviction was upheld on appeal to the Supreme Court of Victoria in June 2019, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-jury-may-be-out-on-the-jury-system-after-george-pells-successful-appeal-135814">overturned</a> in a final appeal to the High Court last month.</p>
<p>In an interview with Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt after his acquittal, Pell <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/royal-commission-s-pell-findings-due-out/985b5b01-1a2b-498c-a6ee-c7d528fe738f">said</a> he would “be very surprised if there’s any bad findings against me at all” in the redacted material in the royal commission’s report.</p>
<p>This is not the case.</p>
<h2>What Pell should have done in Ballarat</h2>
<p>Pell was ordained a priest in 1966, and seven years later was appointed as episcopal vicar responsible for education in the diocese of Ballarat.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-jury-may-be-out-on-the-jury-system-after-george-pells-successful-appeal-135814">The jury may be out on the jury system after George Pell's successful appeal</a>
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<p>Of his time in Ballarat, Pell claimed to have been ignorant of the horrific abuses of the now notorious convicted child sex offender <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/ridsdale-admits-more-abuse-but-lawyer-asks-for-no-extra-jail-time-20200427-p54nmn.html">Gerald Ridsdale</a> and <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/christian-brothers-under-financial-pressure-after-paying-213-million-in-sex-abuse-compensation-20190713-p526v4.html">Christian Brothers</a> who were teaching in Ballarat schools.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333310/original/file-20200507-49579-1i30zy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Gerald Ridsdale giving evidence during the child sex abuse royal commission’s Ballarat inquiry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Commission/PR handout image</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But the royal commission found otherwise, saying they were </p>
<blockquote>
<p>satisfied that by 1973 Cardinal Pell was not only conscious of child sexual abuse by clergy but that he also had considered measures of avoiding situations which might provoke gossip about it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The commission also did not accept Pell’s evidence that <a href="https://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3828106/former-ballarat-bishop-ronald-mulkearns-dies/">Bishop Ronald Mulkearns</a> lied to him and the other consultors about </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the true reason for moving Ridsdale – namely, his sexual activity with children.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The commissioners accepted evidence that pupils at St Patrick’s College, Ballarat, told Pell that Christian Brother Edward Dowlan was touching boys there. They further accepted that Pell </p>
<blockquote>
<p>said words to the effect of ‘Don’t be ridiculous’ and walked away. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pell claimed to have no recollection of these events and did not accept that he had been told of Dowlan’s abuse in 1974.</p>
<h2>Failure to report Father Searson</h2>
<p>Pell was appointed auxiliary bishop of Melbourne in 1987. Two years later, he was handed a list of grievances and allegations about a priest, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-35713743">Peter Searson</a>. </p>
<p>The complaints about Searson’s violent, threatening and sexually abusive behaviour are shocking. In his evidence before the commission, Pell accepted that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Father Searson should have been stood down or removed from the parish. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet, he simultaneously did not think that it was his place to investigate the allegations against Searson. According to the report,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Cardinal Pell’s evidence was that he could not recall recommending a particular course of action to the archbishop. He conceded that, in retrospect, he might have been ‘a bit more pushy’ with all of the parties involved.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The commissioners are scathing of Pell’s inaction in this case. They rejected that this view could only have come to him “in retrospect”. They wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>on the basis of what was known to Bishop Pell in 1989, it ought to have been obvious to him at the time. He should have advised the archbishop to remove Father Searson and he did not do so.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pell was responsible for “the welfare of the children in the Catholic community of his region” and he failed to take action to secure their safety.</p>
<p>The commissioners describe this case as indicative of </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a failure of the system in place to properly respond to complaints, including taking responsible action about those complaints.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Searson <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/long-awaited-george-pell-royal-commission-findings-released-20200507-p54qmo.html">died in 2009 without being convicted</a>. The church has paid nearly $300,000 in compensation to his victims.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/before-coronavirus-china-was-falsely-blamed-for-spreading-smallpox-racism-played-a-role-then-too-137884">Before coronavirus, China was falsely blamed for spreading smallpox. Racism played a role then, too</a>
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<h2>History no longer blacked out</h2>
<p>The now-unredacted report is stark and methodical in documenting Pell’s knowledge of allegations of abuse, and his consistent and repeated failures to report and investigate that abuse. As priest, vicar, bishop and archbishop, he did not do his job to protect the children under his care. </p>
<p>None of the information revealed in the unredacted volumes released today is new. Neither does it transform our understanding of the individual and systemic failures of major institutions like the Catholic Church to respond appropriately to allegations of child sexual abuse. </p>
<p>But it may be some comfort to survivors that the detailed investigation of this horrific history is no longer blacked out, and the full details of the investigation have been made known.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy W. Jones receives funding from the Australian Research Council and worked as a consultant for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. </span></em></p>Pell said after his acquittal he would ‘be very surprised if there’s any bad findings’ in the redacted portions of the royal commission report. This is not the case.Timothy W. Jones, Senior Lecturer in History, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1359322020-04-08T07:52:33Z2020-04-08T07:52:33ZPell decision: why sexual offence trials often result in acquittal, even with credible witnesses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326422/original/file-20200408-72911-xqs0cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1743%2C52%2C3226%2C1631&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A distinctive feature of the prosecution of Cardinal George Pell is that the former choirboy who accused him of sexual abuse (known in the High Court as Complainant “A”) was regarded as a credible witness by the jury that convicted Pell in 2018 and the majority of the Victorian Court of Appeal that dismissed Pell’s appeal. </p>
<p>The High Court made no express conclusion in relation to “A”, accepting that assessment of witness credibility was a task for the jury. </p>
<p>So how, in these circumstances, could Pell be <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showCase/2020/HCA/12">acquitted</a>? The answer to that question goes to the heart of the prosecution of sexual offences. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-jury-may-be-out-on-the-jury-system-after-george-pells-successful-appeal-135814">The jury may be out on the jury system after George Pell's successful appeal</a>
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<h2>The trials of sexual offences are distinctive</h2>
<p>Despite many decades of significant law reform, conviction rates in the trials of sexual offences have remained relatively low. </p>
<p>For instance, in addition to under-reporting of such crimes to police and the <a href="https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/research-and-evaluation/publications/attrition-of-sexual-offence-incidents-across-the-victorian">attrition</a> of cases before trial, the rate of conviction in sexual offence trials in many jurisdictions is lower than for other offences.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Documents/CJB/cjb92.pdf">NSW</a> and in the County Court of <a href="https://www.countycourt.vic.gov.au/files/documents/2019-10/ccv-annual-report-2018-19.pdf">Victoria</a>, less than half the accused on trial for a sexual offence are found guilty.</p>
<p>These low conviction rates occur because sex offence trials are distinctive from other trials. They are characterised by relatively low levels of guilty pleas and high rates of appeals. </p>
<p>Both these factors contribute to relatively <a href="https://link-springer-com.ezproxy-b.deakin.edu.au/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10691-011-9169-2.pdf">high acquittal rates</a> for those put on trial for sexual offences. </p>
<p>It also means that, unlike victims of other types of crimes, victims of sexual offences are more likely to be required to give evidence at trial. </p>
<p>Consequently, the credibility of complainants often becomes the key issue.</p>
<h2>Why are trials for sexual offences so distinctive?</h2>
<p>Several circumstances make the position of complainants in sexual offence trials uniquely vulnerable. </p>
<p>Sexual offences are often perpetrated by men against women. As such, scepticism and frank sexist bias, often previously legally entrenched, affects the investigation and prosecution of these cases. </p>
<p>Additionally, many sexual offences also involve child victims, who are particularly vulnerable in the context of an adversarial criminal trial. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/juries-will-soon-learn-more-about-people-accused-of-child-sex-crimes-will-it-lead-to-fairer-trials-132517">Juries will soon learn more about people accused of child sex crimes. Will it lead to fairer trials?</a>
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<p>Historically, the common law had <a href="https://scholars.uow.edu.au/display/publication105370">multiple requirements</a> that effectively undermined the credibility of female and child victims who gave evidence in sexual offence trials. </p>
<p>For instance, convictions could not be obtained on the uncorroborated evidence of a child. In addition, a judge would warn a jury about the danger of convicting a defendant in cases involving a <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1973/30.html">delay in the reporting</a> of the offence. </p>
<p>Contemporary reform has abrogated these laws. However, some critics believe many jurors still hold pro-defendant and anti-victim attitudes in cases like these, contributing to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1350/ijep.2013.17.1.419">continuing low conviction rates</a>. </p>
<p>These attitudes can make prosecuting sexual offences difficult. If a complainant has consumed alcohol before being sexually assaulted, for instance, police have been found to be <a href="https://www.secasa.com.au/assets/Statstics/study-of-reported-rapes-in-victoria-2000-2003.pdf">less likely to further investigate the case</a>.</p>
<p>Prosecutions are also hampered when there has been a delay in reporting an offence, as this makes it more challenging to gather evidence.</p>
<p>Another long-recognised difficulty in prosecuting sexual offences is the fact the conduct often takes place without any other witness being present. </p>
<p>In this situation, it will essentially be a “he said, she said”-type trial. And in this context, a successful prosecution depends on the perceived truthfulness and reliability of the complainant’s evidence. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-laws-help-juries-understand-why-victims-of-sexual-violence-struggle-to-recall-their-assaults-103094">New laws help juries understand why victims of sexual violence struggle to recall their assaults</a>
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<p>Here, again, bias and cultural assumptions come into play. The High Court has noted assessments of credibility based on the demeanour of a witness are highly subjective.</p>
<p>But in Pell’s case, “A” was regarded as a credible witness by the jury, as well as by the majority of the Victorian Court of Appeal. So, why was being a credible witness not sufficient to guarantee a conviction?</p>
<h2>The issue of reasonable doubt</h2>
<p>As Pell’s acquittal clearly demonstrates, it’s possible for a court to accept a complainant in a sexual offence case is credible, while simultaneously finding the accused not guilty. </p>
<p>Understandably, many victims and their supporters have found this situation to be paradoxical and unacceptable. </p>
<p>The reason for this goes to the issue of reasonable doubt. </p>
<p>In essence, credible and reliable victims raise the likelihood the offences were perpetrated against them. </p>
<p>In Pell’s case, the majority of the Victorian Court of Appeal found the complainant to be a truthful witness whose evidence appeared to be “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-08/pell_v_the_queen_2019_vsca_186_-_web_2.pdf">entirely authentic</a>”. They dismissed the appeal, concluding the evidence of other witnesses did not require a jury to have reasonable doubt about Pell’s guilt.</p>
<p>However, the dissenting judge on the Court of Appeal and the judges of the High Court gave greater weight to evidence by other witnesses that was unchallenged and inconsistent with the evidence of the complainant. </p>
<p>The High Court <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showCase/2020/HCA/12">concluded:</a></p>
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<p>…notwithstanding that the jury found A to be a credible and reliable witness, the evidence as a whole was not capable of excluding a reasonable doubt as to the applicant’s guilt.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The standard of reasonable doubt is, of course, a high hurdle that must be met. Some <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9a40/686d590f47f31f545d1ee5d3a03ea6db5ccd.pdf">research</a> suggests mock jurors find understanding and applying this standard to be particularly difficult in sex offence trials. </p>
<p>Consequently, while many of the historical biases limiting the evidence and credibility of complainants in sexual offence trials have now been formally removed, the criminal standard of “beyond reasonable doubt” remains a demanding standard. </p>
<p>And this means even credible witnesses may find the trial of their accused results in an acquittal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marilyn McMahon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Conviction rates for sexual offences remain low, despite legal reforms in recent years. One reason is the criminal standard of ‘reasonable doubt’ when supporting evidence may be difficult to produce.Marilyn McMahon, Deputy Dean, School of Law, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1358142020-04-07T05:42:34Z2020-04-07T05:42:34ZThe jury may be out on the jury system after George Pell’s successful appeal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325925/original/file-20200407-160446-2bi402.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C1474%2C4173%2C3435&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/sirtravelalot</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The High Court today <a href="https://7news.com.au/news/crime/cardinal-pell-to-walk-free-from-prison-c-960907">quashed</a> the conviction of Cardinal George Pell, who had originally been found guilty on a number of charges by a jury of 12 people.</p>
<p>His defence counsel, Bret Walker SC, had argued before the High Court that the convictions in 2018 were unsound because it was not open to the jury to find Pell guilty beyond reasonable doubt.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156">How George Pell won in the High Court on a legal technicality</a>
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<p>He argued to the High Court the “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-11/pell-appeal-makes-it-to-the-high-court-of-australia/12041226">sheer unlikelihood</a>” of events and times aligning in the way that had been put forth by the prosecution to the trial judge and jury. He argued the story of the complainant could not be credible. </p>
<p>The High Court has now agreed that there was room for reasonable doubt.</p>
<h2>A jury decides, but then …</h2>
<p>Remember that, prior to the verdict, a jury of a dozen men and women had deliberated for almost five days before returning their verdicts of guilty on all five charges.</p>
<p>How is it that a jury’s decision, after hearing all the evidence (with the exception of Pell himself) and deliberating for a considerable period of time, can be subverted by the opinion of an appeal court 16 months later?</p>
<p>To answer this question we need to look briefly at the appeal grounds that apply in the higher criminal courts. There are two broad grounds of appeal against conviction. Each is found in both the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/australian-criminal-justice-9780195521153" title="Australian Criminal Justice">common law and legislation</a> that pertains to these matters. </p>
<p>The first, and far more common, is that there has been an error of law (or fact) in the way that the trial has been conducted, the way evidence has been wrongly admitted, or the way the judge has incorrectly summed up to the jury. </p>
<p>The less common basis of appeal is the verdict of the jury is unreasonable, or cannot be supported, given the evidence. The Pell appeal proceeded on this basis, and succeeded.</p>
<h2>Reluctance to overturn juries</h2>
<p>Appeal judges have traditionally shown a marked reluctance to overturn jury verdicts. The <a href="http://netk.net.au/Australia/Chamberlain.asp">failed High Court appeal</a> by Michael and Lindy Chamberlain in 1984 against their convictions for murdering their daughter comes quickly to mind. (They were later <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-09/michael-chamberlain-father-of-azaria-dies/8171302">exonerated</a>.)</p>
<p>Judges of the High Court have long wrestled with the difficulty of subverting the important role of the jury. In 1997, then <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showbyHandle/1/11837" title="Jones v The Queen">Chief Justice Gerard Brennan</a> put the position thus:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the courts accept the jury as the possessor of both the skills and the advantages that are required to reach a proper verdict. In my respectful opinion, any contrary approach denies the importance of trial by jury and is inconsistent with the constitutional function which the jury performs. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, there may be exceptional cases where it appears that, despite its skills and advantages and the due observance of all relevant rules of law and procedure, the jury must have fallen into error.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There has long been a tradition of upholding the existence of the jury as the fundamental underpinning of the value, strength and reliability of our system of criminal justice.</p>
<p>I have always thought this a slightly odd observation given that magistrates, not juries, determine the vast majority of criminal cases that arrive for trial in Australia’s courts. </p>
<p>But in the higher courts judgment by one’s peers has always been a bulwark against the idea of a star chamber where decisions about an accused person’s guilt or innocence are made unfairly and capriciously.</p>
<h2>A jury of your peers</h2>
<p>The stability of the jury as an integral part of the justice system has never been seriously questioned. Advocates for the retention of the jury often recite the well-known case of <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2204512" title="Bushell's Case and the Juror's Soul">Bushell in England in 1670</a> when two Quakers, William Penn and William Mead, were arrested and charged with unlawful assembly.</p>
<p>The jury stood steadfastly against the wishes of the judge who wanted to convict the two preachers. The judge was ultimately rebuffed. The jury was vindicated and its place in the criminal justice process was cemented.</p>
<p>But in cases such as Pell, the High Court has reinforced the notion that, despite the jury having the primary responsibility of determining the guilt or innocence of a person on trial, its responsibility can be subject to a higher order.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-about-juries-why-do-we-actually-need-them-and-can-they-get-it-wrong-112703">All about juries: why do we actually need them and can they get it 'wrong'?</a>
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<p>This is because, ultimately, the appeal courts have been given an overriding responsibility of determining for themselves whether a jury decision is a safe decision that has not been infected with the hue and cry or matters outside the evidence that was put to them. </p>
<p>Whatever one may think of the Pell decision, it is appropriate there be such a final arbiter in the justice process.</p>
<p>But one victim of this appeal result may be a loss of public confidence in the jury system. At the other end of the spectrum, others may lose confidence in the justice system itself.</p>
<p>I trust that neither is the outcome. But one could be excused for feeling a general uneasiness about the fact that, for all the store we place on juries in determining issues of guilt and innocence, their role can be dispensed with so easily.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rick Sarre receives funding from the Criminology Research Council. He is affiliated with the Labor Party of SA. </span></em></p>The appeal may lead to a loss of public confidence in the jury system, but that’s how the justice process works.Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1331562020-04-07T02:23:12Z2020-04-07T02:23:12ZHow George Pell won in the High Court on a legal technicality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325916/original/file-20200406-87025-1i4myjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Erik Anderson/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The High Court today <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-07/george-pell-wins-high-court-appeal-child-sex-abuse-convictions/12048726">granted</a> Cardinal George Pell special leave to appeal, and unanimously allowed the appeal. In other words, Pell won. His convictions were quashed and he will be released from prison.</p>
<p>Pell’s prosecution has been socially explosive and legally complex. The cardinal’s convictions by unanimous jury verdicts were a landmark event in Australian history. The High Court’s decision will be, too – both for the legal world and for society more broadly.</p>
<p>For many, it will be impossible to understand how the unanimous jury verdicts of guilty, further supported by a Court of Appeal majority of two judges, can now be overturned. </p>
<p>The High Court decision may undermine confidence in the legal system, especially in child sexual abuse prosecutions.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1247314940978847744"}"></div></p>
<p><a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/holy-week-brings-pell-s-day-of-judgment-but-clutch-of-civil-cases-loom-20200406-p54hko.html">Civil legal actions</a> against Pell are ongoing, so his legal battles aren’t over yet. More civil lawsuits may well follow, especially after the release of the Royal Commission’s findings about his conduct in Ballarat.</p>
<p>This case is exceptionally complex. It is important for the public to understand the legal process and key issues.</p>
<p>This High Court appeal did not ask whether Pell committed the offences. It asked whether the two majority judges in the Victorian Court of Appeal, in dismissing Pell’s earlier appeal, made an error about the nature of the correct legal principles, or their application.</p>
<p>Here is a summary of the key events.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320030/original/file-20200312-116261-a6ugi0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=90&fit=crop&dpr=2" alt="Sign up to The Conversation" width="100%"></a></p>
<h2>The jury decision</h2>
<p>In 2018, a jury unanimously found Pell <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-13/george-pells-full-sentencing,-as-issued-by-peter-kidd/10897650">guilty</a> “beyond reasonable doubt” of five child sexual offences. This standard of proof is high, but does not require absolute proof. The jury believed the complainant and rejected Pell’s defence.</p>
<h2>The Court of Appeal decision</h2>
<p>Pell argued the verdicts “could not be supported on the whole of the evidence”. The question for the court was not whether it thought Pell was guilty, but whether (in its opinion after reviewing all the evidence) it was “open to the jury” to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the accused was guilty. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-21/george-pell-has-lost-his-appeal-what-happens-next/11434216">discussed elsewhere</a>, to show the verdict was “not open”, Pell had to meet a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-21/george-pell-has-lost-his-appeal-what-happens-next/11434216">very high legal threshold</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-did-the-high-court-decide-in-the-pell-case-and-what-happens-now-126757">What did the High Court decide in the Pell case? And what happens now?</a>
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<p>Jury decisions cannot be undermined without exceptional circumstances. Pell had to show more than the jury “might have” had a reasonable doubt. He had to show the evidence “precluded” a guilty verdict.</p>
<p>When a complainant is credible, and their account is detailed, plausible and consistent, it is difficult to show a jury <em>must</em> have had a reasonable doubt.</p>
<p>To meet the standard of “beyond reasonable doubt”, evidence is assessed as a whole. Every piece of evidence does not itself have to be proved to that standard. It is “open to the jury” to convict even if aspects of the evidence are “imperfect”.</p>
<p>All three Court of Appeal judges thoroughly and independently considered all the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/2011/13.html?context=1;query=SKA;mask_path=au/cases/cth/HCA">evidence</a>. Two judges thought the verdict was open to the jury, and one did not. </p>
<p>In other words, two judges thought it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the accused was guilty – and one did not. </p>
<p>Accordingly, the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2019/186.html">court dismissed the appeal</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325918/original/file-20200406-96658-jkb8ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325918/original/file-20200406-96658-jkb8ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325918/original/file-20200406-96658-jkb8ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325918/original/file-20200406-96658-jkb8ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325918/original/file-20200406-96658-jkb8ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325918/original/file-20200406-96658-jkb8ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325918/original/file-20200406-96658-jkb8ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A court sketch of Cardinal George Pell at the Supreme Court of Victoria last year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeff Hayes/AAP</span></span>
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<h2>The case goes to the High Court</h2>
<p>The High Court allowed “special <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1985/66.html?context=1;query=liberato;mask_path=au/cases/cth/HCA">leave to appeal</a>”. This is unusual, as special leave applications arguing an unreasonable verdict are frequently refused, including in child sexual offence cases.</p>
<p>It <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ja1903112/s35a.html">can only grant leave if</a> the case involves a question of legal principle, or if – as found here – there’s a question of the administration of justice.</p>
<p>Pell claimed the Court of Appeal misapplied the legal test, causing a miscarriage of justice.</p>
<p>The question for the High Court in whether to give special leave was not whether Pell was guilty, or whether the jury was right. </p>
<p>It was whether the case involved an issue engaging the interests of the administration of justice.</p>
<p>The High Court found the interests of the administration of justice required their involvement. This does not itself indicate any view about Pell’s guilt.</p>
<h2>What did Pell argue in the High Court?</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/HCATrans/2020/26.html">Pell argued</a> the Victorian majority judgment’s application of the “open to the jury” test was wrong. </p>
<p>He argued they effectively required him to prove it was impossible for the offending to occur, reversing the onus and standard of proof. He argued the majority’s belief in the complainant was not enough to overcome evidence about lack of opportunity to commit the offences.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/media-files-investigative-reporter-louise-milligan-on-cardinal-pell-and-redactions-in-the-royal-commissions-report-117981">Media Files: Investigative reporter Louise Milligan on Cardinal Pell and redactions in the Royal Commission's report</a>
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<p>He also argued there was sufficient doubt about whether the offending was possible, as the complainant’s account required them to be alone in the sacristy for five to six minutes. </p>
<p>There was enough doubt about this, his legal team argued, that the majority on the Court of Appeal incorrectly found it was open to the jury to find the offending occurred during this period. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases/case_m112-2019">The Crown rejected these claims</a>. They argued there was no reversal of the onus of proof, and the majority judges were justified in concluding the evidence about lack of opportunity was not persuasive enough to create a doubt that “obliged” the jury to find him not guilty. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325919/original/file-20200406-104477-xl1w8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325919/original/file-20200406-104477-xl1w8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325919/original/file-20200406-104477-xl1w8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325919/original/file-20200406-104477-xl1w8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325919/original/file-20200406-104477-xl1w8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325919/original/file-20200406-104477-xl1w8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325919/original/file-20200406-104477-xl1w8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Supporters of abuse victims outside the Victoria Supreme Court building in August. Today’s decision was handed down in a near-empty High Court building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julian Smith/AAP</span></span>
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<h2>Pell won today on a legal technicality</h2>
<p>Based on their <a href="https://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/judgment-summaries/2020/hca-12-2020-04-07.pdf">summary reasons</a>, the High Court found the Court of Appeal majority judgment did not apply sufficiently cogent reasoning when it assessed the evidence.</p>
<p>In their <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA//2020/12.html">full reasons</a>, the High Court concluded an independent assessment of the evidence by the Court of Appeal should have concluded there ought to have been sufficient doubt in the jury’s minds to preclude the verdict from being open. </p>
<p>They found the majority’s judgment failed to consider whether there was a reasonable possibility the offending had not taken place, such that there ought to have been a reasonable doubt as to Pell’s guilt.</p>
<p>They also found that despite the complainant’s credibility and reliability, the evidence of the witnesses required the jury, acting rationally, to have entertained a reasonable doubt as to Pell’s guilt.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victims-of-child-sex-abuse-still-face-significant-legal-barriers-suing-churches-heres-why-126510">Victims of child sex abuse still face significant legal barriers suing churches - here's why</a>
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<p>It is difficult to reconcile this outcome with the fact this is exactly the conclusion the jury did make. The jury’s conclusion was further supported by the Appeal Court majority judgment’s careful and extensive evaluation of that same evidence. </p>
<p>The High Court has given claims about lack of opportunity an elevated technical legal status that outweighs the jury’s belief in the complainant’s testimony and their evident discounting of Pell’s claimed lack of opportunity. This appears perilously close to retrial by the court.</p>
<p>A jury found the cardinal guilty beyond reasonable doubt of five offences.</p>
<p>In doing so, the jury assessed the testimony and credibility of the complainant. They also considered the strength of the claims made by the cardinal about the timing of his whereabouts, who was with him at the relevant times and whether the offences could have happened. </p>
<p>The jury saw and heard all the evidence, in the context of the trial. It was their legal function to make this decision.</p>
<p>Careful analysis of the full reasoning of the High Court is required to fully assess it. But, for now, this extraordinary outcome is strange justice indeed.</p>
<p>Pell has won today on a legal technicality, but he will continue to be assailed by multiple lawsuits.</p>
<p>In contrast, the complainant has been believed by a jury, by a majority judgment and by a substantial body of public opinion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Nicholas Bernard Thomas was until recently the President of Caxton Legal Centre Inc, and remain on the Executive of that organisation as secretary (not-for-profit community legal centre). He is on the Executive of Prisoners’ Legal Service Inc as secretary (also not-for-profit community legal centre).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Mathews does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This High Court appeal did not ask whether Pell committed the offences. It asked whether the two majority judges in the Victorian Court of Appeal, in dismissing Pell’s earlier appeal, made an error.Ben Mathews, Professor, School of Law, Queensland University of TechnologyMark Nicholas Bernard Thomas, Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1267572019-11-13T02:24:03Z2019-11-13T02:24:03ZWhat did the High Court decide in the Pell case? And what happens now?<p>Two judges in the High Court of Australia this morning referred Cardinal George Pell’s application for special leave to appeal his convictions to a full bench of the High Court.</p>
<p>While not a full grant of special leave, this is favourable to Pell, as dismissing the application would have finalised the case and his convictions.</p>
<p>When the High Court hears the case in coming months, it can reject or grant the special leave application. If granted, it can then allow or dismiss the appeal.</p>
<p>The case is exceptionally complex and the final outcome is difficult to predict. Allowing leave to appeal does not guarantee the appeal will succeed. Here is what might happen next.</p>
<h2>What happened with the convictions?</h2>
<p>In December 2018, a jury unanimously found Pell guilty of five sexual offences against two 13-year-old choirboys, committed when he was Archbishop of Melbourne from 1996-97. The offences were one count of sexual penetration of a child aged under 16 through forced oral sex, and four counts of an indecent act with or in the presence of a child aged under 16. He was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-13/george-pells-full-sentencing,-as-issued-by-peter-kidd/10897650">sentenced</a> to six years’ prison with a non-parole period of three years and eight months.</p>
<h2>What happened with the failed appeal?</h2>
<p>In August 2019, Victoria’s Court of Appeal <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2019/186.html">dismissed</a> Pell’s appeal against these convictions by a 2:1 majority decision. The background is <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-pell-has-lost-his-appeal-what-did-the-court-decide-and-what-happens-now-118054">summarised</a> elsewhere. The key issue was whether the verdicts were “unreasonable” or could not be supported on the evidence. The question was whether, given the evidence, it was “open to the jury” to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the accused was guilty.</p>
<p>It is not enough to overturn a guilty verdict if the court merely finds a jury “might have” had a reasonable doubt. Rather, the court must find that, on its assessment of the evidence, it was not open to the jury to have been satisfied of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. So the evidence must have “obliged” the jury to reach a not guilty verdict. Because of the jury’s role as tribunal of fact, setting aside a guilty verdict is “a serious step” (see the case <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showbyHandle/1/8939">M v R</a>).</p>
<p>The majority judges, Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and Justice Chris Maxwell, concluded the guilty verdicts were open to the jury. They did not have a doubt about the complainant’s truthfulness or the cardinal’s guilt. They made crucial findings after careful and cogent reasoning, considering each aspect of the defence case.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/george-pell-has-lost-his-appeal-what-did-the-court-decide-and-what-happens-now-118054">George Pell has lost his appeal. What did the court decide and what happens now?</a>
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<p>First, the complainant was credible and reliable. His account was consistent and detailed. His recalled detail of the sacristy layout enhanced his credibility and independently confirmed his account, as it was not normally used by the archbishop.</p>
<p>Second, the majority judges evaluated each defence claim individually and collectively. They rejected the claim that the “opportunity” testimony (defence witnesses’ statements about where they, Pell and the choirboys would likely have been at relevant times) made the guilty verdicts unreasonable. Essentially, this testimony was not deemed sufficiently strong to make the verdict unreasonable or “not open”. Its effect was “of uncertainty and imprecision”. There was evidence showing “a realistic opportunity” for the offending.</p>
<p>The dissenting judge, Justice Mark Weinberg, gave extensive reasons. On his interpretation of the “opportunity” testimony – including statements by two witnesses about customarily being with Pell at relevant times – there was a “reasonable possibility” of an effective alibi for the first four offences. Weinberg himself had “a genuine doubt” about Pell’s guilt, thought there was a “significant possibility” the offences had not been committed, and inferred the jury ought to have had this doubt.</p>
<h2>The application for special leave to appeal to the High Court</h2>
<p>The High Court <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1985/66.html?context=1;query=liberato;mask_path=au/cases/cth/HCA">does not lightly give leave to appeal</a>. It <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ja1903112/s35a.html">can only grant leave if</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the proceedings involve a question of legal principle; or</p></li>
<li><p>the interests of the administration of justice (generally, or here) require consideration of the earlier judgment.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Pell’s team made two arguments, relying on the dissenting judgment. First, they argued the majority’s approach to the “open to the jury” test was wrong, effectively requiring the applicant to exclude any possibility of the offending to have occurred, which reversed the onus and standard of proof. They also argued the majority’s belief in the complainant was not enough to overcome doubts raised by the opportunity testimony, and the alibi evidence had not been eliminated.</p>
<p>Second, they argued there was sufficient doubt about whether the offending was possible. This, they said, made the verdicts unreasonable, given the complainant’s account required them to be alone in the sacristy for five to six minutes. They argued that after mass and five to six minutes of “private prayer time” there was a “hive of activity” near the sacristy, and the majority incorrectly found it was reasonably open to the jury to find the offending happened during this period.</p>
<p>The director of public prosecutions argued there simply was no such error by the majority in applying the test, and the verdicts were not unreasonable.</p>
<p>In large part, the special leave application turned on the different approaches to whether the “opportunity evidence” was sufficiently strong to create enough doubt that it was “not open to the jury” to find Pell guilty beyond reasonable doubt. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victims-of-child-sex-abuse-still-face-significant-legal-barriers-suing-churches-heres-why-126510">Victims of child sex abuse still face significant legal barriers suing churches - here's why</a>
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<h2>What did the High Court say?</h2>
<p>The transcript had not been released at the time of writing, but the two judges referred the application for special leave to hearing by a full bench (five or seven members) for argument as on an appeal. There, the full High Court can reject or grant the special leave application.</p>
<p>On one view, this is surprising. Applications arguing an unreasonable verdict in child sexual offence cases are typically dismissed (for example, <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCASL/2015/20.html?context=1;query=O%27Brien;mask_path=au/cases/cth/HCASL">O’Brien</a>; in contrast <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/HCATrans/2016/304.html">GAX</a>).</p>
<p>The High Court generally does not grant leave simply due to an alternative interpretation of the facts. The majority judgment in the appeal accurately stated the test. It applied the test by carefully analysing all the arguments and testimony individually and collectively, applying cogent reasoning in independently assessing the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/2017/25.html?context=1;query=GAX;mask_path=au/cases/cth/HCA">sufficiency and quality</a> of the evidence. It weighed the evidence and expressed an independent conclusion about whether on all the evidence it was open to the jury to be satisfied of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the two High Court judges may reasonably feel there are important issues of legal principle and justice to consider, and that such a significant case warrants full consideration at all levels by the entire court.</p>
<h2>What happens now?</h2>
<p>The full hearing of the special leave application will occur in 2020. If leave is then granted, the appeal will proceed. If the appeal succeeds, the court can <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ja1903112/s36.html">grant a new trial</a>, or <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ja1903112/s37.html">reverse or modify</a> the prior judgment.</p>
<p>However, if special leave is refused at the full hearing, or granted but the appeal fails, the convictions stand and no further appeal is possible.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/triggering-past-trauma-how-to-take-care-of-yourself-if-youre-affected-by-the-pell-news-112608">Triggering past trauma: how to take care of yourself if you're affected by the Pell news</a>
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<p>For the complainant and many survivors, especially of clergy abuse, this decision will be confronting. They will hopefully be able to draw on reserves of resilience, hope, and any support services if necessary, while awaiting the High Court’s final decision.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126757/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Mathews does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The High Court has referred Cardinal George Pell’s application for special leave to appeal his convictions to the full bench of the High Court.Ben Mathews, Professor, School of Law, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1180542019-08-21T00:37:22Z2019-08-21T00:37:22ZGeorge Pell has lost his appeal. What did the court decide and what happens now?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288830/original/file-20190820-170946-1aqfumn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George Pell's appeal on child sexual abuse convictions has been dismissed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Erik Anderson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Victoria’s Court of Appeal today delivered one of the <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/george-pell-appeal-live-cardinal-to-learn-if-he-will-walk-free-20190821-p52j4y.html">most significant judgments</a> in Australian legal history, dismissing Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/26/who-is-george-pell-and-what-has-he-been-convicted-of">convictions for five child sex offences</a>.</p>
<p>Given Pell’s seniority in the Catholic Church as a former Vatican treasurer, the case is also of worldwide significance. The appeal involved complex legal principles. Here is what you need to know to understand the judgment.</p>
<h2>What happened before this appeal?</h2>
<p>In December 2018, a jury unanimously found Pell guilty of five sexual offences against two 13-year-old boys, committed while Archbishop of Melbourne. As detailed in the <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VCC/2019/260.html?context=1;query=pell;mask_path=au/cases/vic/VCC">sentencing remarks of County Court Chief Judge Kidd</a> in March 2019, Pell was found guilty of one count of sexual penetration of a child aged under 16 through forced oral sex, and four counts of an indecent act with or in the presence of a child aged under 16.</p>
<p>The first offences were committed in the sacristy of St Patrick’s Cathedral after mass in December 1996. The final offence was committed against one of the boys around one month later. Both victims were choirboys and recipients of choral scholarships at an elite school.</p>
<p>Pell was sentenced to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-13/cardinal-george-pell-sentenced-for-sexually-abusing-choirboys/10876012">six years’ prison with a non-parole period of three years and eight months</a>.</p>
<p>In reaching a verdict, the jury relied on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/26/cardinal-george-pell-vatican-treasurer-found-guilty-of-child-sexual-assault">detailed evidence</a> of one of the victims about what Pell said and did, and when and where it happened. The other victim began using heroin at age 14 and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-04/george-pell-abuse-victims-family-police-speak-to-4-corners/10856998">died of a heroin overdose in 2014</a>, aged 31. This man’s death prompted the surviving victim, aged in his early 30s, to approach police in 2015.</p>
<h2>Is it normal for survivors of child sexual abuse to delay disclosure?</h2>
<p>Yes. Survivors often disclose only after a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1524838017697312">significant delay</a> and are reluctant to tell legal authorities. Australia’s <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/final-report">Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a> found that, for those in private interviews, 57% first disclosed as adults and it took an average of 31.9 years to disclose.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10615-012-0420-3">2013 study</a> of 487 men whose mean age of onset of abuse was 10, found the mean age when first telling was 32.</p>
<h2>Is it a problem that the prosecution relied on the complainant’s evidence?</h2>
<p>No. Child sexual abuse typically is inflicted in secret, without other evidence, so prosecutions often depend heavily on complainant testimony. <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_act/ea200880/s164.html">The law</a> recognises this: evidence does not have to be corroborated, and the judge must not warn the jury it is dangerous to act on uncorroborated evidence.</p>
<p>Juries make judgments based on the complainant account’s credibility, consistency, detail and truthfulness, and responses and demeanour in cross-examination.</p>
<h2>What did Pell argue in the appeal?</h2>
<p>There were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/01/george-pell-appeals-over-fundamental-irregularity-in-his-sexual-abuse-trial">three grounds</a> of appeal. Two were procedural or technical: the plea of not guilty was <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_act/cpa2009188/s217.html">not made in the presence of the jury panel</a>; and the defence was not permitted to play a “visual representation” of part of its argument in its closing address.</p>
<p>Essentially, both arguments claimed a “substantial miscarriage of justice”. The court unanimously rejected these arguments.</p>
<p>But the main argument was that the jury’s verdict was “<a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_act/cpa2009188/s276.html">unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the evidence</a>”. Pell’s appeal argued it was not open to the jury to be satisfied of guilt, beyond reasonable doubt, based solely on the word of the complainant.</p>
<p>It also argued that it was not possible for Pell to have been in the sacristy either at all, or by himself; it was not possible for the boys to have been in the sacristy unnoticed; and the robes he wore made it impossible to offend in the way claimed.</p>
<h2>What was the Court of Appeal required to do when considering this argument?</h2>
<p>The law is complex, and whether a verdict is “unreasonable” depends on legal technicalities, not intuitive instincts. Four legal principles need to be understood here.</p>
<p>First, and most important, there is a very high threshold for a court to overturn a jury’s guilty verdict for being unreasonable (see, for example, <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showbyHandle/1/8939">M</a> or <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/downloadPdf/2016/HCA/35">Baden-Clay</a>). This is because, in Australian law, the jury is the constitutional tribunal of fact responsible for deciding guilt or innocence. A verdict will only be overturned in exceptional circumstances showing a clear miscarriage of justice.</p>
<p>Second, the test is whether, on the evidence, it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the accused was guilty.</p>
<p>To win the appeal, the appellant must show the guilty verdict was not open to the jury. It is not sufficient for the court to find a jury might have had reasonable doubt. The evidence must mean no reasonable jury could have returned a guilty verdict; it must have “obliged” them to reach a not guilty verdict.</p>
<p>Third, the appeal court does not retry the case – again, because the jury is the tribunal of fact. The court must independently assess the evidence, but to determine whether the guilty verdict was open to the jury; not simply whether the court itself has a doubt.</p>
<p>Fourth, if a complainant is credible and reliable and the account is detailed, consistent and plausible, it is difficult for an appeal to succeed. On plausibility, courts have accepted that sexual offending can be brazen, influenced by the abuser’s arrogance, power and belief the child will not make a complaint.</p>
<h2>What did the Court of Appeal say about this?</h2>
<p>The judges rejected it by a majority of two to one. They found the guilty verdicts were reasonable, because they were open to the jury on the whole of the evidence.</p>
<p>The court said there was nothing about the evidence that meant the jury must have had reasonable doubt. It was not enough that one or more jurors might have had a doubt. Moreover, the court did not itself have such a doubt. </p>
<p>The complainant was found to be compelling, clearly not a liar or fantasist, and a witness of truth. He did not embellish the evidence or tailor it to the prosecution. He adequately explained things he could not remember and his explanations had a ring of truth. </p>
<h2>What can happen now?</h2>
<p>Pell can seek special leave to appeal to the High Court. If the High Court denies permission, the matter is finalised; <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ja1903112/s35a.html">if given</a>, it will later deliver a final judgment.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-church-is-investigating-george-pells-case-what-does-that-mean-113187">The Catholic Church is investigating George Pell's case. What does that mean?</a>
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<p>Save for a successful appeal in the High Court, Pope Francis will likely <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/us/mccarrick-defrocked-vatican.html">expel</a> Pell from the priesthood. The family of the second survivor is <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/cardinal-george-pell-faces-civil-action-after-appeal-decision/news-story/507b440c96d3596f463aae37372ab0e2">suing him</a> and or the church for civil damages, as may <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/guilty:-the-conviction-of-cardinal-pell/10869116">others</a>. Pell will remain in jail.</p>
<p>It is exceptionally difficult for survivors of child sexual abuse to bring successful criminal complaints, especially against powerful offenders. This judgment may encourage other courageous survivors to make complaints. </p>
<p>Yet many systemic reforms are still required to better facilitate prosecutions of child sexual offences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118054/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Mathews does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>By a majority of two to one, the Court of Appeal has dismissed Pell’s case, because it found guilty verdicts were open to the jury.Ben Mathews, Professor, School of Law, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1179812019-06-04T07:26:05Z2019-06-04T07:26:05ZMedia Files: Investigative reporter Louise Milligan on Cardinal Pell and redactions in the Royal Commission’s report<p>Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against child sexual assault convictions kicks off this week, but when that’s over Pell still has another reckoning to face: the unredacted findings of Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.</p>
<p>When the royal commission handed down its massive report in late 2017, several sections were redacted until after any legal proceedings against Cardinal Pell were concluded. </p>
<p>In this episode of Media Files, Matthew Ricketson talks with ABC investgative reporter Louise Milligan – author of <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/authors/louise-milligan">Cardinal: the rise and fall of George Pell</a> – about the issues and incidents the royal commission investigated.</p>
<h2>New to podcasts?</h2>
<p>Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click <a href="https://pca.st/7anl">here</a> to listen to Media Files on Pocket Casts).</p>
<p>You can also hear us on any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Media Files.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/media-files/id1434250621?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL2F1L3BvZGNhc3RzL21lZGlhZmlsZXMucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
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<h2>Additional credits</h2>
<p>Producer: Andy Hazel.</p>
<p>Theme music: Susie Wilkins.</p>
<h2>Image</h2>
<p>David Crosling/AAP</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Ricketson is chair of the board of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma, Asia-Pacific, which has done work to support journalists who have reported extensively on child sexual abuse. </span></em></p>When the royal commission handed down its massive report in late 2017, several sections were redacted until after any legal proceedings against Cardinal Pell were concluded.Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1116342019-03-21T03:01:33Z2019-03-21T03:01:33ZPODCAST: Pell trial reporters, a judge and a media lawyer on why the suppression order debate is far from over<p>When Judge Peter Kidd sentenced Cardinal George Pell last week, it was broadcast live on radio and television. It was a stark contrast to the preceding trial, which was subject to a suppression order that prevented any coverage of the proceedings. </p>
<p>Today on Media Files we look at the suppression order that prevented the Australian media reporting the case, even when the verdict was widely known and was being circulated on social media and on the front pages of newspapers around the world. </p>
<p>On the day of the Pell sentence the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism brought together several experts with wide-ranging experiences of suppression orders to discuss how they affect the public’s right to know and whether the laws should be reformed. </p>
<p>The panellists are: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Associate Professor Jason Bosland, Co-Director of the Centre for Media and Communications Law at Melbourne Law School, where he teaches media and communications law. His primary research interests lie in media law, including defamation and privacy, open justice and the media, contempt of court and freedom of speech</p></li>
<li><p>Melissa Davey, Melbourne bureau chief for The Guardian. She is an experienced news journalist who previously worked as a reporter for Fairfax newspapers, including The Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun Herald. She sat through every day of the George Pell trial</p></li>
<li><p>Lucie Morris-Marr, a reporter who, like Melissa, sat through the entire Pell proceedings. She worked at the Daily Mail, London, Marie Claire Australia and the Herald Sun in Melbourne before covering the Pell trial for the New Daily. She is the author of a book on Pell entitled Fallen: The inside story of the secret trial and conviction of Cardinal George Pell</p></li>
<li><p>Frank Vincent AO QC, who served 16 years as a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria followed by a further eight years as a judge of the Court of Appeal. He was Deputy Chair and then Chair of the Victorian Adult Parole Board, a position he occupied for 17 years. In 2017 he conducted a review of court suppression orders and the Open Courts Act 2013.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The forum was chaired by Dr Denis Muller of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. </p>
<h2>New to podcasts?</h2>
<p>Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click <a href="https://pca.st/7anl">here</a> to listen to Media Files on Pocket Casts).</p>
<p>You can also hear us on any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Media Files.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/media-files/id1434250621?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL2F1L3BvZGNhc3RzL21lZGlhZmlsZXMucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
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<p><em>Recorded at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism. Producer: Andy Hazel.</em></p>
<p><em>Theme music by Susie Wilkins.</em></p>
<h2>Image:</h2>
<p>PAUL TYQUIN/AAP</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111634/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Dodd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On the day George Pell was sentenced, several experts with wide-ranging experiences of suppression orders discussed how they affect the public’s right to know and whether the laws should be reformed.Andrew Dodd, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1135592019-03-19T18:50:01Z2019-03-19T18:50:01ZWhat parents need to know about the signs of child sexual abuse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264512/original/file-20190319-28479-duyzb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Significant changes in your child's behaviour could signal they are being sexually abused.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent events, including the conviction and sentencing of George Pell for sexually abusing two children in the 1990s and the documentary airing allegations about Michael Jackson’s abuse of two young boys, have made prominent the topic of child sexual abuse. Many parents may be concerned about the safety of their child, and whether they are missing signs the child may be being groomed, or sexually abused.</p>
<p>Child sexual abuse is a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1077559511403920">global problem</a>. Victimisation rates are estimated at <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1077559511403920">18% for girls and almost 8% for boys</a>. But these rates don’t show the full picture as they only reflect cases that have been reported. Most cases of child sexual abuse are <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4906.0%7E2016%7EMain%20Features%7EExperience%20of%20Abuse%20before%20the%20age%20of%2015%7E27">perpetrated by someone known to the child</a> or related to the child. </p>
<p>Findings from the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse show <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_preface_and_executive_summary.pdf">victims can take up to 26 years to disclose sexual abuse</a>. So, if the child isn’t disclosing their experience, what can a parent do? Here are some signs to look for to protect your child, as well as what to do if you suspect they are experiencing sexual abuse or are at risk of being abused.</p>
<h2>Encourage open conversation</h2>
<p>The best weapon any caregiver has for protecting their child is to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/car.1012">proactively engage in open communication about personal safety</a> with their child from a young age. Helping a child build their knowledge of personal safety is a form of primary prevention of child sexual abuse. </p>
<p>This might include parents teaching their children the correct names for their genitalia, creating a shared language around warning signs, and basic rules regarding personal safety. Having these open conversations early on will build the child’s knowledge and may encourage the child to be more open about uncomfortable experiences they may have.</p>
<h2>Why children may not tell</h2>
<p>There are <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/responding-children-and-young-people-s-disclosures-abu">many reasons</a> why children might not disclose abuse immediately. These include feelings of self-blame, embarrassment, shame, powerlessness or fear of the perpetrator. </p>
<p>Some children may simply not know how to talk about the abuse. The likelihood of non-disclosure <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735801000915">may be magnified</a> when the perpetrator is a family member or known to the family. Here, the child might feel conflicted, as they want the abuse to stop but are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735801000915">concerned about the perpetrator’s well-being</a> if they disclose, or fear the consequences of disclosure such as family separation or distress.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/incest-why-is-worst-of-the-worst-abuse-so-often-ignored-63313">Incest: why is 'worst of the worst' abuse so often ignored?</a>
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<p>Grooming dynamics also shed light on why children may not disclose. Grooming is where a <a href="https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/health/childprotection/Pages/expolitationgrooming.aspx#link2">perpetrator manipulates</a> a child using psychological pressure, tangible incentives (such as toys and money) and attention. </p>
<p>Once abuse occurs, the child’s silence may be maintained by the perpetrator suggesting the child will not be believed about the abuse, using threats and blame (“you will ruin the family if you tell anyone”) and distorting the abuse (such as suggesting it is part of a “game”). </p>
<p>Research suggests children are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213405002565">more likely to disclose</a> sexual abuse if they feel they have at least one trusted adult they can turn to, who will listen and believe them. </p>
<p>Male victims are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1461355716641973">less likely to disclose than female victims</a>. This may be due to it seeming <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178999000117">un-masculine to seek help</a>, being viewed as homosexual (if the perpetrator is male), and confusion about the experience due to the visible physiological responses they may have – such as an erection. </p>
<p>The severity of the abuse has also been linked to disclosure. Research has found the more severe the abuse, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1461355716641973">the more likely</a> the child is to disclose it. Researchers have suggested in these instances, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10538712.2014.950398?src=recsys">the child’s fear of being abused again may override any perceived negative consequences</a> associated with disclosing the abuse.</p>
<h2>What are some of the warning signs of sexual abuse?</h2>
<p>While children may not disclose sexual abuse, they may show <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/AG.DIBP.02.0033.001.0178_R.pdf">possible indicators</a>. This might include one or more of the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>significant changes in behaviour (such as reverting to soiling or bed wetting, a decline in school performance)</li>
<li>sexual behaviour or knowledge about sex that is beyond the child’s age</li>
<li>sudden fears or fear of being with a specific person </li>
<li>unexplained change in emotional state</li>
<li>becoming unusually secretive</li>
<li>pain in the genital or anal area. </li>
</ul>
<p>But be alert not alarmed – these are possible indicators, not tell-tale signs. Just because an older child wets the bed does not mean they are (or have been) the victim of sexual abuse. </p>
<p>While children show curiosity and a range of behaviours while growing up, the take home message is to be alert to changes in emotions and behaviour that seem out of the ordinary <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/AG.DIBP.02.0033.001.0178_R.pdf">for your child</a>. </p>
<h2>What do I do if I suspect my child is being sexually abused?</h2>
<p>If you are concerned about a child, <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/audio-transcript-responding-disclosures-child-abuse-and-neglect">you can ask questions such as</a>: “is anything worrying you?”, “are you OK?” and “is there anything you would like me to do to support you?”.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/publications/tabledpapers/52ca03cc-8751-4310-a4f0-d4071cfa2f96/upload_pdf/final_report_-_preface_and_executive_summary.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22publications/tabledpapers/52ca03cc-8751-4310-a4f0-d4071cfa2f96%22">child’s disclosure</a> of sexual abuse may be intentional or non-intentional, complete or incomplete, verbal or non-verbal. The child may draw a picture or use toys to re-enact the situation. Importantly, <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/responding-children-and-young-people-s-disclosures-abu">how you respond </a> to the child can impact on their recovery from such trauma. </p>
<p>If a child discloses to you that they are being sexually abused, give the child your undivided attention. Believing the child is critical to the child’s psychological well-being. Allow the child to use their own words and to take their time. Assure the child that <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/responding-children-and-young-people-s-disclosures-abu">they have done the right thing</a> by telling you. </p>
<p>Avoid quizzing the child as this may add unnecessary pressure, and could interfere with legal proceedings (which may be considered as directing the child’s disclosure). The important thing at this stage is to be a supportive listener and ensure the child is safe. </p>
<p>You can report the incident to police or child protection. These individuals are specifically trained professionals in questioning children. Even without a disclosure, you can report your concerns.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/programs-to-prevent-child-sexual-abuse-increase-knowledge-and-skills-but-do-they-reduce-risks-40371">Programs to prevent child sexual abuse increase knowledge and skills but do they reduce risks?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Parents must encourage open conversations with their children from a young age.Larissa Christensen, Lecturer in Criminology & Justice | Co-leader of the Sexual Violence and Research Prevention Unit (SVRPU), University of the Sunshine CoastNadine McKillop, Lecturer in Criminology & Justice | Co-leader of the Sexual Violence and Research Prevention Unit (SVRPU), University of the Sunshine CoastSusan Rayment-McHugh, Lecturer in Criminology and Justice & Co-Leader of the Sexual Violence Research and Prevention Unit, University of the Sunshine CoastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1127032019-03-06T19:12:10Z2019-03-06T19:12:10ZAll about juries: why do we actually need them and can they get it ‘wrong’?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261986/original/file-20190304-92292-qa02j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Juries force lawyers to talk in a language the lay person understands.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There has been <a href="https://www.afr.com/news/is-george-pell-innocent-20190227-h1bsub">some debate</a> over the recent conviction of George Pell, whose first trial ended with a hung jury, and the second a unanimous guilty verdict. People are questioning our justice system, the potential bias of the jury, and whether the initial hung verdict invalidates the second, unanimous one.</p>
<p>So, why should Australians trust 12 inexperienced people to sit in judgment on our most serious criminal trials, and get the verdict right?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-an-appeal-could-uphold-or-overturn-george-pells-conviction-112620">How an appeal could uphold or overturn George Pell's conviction</a>
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<h2>The importance of juries</h2>
<p>Australian democracy is underpinned by citizen participation. Citizens have two mandatory obligations – voting and jury service.</p>
<p>Lay person participation in the legal system is considered central to a healthy democracy. Lawyers play a major role in making the laws in parliament. Judges then apply the laws. If juries weren’t used, lawyers would have a monopoly over the law. Lawyers have their own specialised language in which they communicate among themselves. Including juries in the legal system forces lawyers to use <a href="https://jade.io/article/67240">common language</a>.</p>
<p>It’s the collective wisdom of 12 that makes a jury. Jurors bring to the trial 12 times more life experience than a judge. Psychological research has <a href="http://www.federationpress.com.au/bookstore/book.asp?isbn=9781862878945">established</a> that personal, subconscious biases can be identified and addressed in group discussion. </p>
<h2>How do juries work?</h2>
<p>Jurors are randomly selected from the Australian electoral roll. While each state or territory varies in its <a href="https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Victorian+jury+service+video&&view=detail&mid=D17B314053491C6A9E3ED17B314053491C6A9E3E&&FORM=VRDGAR">selection processes</a>, they share some common steps. Randomly selected citizens will receive a summons to attend court. Once the jurors arrive at the courthouse, they wait to be randomly chosen to go to a specific courtroom as part of a jury panel. </p>
<p>Once in the courtroom, a potential juror’s name (or allocated number) may be pulled out of a box. That potential juror can then either</p>
<ul>
<li><p>seek to be excused (because perhaps they know someone involved in the trial)</p></li>
<li><p>take a seat in the jury box, or</p></li>
<li><p>be removed from the jury by one of the parties to the case. This is known as the <a href="http://sites.thomsonreuters.com.au/journals/files/2010/10/j05_v034_CRIMLJ_pt03_horandelahunty_offprint.pdf">“peremptory challenge” process</a>. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>While it’s unusual for a prosecutor to “challenge” (deselect) a juror, some jurisdictions still allow for a defendant to “challenge” a juror based on the way they look and sometimes their name and occupation.</p>
<p>But a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Stack-Sway-Science-Jury-Consulting/dp/0813342414">substantial body of US research</a> has highlighted that, based on such limited information, the peremptory challenge process is no better than a guessing game, as it’s not possible for a defendant to know whether a citizen is going to be favourable to their defence just based on what they look like and their occupation. </p>
<p>Some Australian jurisdictions have reduced the number of challenges a defendant can use. The <a href="http://sites.thomsonreuters.com.au/journals/files/2010/10/j05_v034_CRIMLJ_pt03_horandelahunty_offprint.pdf">UK has done away with</a> this process altogether as it interferes with the important perception that juries are fairly chosen and therefore represent the community.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262286/original/file-20190305-48450-4p4l3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262286/original/file-20190305-48450-4p4l3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262286/original/file-20190305-48450-4p4l3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262286/original/file-20190305-48450-4p4l3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262286/original/file-20190305-48450-4p4l3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262286/original/file-20190305-48450-4p4l3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262286/original/file-20190305-48450-4p4l3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262286/original/file-20190305-48450-4p4l3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A defendant has no way of knowing how a jury will vote based only on their age or occupation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>Several Australian <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1462474516660697">studies confirm</a> our juries reflect a cross-section of our community in terms of cultural mix, age and gender balance. Juries are more likely to be better educated than the ordinary member of the public. This may, in part, be a result of counsels’ preference for educated jurors when exercising their peremptory challenges.</p>
<h2>What about outside influence?</h2>
<p>Jurors are forbidden from having any prior intimate knowledge of the trial, from privately communicating with anyone involved in the trial and from doing their own research. Maintaining the impartiality of jurors <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2341436">has become problematic</a> in the digital age. </p>
<p>Last century, courts used to successfully make orders to suppress potentially prejudicial information (such as prior convictions). But the far reach of the internet means such suppression orders no longer work as they can’t prevent publication on overseas websites or social media that is accessed locally.</p>
<p>Jurors are told by the judge not to look at any media reports on their case. But jurors on trials of high profile defendants may not be able to avoid the barrage of negative pre-trial publicity. US <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1022325019080">research suggests</a> jurors who are exposed to negative publicity are significantly more likely to judge the defendant guilty compared to subjects exposed to less pre-trial publicity. </p>
<p>New South Wales, Queensland, the ACT, South Australia and Western Australia <a href="https://criminalcpd.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Judge_alone_trials_in_NSW_peter_krisenthal.pdf">allow a defendant</a> to apply for trial by judge without a jury when prejudicial publicity is perceived to be significant. But there is <a href="https://theconversation.com/trial-by-judge-alone-may-not-be-the-answer-to-giving-high-profile-defendants-a-fair-hearing-94103">no research that confirms</a> a judge sitting alone without a jury is any better at resisting prejudicial publicity.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trial-by-judge-alone-may-not-be-the-answer-to-giving-high-profile-defendants-a-fair-hearing-94103">Trial by judge alone may not be the answer to giving high-profile defendants a fair hearing</a>
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<h2>How do they reach a verdict, and what is a hung jury?</h2>
<p>A typical jury trial will take fewer than ten days. The jurors hear the evidence, listen to the arguments of both parties and are provided with instructions on the relevant law by the judge. It is then time to deliberate and decide whether the defendant is “guilty” or “not guilty” of the offences charged. No written reasons for the verdicts are required.</p>
<p>The vast <a href="https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Documents/CJB/cjb36.pdf">majority of juries</a> are able to reach their verdict unanimously. In some types of cases, agreement of 11 out of 12 jurors is an acceptable verdict. A hung jury occurs when a jury deliberates for several hours or days, but are unable to agree on a verdict. In the usual course, the same case will be presented to a new jury. </p>
<p>A 2000 study indicated <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/NSWCrimJustB/2002/3.pdf">hung juries occurred</a> in a small number (3-8%) of Australian trials. This study identified that longer trials, and jury trials in more culturally diverse city courts, may be more likely to attract a hung jury. </p>
<p>An initial hung verdict does not invalidate a second, unanimous one – it more likely means some of the jurors from the first trial were also in agreement with the final verdict.</p>
<h2>Do juries get it ‘right’?</h2>
<p>Jury secrecy means we have no accurate way of knowing whether juries are getting it “right”. Australian jurors are forbidden from discussing their deliberations with anyone, including why they came to a decision. </p>
<p>A few <a href="http://www.britsoccrim.org/volume4/004.pdf">overseas studies</a> have asked trial judges what verdict they would have come to in jury trials. A comparison between what the judges said and the real jury verdict reveals a high level of agreement between the two.</p>
<p>While scientifically we cannot confirm that specific jury verdicts are “correct”, the jury system is necessary for Australia’s justice system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112703/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacqui Horan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A hung jury does not necessarily undermine a verdict in a subsequent trial – it more likely means some of the jurors from the first trial agreed with the final verdict.Jacqui Horan, Associate Professor, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1126202019-02-28T05:52:34Z2019-02-28T05:52:34ZHow an appeal could uphold or overturn George Pell’s conviction<p>A criminal trial often helps to provide finality for the accused, and closure for victims and society. But following this week’s news, George Pell’s barrister, Robert Richter QC, indicated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/27/cardinal-pell-will-go-straight-to-jail-as-bail-application-is-withdrawn">Pell maintains his innocence</a> and the legal team have already lodged an appeal. Richter said this would be pursued following Pell’s sentencing.</p>
<p>Pell’s conviction no longer appears final, but provisional. The Vatican initially said it <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/george-pell-to-retain-title-while-legal-process-continues-20190226-p510g1.html">would wait until the appeal</a> outcome before launching its own investigation that could lead to the Cardinal being defrocked. But it has now been <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-28/vatican-launches-investigation-into-george-pell-sex-abuse/10855782">confirmed the investigation</a> is starting regardless. </p>
<p>The Australian government, though, said it will only strip Pell of his Order of Australia honours <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/27/pm-to-strip-george-pell-of-order-of-australia-if-cardinal-loses-appeal">if he loses</a> the appeal. Meanwhile, the media and community are awash with confusion about the verdict that came in a retrial after the first trial concluded with a hung jury. It seems many people are holding their breath until the appeal is heard. </p>
<p>Defendants generally only get one appeal, though that one appeal may be taken further to the High Court. If Pell’s appeal is dismissed, he will require exceptional intervention from the Government, which is very rare.</p>
<p>So, what is an appeal, and what might it look like for someone with Pell’s profile and convictions?</p>
<h2>How long would an appeal take?</h2>
<p>The appeal process is fairly elaborate. It requires the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.vic.gov.au/law-and-practice/court-of-appeal">Court of Appeal’s</a> leave (or approval). If given, the defence and prosecution will make written submissions to the court. There is then a hearing, on the basis of which the court will make a decision, explain its reasoning, and make appropriate orders.</p>
<p>In this case, the court may dismiss the appeal, allow the appeal and order a retrial, or allow the appeal and order that Pell be acquitted. With a crowded list of cases, this entire procedure often takes more than a year. The Pell appeal may be relatively simple and decided more quickly.</p>
<p>Bail was revoked pending sentencing, anticipating a custodial sentence, and Pell will remain in custody until the appeal. If the appeal is upheld, the court may make a decision immediately following the hearing and publish its reasons subsequently. </p>
<h2>Evidence at the trial</h2>
<p>The trial did not involve a great deal of evidence. One of the alleged victims had made a report to police in 2015, claiming the assaults occurred after mass. The other alleged victim died of an accidental heroin overdose in 2014, apparently without reporting abuse.</p>
<p>Like many delayed sexual assault cases – almost 20 years in this case – there simply isn’t much evidence available. At Pell’s trial, there seemed to have been little more than the complainant’s allegations and Pell’s denials. Pell <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-26/george-pell-guilty-child-sexual-abuse-court-trial/10837564">did not testify</a>. Video of his denials to police were played to the jury. </p>
<p>The jury may have preferred to see how Pell coped with cross-examination. But he has the right to silence, and his failure to enter the witness box can’t be used against him. </p>
<p>A few other witnesses gave evidence about the masses delivered by Pell at St Patrick’s Cathedral, where the abuse allegedly took place. They supported the defence’s claims of the impossibility of the abuse taking place. Witnesses noted the then Archbishop Pell would have been accompanied at all times during the crowded events and would not have had the opportunity to commit the offences.</p>
<p>Other types of evidence often relied on by the prosecution in child sexual abuse trials did not feature in the Pell trial. The prosecution wasn’t able to present the complainant’s earlier reports of abuse. It seems he told no one prior to the police report. </p>
<p>The absence of earlier reports would not necessarily help the defence. Courts now recognise there are many reasons why victims of child sexual assault find it hard to talk. They feel confused and powerless, particularly where the offender is in a position of authority. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/triggering-past-trauma-how-to-take-care-of-yourself-if-youre-affected-by-the-pell-news-112608">Triggering past trauma: how to take care of yourself if you're affected by the Pell news</a>
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<p>Many child sexual assault prosecutions rely on evidence of other alleged victims to demonstrate the defendant’s propensity or tendency for child sexual abuse. Such evidence was potentially available in the Pell trial – other allegations had been made from his time in Ballarat in the 1970s. </p>
<p>However, this evidence was not admitted at trial. The two sets of allegations were kept entirely separate (and the trials split), perhaps to avoid the risk of jury prejudice. Pell’s Melbourne convictions (in the cathedral trial) were suppressed while the Ballarat charges (swimmers trial) were pending. </p>
<p>It was only when the prosecution dropped the Ballarat charges that the convictions on the Melbourne charges were made public.</p>
<h2>What would the defence appeal?</h2>
<p>Because only limited evidence was relied on at trial, relatively few legal issues were raised. This means the defence may find it difficult to identify any legal error as a ground for appeal. Richter has <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/courts-law/george-pell-returns-to-court-in-last-bid-for-freedom/news-story/831cd5e77aca7e71b1817eefe4f535ec">indicated the defence will claim</a> there were errors regarding the constitution of the jury and the defence not being permitted to use a graphic. </p>
<p>If errors are found, the Court of Appeal would still dismiss the appeal if the errors seem too slight to have affected the outcome. </p>
<p>The other defence argument on appeal could be that the conviction was unreasonable. The jury simply got the facts wrong. Here the defence may face obstacles. The Court of Appeal is unlikely to entertain claims the jury was prejudiced and blamed Pell for the Church’s inadequate response to other paedophile priests. </p>
<p>Appeal courts generally trust a properly directed jury will comply with its duties. Appeal courts are also generally wary of overriding jury verdicts, particularly where they rest upon witness credibility, as in this case. Inconsistencies and gaps in a complainant’s account may be attributed to the delay rather than fabrication. </p>
<p>However, the Court of Appeal may feel well placed to assess the defence argument of impossibility. And in this case, unusually, the court may be able to assess the complainant’s demeanour, since the witness testified over video link. </p>
<p>This may be one of those exceptional cases where the court is prepared to say the jury got it wrong. But the court may also hesitate to override the jury – the community’s representatives – in a case that has <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/courts-law/why-the-complainant-in-george-pells-trial-was-so-compelling/news-story/c2737320de6619d82f101973eb02e96f">opened such a rift</a> in Australian society. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-pell-the-catholic-church-must-undergo-genuine-reform-112511">After Pell, the Catholic Church must undergo genuine reform</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Hamer receives funding from Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He is affiliated with NSW Bar Association. </span></em></p>George Pell’s conviction has opened a rift in Australian society, with many people questioning the guilty verdict. Pell’s lawyer has said he will appeal. On what grounds could he do that?David Hamer, Professor of Evidence Law, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1126082019-02-27T19:16:54Z2019-02-27T19:16:54ZTriggering past trauma: how to take care of yourself if you’re affected by the Pell news<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261179/original/file-20190227-150708-1pnw8z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For many survivors, the news is a relief that has been a long time coming. But for others, this will be a case of too little, too late. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">From shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The conviction of Cardinal George Pell on childhood sexual abuse charges has dominated the media this week, rocked the Catholic Church and led to much public anger and confusion. </p>
<p>But the most important consideration at this time must be with the survivors of clerical abuse and their families.</p>
<p>While this conviction will provide a sense of justice and validation for many, the reactions of survivors and their families are likely to be complex and varied and may include anger, validation, sadness, loss and relief.</p>
<h2>Ongoing psychological trauma</h2>
<p>While not every child who has experienced abuse develops symptoms of mental illness, research shows childhood sexual abuse can have <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00198/full">profoundly damaging effects</a> on people’s long-term psychological and social functioning.</p>
<p>Common outcomes can include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), shame and anger, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/maltreatment-in-childhood-substantially-increases-the-risk-of-adult-depression-and-anxiety-in-prospective-cohort-studies-systematic-review-metaanalysis-and-proportional-attributable-fractions/1901150B6CE79593FC1E03621913BAE3">depression</a>, substance abuse and addiction, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/childhood-maltreatment-and-adult-suicidality-a-comprehensive-systematic-review-with-metaanalysis/043CB9ABD61C68B00C4F72EFE02B9A17">suicide</a> and impaired capacity for intimacy or relationships. </p>
<p>People’s self-identity, spirituality and capacity to trust others may be <a href="https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.researchgate.net/publication/23555564_The_Impact_of_the_Clergy_Abuse_Scandal_on_Parish_Communities/amp">particularly impaired</a> with clerical sexual abuse. </p>
<p>A key factor of psychological trauma among survivors of childhood abuse is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10538712.2015.1042180">not having their experience heard</a>, validated or recognised. This has been the unfortunate experience of many survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy.</p>
<p>Survivors and their families rightfully feel a sense of rage at the abusers, and at the institutions that protected them.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261182/original/file-20190227-150724-14e42hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261182/original/file-20190227-150724-14e42hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261182/original/file-20190227-150724-14e42hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261182/original/file-20190227-150724-14e42hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261182/original/file-20190227-150724-14e42hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261182/original/file-20190227-150724-14e42hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261182/original/file-20190227-150724-14e42hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People who have experienced sexual abuse during childhood are at high risk of mental health problems during later life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>The Catholic Church has only recently begun to recognise the extent and reality of clerical sexual abuse, most evident in their <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/vatican-summit-wake-up-call-for-countries-where-abuse-is-hidden-20190224-p50zwp.html">summit on clerical sexual abuse</a> at the Vatican in the recent weeks. </p>
<h2>How survivors might feel now</h2>
<p>At a time like this, survivors may feel less alone in being a survivor of clerical abuse, or child sexual abuse more generally. </p>
<p>They may also feel pride in the courage of other survivors in having come forward with their experiences. The news may even motivate some survivors to consider reporting their own abuse. </p>
<p>Some survivors will feel a sense of justice. But they may equally feel anger at the length of time this verdict has taken, and rage at the power structures in the Catholic Church that protected these abusers for so long. </p>
<p>For many families who have lost their children to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/childhood-maltreatment-and-adult-suicidality-a-comprehensive-systematic-review-with-metaanalysis/043CB9ABD61C68B00C4F72EFE02B9A17">suicide</a> or drug addiction, this result will not replace their pain or loss. </p>
<p>For survivors or families who have not had their abuse or the abuse of their loved ones recognised, or had their abusers convicted, this may stir up further feelings of rage and frustration.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/complex-trauma-how-abuse-and-neglect-can-have-life-long-effects-32329">Complex trauma: how abuse and neglect can have life-long effects</a>
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<h2>The media plays an important role</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25064691/">Previous research</a> of mass media exposure of large-scale trauma events has shown that intensive media exposure can increase PTSD symptoms in the short-term, particularly in those who have experienced previous trauma.</p>
<p>For many survivors who have ongoing PTSD, media reports may trigger reminders of their own abuse, leading to an escalation in PTSD symptoms including intrusive memories, nightmares and sleeping problems. </p>
<p>The media must carefully consider how they cover these events. While it’s important to widely report these convictions to break the silence that so often surrounds childhood sexual abuse and abuse by the clergy, the level of detail in which these events are reported may be triggering.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/do-trauma-victims-really-repress-memories-and-can-therapy-induce-false-memories-84998">Do trauma victims really repress memories and can therapy induce false memories?</a>
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<p>If you hear details about a childhood sexual assault, and you have experienced something similar, it can trigger memories of your own abuse — even if you haven’t thought of these things for a long time.</p>
<p>Any sexual contact with a child is abuse and violation and must be considered a serious crime, but reporting graphic accounts of these events is not necessary.</p>
<h2>How to get help</h2>
<p>If you are experiencing an escalation of distress, it’s important to seek positive and compassionate support from people you trust.</p>
<p>Try to avoid conflict or pressure, and be compassionate to yourself. Give yourself a break and accept where you are at in your recovery. </p>
<p>Try to keep balanced by eating well, exercising and allowing yourself time to rest. </p>
<p>Specialist trauma and childhood sexual abuse treatment services are available in the community. You may choose to discuss your needs with a GP who can refer you to appropriate services, such as a clinical psychologist.</p>
<p>It should also be recognised that many people in the Catholic and wider community will be feeling shocked, confused and disturbed by these events. Many people who have not been personally affected by child sexual abuse will still be feeling angry and betrayed. </p>
<p>If this is familiar, seek support from others and talk about your concerns so you’re able to process these events.</p>
<p><em>If this article has raised issues for you or you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.</em></p>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: the Lifeline phone number was previously incorrect. This has now been updated.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112608/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Felmingham receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.</span></em></p>The media frenzy surrounding George Pell’s conviction may force victims of child sexual abuse to relive their own trauma.Kim Felmingham, Chair of Clinical Psychology, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1125112019-02-26T11:07:48Z2019-02-26T11:07:48ZAfter Pell, the Catholic Church must undergo genuine reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260974/original/file-20190226-150724-7roz5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A recent summit held by Pope Francis on preventing sexual abuse in the church has been criticised for being short on action.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Giuseppe Lami</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In January, I met up with an old family friend. He’s a lifelong Catholic who goes to Mass every week. He had no idea Cardinal George Pell’s trial was already done. Not as tech-savvy as some, he hadn’t caught up with the recent, open reporting from several international Catholic and other news agencies about Pell’s fate.</p>
<p>We talked about Pell’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/moral-responsibility-a-drive-by-victim-of-pells-view-of-the-church-30613">poor public image</a>, damaged by <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/cardinal-pell-in-his-own-words-at-the-royal-commission-20160229-gn6j3m.html">his demeanour at the Royal Commission</a>, the seeming mean-heartedness of the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%2016%20-%20Findings%20Report%20-%20Melbourne%20Response.pdf">Melbourne Response</a>, his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/26/rise-fall-george-pell-timeline">accompanying of Gerald Ridsdale</a> into court.</p>
<p>Confronted with news about Pell’s guilt, my friend was shocked but had little sympathy for the cardinal. He then proceeded to tell me about the arrogance and aloofness of his local bishop. None of this, however, has led my friend to abandon his religious faith, despite enduring terrible revelations over more than two decades. </p>
<p>A lot will be written in the next while about what Pell’s conviction means, how Pope Francis will respond to this, and the wider crisis of sexual abuse. Already, a few steps have been taken to address the issue more systematically, the most recent of which is a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/world/europe/pope-vatican-sexual-abuse.html">meeting of senior clerics</a> in the Vatican last week. Church critics and victims of sexual assault have already argued this is not enough. </p>
<p>What about Australian Catholics? How will Pell’s conviction affect them? We’re often told how disheartened and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/opinion/the-virtues-of-catholic-anger.html">disillusioned the laity</a> has become. That Cardinal Pell, as Vatican treasurer, is the most senior Catholic official to be found guilty may not affect ordinary Australian Catholics more than earlier scandals. But his seniority at the Vatican will place Pope Francis under more pressure than ever before. This is global news, and it’s being covered as such. </p>
<p>The damage has already been done. For decades now, instances of sexual abuse perpetrated by priests have been reported widely, and priests have been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ex-cardinal-mccarrick-defrocked-by-vatican-for-sexual-abuse/2019/02/16/0aa365d4-2e2c-11e9-8ad3-9a5b113ecd3c_story.html?utm_term=.57da6c43bfea">defrocked</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/01/11/pennsylvania-priest-sentenced-sexual-abuse-case-up-years-prison/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6cd764704ff0">prosecuted</a>.</p>
<p>Thousands of Australian Catholics have stopped attending church in <a href="https://theconversation.com/census-2016-shows-australias-changing-religious-profile-with-more-nones-than-catholics-79837">recent decades</a>. Research conducted more than a <a href="https://www.catholic.org.au/organisation-documents/pastoral-research-office-1/197-disconnected-catholics-report-april-2007-1/file">decade ago</a> suggests sexual abuse scandals and disagreement with the Church’s moral teachings play a part in their decision to leave. </p>
<p>Among those who continue to identify as Catholic, the majority remain only marginally committed to their denomination. This is especially so among the present generation of Catholic teens. The <a href="http://sociology.cass.anu.edu.au/research/projects/australia-s-gen-zs">AGZ Survey</a>, a recent national survey of Australians aged 13 to 18, found less than a fifth of Catholic teens attend Mass regularly. Even fewer (13%) think religious faith is important to their daily life. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-australian-teens-have-complex-views-on-religion-and-spirituality-103233">New research shows Australian teens have complex views on religion and spirituality</a>
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<p>Furthermore, Australian Catholic teens express views that are at odds with official church teaching. For instance, 86% agree “secondary schools should allow students to openly express any sexual or gender orientation” and 85% support marriage equality. It’s hard to envisage how Pell’s fall from grace could do anything but further entrench the disconnection between young Catholics and the Catholic hierarchy. </p>
<p>Others, typically older Catholics, like my friend, have stayed more engaged. Seeking to effect reform and change from within, the church owes them a debt of gratitude for staying true. It may be harder for the younger generations. A decade ago, I watched a group of committed Catholic teens conduct a role-playing exercise on how to reach out to nominal Catholics. One of the things they discussed at length was how to deal with tough questions about “paedo [paedophile] priests”. Witnessing them negotiate this challenge, something not of their making, was sobering. </p>
<p>So far, much of the Catholic hierarchy’s response to the sexual abuse crisis (including cover-ups) has been reactive, responding to secular processes such as royal commissions and criminal trials. The recent summit called by Pope Francis has been widely criticised for being long on talk and low on change. The Vatican has long turned inward and protected its own. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-so-hard-to-hold-priests-accountable-for-sex-abuse-101947">Why it's so hard to hold priests accountable for sex abuse</a>
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<p>In the 1960s, the Catholic Church held a series of formal meetings, called <a href="http://vatican2voice.org/">Vatican II</a>, that modernised one of the west’s oldest and most powerful institutions. This took place over three years and was characterised by acknowledgement that radical change from within was required.</p>
<p>It’s time for an equally searching investigation, one that produces genuine reform. It demands changes to Canon law, doctrine and practice, characterised by an accountability to and understanding of the world outside the church.</p>
<p>Ask rank-and-file Catholics what this would entail, especially young ones, and you hear about a desire for priests being allowed to marry, modern attitudes to contraception, the ordination of women and greater empowerment of the laity. Only then can the church and its people properly move forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112511/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>
Andrew Singleton receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the projects: ARC DISCOVERY PROJECT: DP160102367. Australian Young People's Perspectives on Religions and Non-religious Worldviews. CIs: A/Prof Mary Louise Rasmussen (ANU) A/Prof Andrew Singleton (Deakin), Dr Anna Halafoff (Deakin), Prof Gary Bouma (Monash). ARC DISCOVERY PROJECT: DP170100563. Social Engagement in Spiritualism CIs: A/Prof Matt Tomlinson (ANU), A/Prof Andrew Singleton (Deakin).
. </span></em></p>Australian Catholics are drifting from the church, and research shows sexual abuse scandals are a main reason why.Andrew Singleton, Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Research, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/936512018-03-22T03:09:07Z2018-03-22T03:09:07ZWhy the public isn’t allowed to know specifics about the George Pell case<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211114/original/file-20180320-31614-7icnee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George Pell emerges from court during his committal hearing on historical sexual offences.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Stefan Postles</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many Australians are left perplexed when media coverage of high-profile criminal cases is suddenly suspended or abbreviated “for legal reasons”. The <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/cardinal-george-pell-was-never-alone-during-masses-priest-says/9567244">current committal hearing</a> of Catholic Cardinal George Pell on historical sexual offences engages the principle of “open justice” and some of its most important exceptions.</p>
<p>Coverage of such matters is restricted at various stages of criminal trials. This is because of the relative priority the courts and lawmakers have assigned to the principles of open justice and the administration of justice, and the competing rights of free expression, privacy and a fair trial.</p>
<h2>What is ‘open justice’?</h2>
<p>The principle of <a href="https://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/open-justice">open justice</a> dates back to at least the 12th century; it involves people’s access to observe the goings-on in a courtroom. It was later extended to the media as “the eyes and ears of the public” in court.</p>
<p>Australia’s High Court has ruled that open justice is of constitutional significance, and nothing should be done to discourage the media from publishing fair and accurate reports of what occurs in the courtroom. But, it added, the principle is <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/HCA/2011/4.html">not absolute</a>.</p>
<p>An open court involving fair and accurate media coverage is thus the default position for Australian courts. The common law recognises only a limited number of well-defined exceptions. Lawmakers have developed hundreds more.</p>
<p>One important common law limitation is in the area of <a href="https://www.vgso.vic.gov.au/content/refresher-sub-judice-contempt-publish-or-not-publish"><em>sub judice</em> contempt</a>. This puts a halt to prejudicial coverage of a criminal matter from the moment an accused is arrested or charged right through until the appeal period has expired.</p>
<p>Important restrictions here are upon any suggestion an accused might be guilty (or innocent), coverage of contested evidence that may or may not be put to a jury, coverage of earlier proceedings (such as preliminary hearings and royal commissions), interviews with key witnesses, details of any confessions, the criminal history or character evidence about the accused, and visual identification of the accused if that might be at issue in a trial.</p>
<h2>Specific restrictions on court cases</h2>
<p>Legislation in all Australian jurisdictions has placed a litany of further restrictions on attendance at – and reporting on – a host of situations. These include family law cases, juvenile cases, mental health proceedings and – most relevant here – <a href="https://journlaw.com/2014/08/13/sexual-offences-publishing-restrictions-in-australia-a-guide-for-journalists/">sexual matters</a>.</p>
<p>The statutory gags forcing closure of courts, banning of coverage, and de-identifying of parties vary in important ways. This is because lawmakers have placed a differing emphasis on the competing rights and interests.</p>
<p>For example, if Pell was facing his committal hearing in South Australia or Queensland, he could not even be identified until after he is committed to trial – if that eventuates.</p>
<p>Lawmakers in those states have decided the reputational damage attached to an allegation of a serious sexual offence is so damaging that an accused person should not be identifiable until it is proven there is at least a prima facie case to answer at trial.</p>
<p>In Victoria, where Pell’s committal hearing is taking place, the accused can usually be identified. However, other restrictions apply either under legislation or in suppression orders issued by a presiding judge or magistrate.</p>
<p>In no Australian jurisdiction can the victim (known as the “complainant”) be identified – directly or indirectly – in sexual matters. But the laws vary on whether they might be identified after proceedings with their permission or the court’s permission.</p>
<p>This means complainants who might have been identified in earlier coverage or proceedings are suddenly rendered anonymous from the moment the matter is “pending” – after the arrest or charging of a suspect.</p>
<p>Special protections apply to complainants during committal hearings involving sexual offences. This includes closing the court while victims give evidence.</p>
<p>A complex array of policy issues inform these kinds of restrictions. These include the perceived vulnerability of victims, their privacy, and the important likelihood that victims might not come forward to bring charges of this nature if they sense they might be in the media spotlight.</p>
<h2>Do we need a rethink in the digital age?</h2>
<p>Victoria has had more than its share of journalists and others falling foul of court restrictions through defiance or ignorance of the law. </p>
<p>Former journalist and blogger (now senator) Derryn Hinch has twice been jailed as a result of contemptuous coverage – <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1987/56.html">once in 1987</a> for broadcasting prejudicial talkback radio programs about a former priest facing child molestation charges, and <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSC/2013/520.html">again in 2013</a> after refusing to pay a A$100,000 fine for blogging the prior convictions of Jill Meagher’s accused killer in breach of a suppression order.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/you-wouldnt-read-about-it-adrian-bayley-rape-trials-expose-flaw-in-suppression-orders-39375">You wouldn't read about it: Adrian Bayley rape trials expose flaw in suppression orders</a>
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<p>Two ABC journalists were convicted of identifying a rape victim in radio broadcasts in 2007. They and their employer were <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VCC/2007/281.html">later ordered</a> to pay her $234,190 in damages in a civil suit for the invasion of her privacy among other injuries.</p>
<p>In 2017, Yahoo!7 <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VSC/2017/45.html">was fined $300,000</a> for contempt after it published social media material about a victim and the accused. The publication forced the jury in a murder trial to be discharged.</p>
<p>Many of the restrictions on coverage are problematic in the digital era. Mainstream media are more likely to be charged with <em>sub judice</em> contempt than social media users because the large audiences of mainstream media mean their prejudicial coverage is more likely to reach potential jurors.</p>
<p>The cross-jurisdictional nature of digital publishing also renders journalists and social media users subject to the tangled web of restrictions on criminal justice reporting when covering a criminal matter from another state.</p>
<p>Court orders to take down earlier reportage on websites are typically futile, because online dissemination is so widespread. So, the bizarre situation exists where the prior character evidence and coverage of earlier proceedings still sits online for anyone to access with a simple search of an accused’s name.</p>
<p>This is problematic if a rogue juror decides to become a cyber Sherlock Holmes. It means we require <a href="https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/handle/10072/59350">better training of jurors</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trial-by-social-media-why-we-need-to-properly-educate-juries-13547">Trial by social media: why we need to properly educate juries</a>
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<p>Suppression orders are also a problem because these are typically circulated only to mainstream media in the trial’s immediate vicinity. This leaves others <a href="https://theconversation.com/you-wouldnt-read-about-it-adrian-bayley-rape-trials-expose-flaw-in-suppression-orders-39375">blissfully unaware of the orders</a>. Some orders – known as “super injunctions” – are so secret that even publication of the fact they have been issued is prohibited.</p>
<p>Victoria’s <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/num_act/oca201358o2013203/">Open Courts Act</a> was meant to reduce the number of suppression orders and inject an element of consistency to the issuing of these. However, it <a href="https://journlaw.com/2017/03/07/is-an-open-justice-advocate-the-solution-to-overly-restrictive-suppression-orders-mlgriff/">has been problematic</a>.</p>
<p>At least the media are better assisted in the modern era. Court information officers help explain the various restrictions and keep the media well briefed in high-profile trials – as they <a href="https://www.magistratescourt.vic.gov.au/about-us/media-information/committal-matter-christopher-reed-v-george-pell">have done in Victoria</a> during Pell’s committal hearing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93651/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Pearson has received funding from the Australian Government, the Victorian Government, Mindframe Australia and the Rule of Law Institute for research projects related to this topic. He has provided media law training on a consultancy basis to various media organisations over the past 23 years.</span></em></p>George Pell’s current committal hearing engages the principle of ‘open justice’ and some of its most important exceptions.Mark Pearson, Professor of Journalism and Social Media, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/784622017-06-06T19:22:14Z2017-06-06T19:22:14ZVale Anthony Foster – a man of deep courage and quiet determination<p><em>Kathleen McPhillips first met Anthony and Chrissie Foster at one of the first child sex abuse royal commission hearings in 2014. She was attending in her capacity as a social scientist undertaking field work for her research project The Catholic Church at the Royal Commission. Over the years she had many conversations with the Fosters, sharing publications with them and listening to their analysis of the various public hearings and the response by the Catholic Church.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Today in Melbourne <a href="http://www.vic.gov.au/news/state-funeral-service-for-mr-anthony-foster.html">a state funeral</a> is being held for Anthony Foster, who died unexpectedly 12 days ago. His death sent <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-40081172">shockwaves around the country and indeed the world</a>. Many people who had known and relied on Anthony’s wise counsel and hard work felt devastated and saddened.</p>
<p>Anthony and his wife Chrissie have been in the spotlight in relation to child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church for more than 20 years. </p>
<p>Their story is a tragic one. The parents sent their three girls to the local Catholic primary school in Oakleigh, a suburb in Melbourne. They had no idea that the parish priest, Kevin O’Donnell, was <a href="http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/62">a serial sexual abuser</a> of children for 50 years between 1942 and 1992. </p>
<p>When Emma and Katie Foster were only five and six years old they were sexually assaulted by O’Donnell over several years, with catastrophic impacts. After years of struggling with the impact of the sexual abuse, Emma died following a drug overdose at 26, and her sister Katie suffered serious injuries in a car accident. She is now disabled and requires round-the-clock care. </p>
<p>When the girls were exposed to this abuse, <a href="http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/getattachment/232af799-8292-4709-a392-5d8bc7d3e77c/Report-of-Case-Study-No-16">church authorities already knew</a> that O’Donnell was an offender – indeed, had known since 1958 – but they failed to alert parents and teachers, and remove him from contact with children. They also failed to remove him from the priesthood – even while in jail. </p>
<p>From the mid-1990s, the Fosters began their long struggle for justice for their daughters. Their fight took them from local church authorities to the most senior church leaders in Australia and Rome. </p>
<p>When they found inadequate answers and closed doors, they kept pushing. They sought redress for their family first through <a href="http://www.tjhcouncil.org.au/support/melbourne-response.aspx">the Melbourne Response</a>, the protocol set up to investigate complaints of child sexual abuse. They rejected the church offer and the requirement to sign a non-disclosure statement, and in 2002 took the church to court where, after a ten-year fight, <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/abuse-victim-won-450000-payout-20130430-2iqap.html">they eventually won</a>.</p>
<p>Many people would have been overwhelmed by the consequences of this tragedy and rightly retired in grief. Instead, Anthony and Chrissie Foster <a href="https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/anthony-foster-a-colossus-between-sex-abuse-victims-and-the-church,10346">stepped up to a national platform</a> to challenge the ways in which church authorities managed complaints of child sexual abuse. </p>
<p>They became role models for other survivors and their families, where victims were commonly dealing with the stigma associated with disclosing sexual abuse and further trauma from an inadequate response by the church. They were absolutely steadfast in their commitment to getting to the truth of what happened, and they confronted church and civil authorities with forthright honesty and integrity. </p>
<p>Anthony frequently spoke to the media and was always articulate, eloquent and measured. He could see through the rhetoric and spin of church platitudes and was never intimidated by bureaucrats or bishops. He famously took on Cardinal George Pell on many occasions, and together with Chrissie <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-27/parents-of-abused-girls-in-rome-for-pell-testimony/7204718">travelled to Rome</a> in February 2016 to hear Pell give evidence before the royal commission.</p>
<p>In 2010, Chrissie Foster, together with journalist Paul Kennedy, <a href="http://cathykezelman.com/hell-on-the-way-to-heaven/338/">wrote Hell on the Way to Heaven</a>, which documented their struggle with church authorities for information and justice. </p>
<p>It was this book, together with strong lobbying from survivors and their supporters, that convinced the Victorian parliament to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-30/we-must-honour-anthony-fosters-legacy/8568602">open an independent inquiry</a> into clerical child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The report and recommendations are now well known and are contributing to making schools safer places for children. </p>
<p>Anthony and Chrissie Foster came to national attention for all the wrong reasons, but along the way their work has been instrumental in transforming the way in which state governments, NGOs and the Catholic Church dealt with child sexual abuse. Without their determination and hard work it is likely that the Victoria parliamentary inquiry and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse would not have happened as soon as they did. </p>
<p>Anthony’s keen eye for detail and his clarity of the evil perpetrated in the systematic institutional abuse of children was often the object of media analysis. Thankfully, we have a record of his extended interviews (for example <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/08/11/4062942.htm">see Four Corners</a>). </p>
<p>Chrissie Foster was the first person through the doors of the courtroom when the royal commission opened in Melbourne on April 3, 2013, and together they attended many of the hearings and roundtables, such was their belief in the importance of the royal commission. They <a href="http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/case-study/791fd480-ba30-45bc-ba79-cbad85f27023/case-study-16,-august-2014,-melbourne">gave evidence</a> of their own terrible experience at the royal commission hearing in Melbourne in August 2014. </p>
<p>They were wonderful models of grace and dignity. Anthony was a man of quiet determination, deep intelligence and astute insight. He had enormous courage in confronting church authorities and calling attention to the travesty that was unfolding in church responses to child sexual abuse.</p>
<p>Because of his diligence and resolve, children are safer and survivors have gained justice. Despite the tragedy of their personal lives, he will be remembered for the huge amount of good he has done. Together with Chrissie, he has left a legacy for forcing the church to become accountable and a safer institution for children.</p>
<p>He brought hope and comfort to so many people, particularly survivors, in their own struggles to seek answers and find justice. Anthony Foster will be deeply missed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen McPhillips does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anthony Foster’s attention to detail and his clarity about the evil perpetrated in the systematic institutional abuse of children was often the object of media analysis.Kathleen McPhillips, Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/511842016-03-03T05:18:43Z2016-03-03T05:18:43ZFor whom the Pell tolls: what did we learn from George Pell’s royal commission appearance?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113644/original/image-20160302-10389-fysosl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George Pell gave four days of evidence to the royal commission via video link from Rome.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cardinal George Pell returned this week to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in relation to the <a href="http://childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/case-study/860eabc6-e0fc-453a-b9d4-51a89852fede/case-study-28,-february-2016,-ballarat">Ballarat and Melbourne case studies</a>. </p>
<p>Giving evidence over the course of four days, via video link from Rome, Pell modified slightly his previous public positions. But, fundamentally, he insisted that he knew little, and fulfilled his duties in relation to what he did know. </p>
<p>On several occasions, counsel assisting the royal commission suggested that Pell’s claims to be ignorant of child sex offending in various contexts was implausible. If everyone around Pell knew, how could he not have known?</p>
<h2>The forms of denial</h2>
<p>One of the most important lessons we have learnt from Pell’s appearance is the church was – and still is – in a state of denial. It is in denial about the harms of sexual abuse, and about the adequacy of its responses to allegations of abuse.</p>
<p>Being in denial is a curious thing. In denying something, you implicitly admit that there is something to deny. </p>
<p>The late sociologist Stanley Cohen examined this phenomenon in his <a href="http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745623924">last book</a>. Cohen argued that we have myriad techniques of keeping disturbing knowledge at bay: there are many ways of not knowing.</p>
<p>The simplest is literal denial. We saw plenty of this from Pell. He repeatedly said that he never knew of allegations of abuse; that he never heard rumours of Gerald Ridsdale’s offending when they shared a presbytery in Ballarat. </p>
<p>Even less plausibly, Pell claimed that advisors and colleagues deliberately kept information from him. As journalist David Marr <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/02/was-george-pell-now-scourge-of-the-vatican-once-hoodwinked-by-all-around-him">wrote</a>, Pell was apparently:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… hoodwinked decades ago by an archbishop, a bishop, his colleagues and even the Catholic Education Office.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A more nuanced way of avoiding knowledge is interpretive denial. This involves keeping knowledge at a distance by accepting a fact but giving it a different interpretation. </p>
<p>So, when questioned about his time as a consultor in Ballarat, Pell insisted that paedophilia was never mentioned in discussions of why priests were being moved unexpectedly between parishes. Many of his fellow consultors knew that child sex offences had been committed, and “homosexuality” may have been mentioned as the reason for the priest’s removal. </p>
<p>But Pell, incuriously, chose not to see the possibility that the homosexual conduct may have been intergenerational. He asked no questions, and admitted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was a sad story and of not much interest to me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The most disturbing form of denial on display in Pell’s four days of testimony, however, is implicatory denial: a refusal to see the legal and moral implications that follow from information. </p>
<p>Pell went to great lengths to explain that, in almost all cases, he did everything that was appropriate to his role at the time. He was repeatedly challenged by counsel assisting and the commissioner, Peter McClellan, that a priest might have a moral responsibility that exceeds the literal duties assigned to their role. But Pell rejected this proposition:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He has a moral responsibility to do … what is appropriate to his position.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pell claimed that in his positions as priest, consultor and auxilliary bishop, he did all that was appropriate to his position. He simply reported any allegations that he thought were plausible to his superiors. That they neglected their duties was not his responsibility.</p>
<h2>What chance of change?</h2>
<p>Pell may be right that that the lion’s share of blame for the gross miscarriages of justice being examined by the royal commission should be laid at the feet of his dead and dying former superiors. But what is also emerging is graphic evidence of the dysfunctionality of Catholic governance on this issue.</p>
<p>As my research <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13200968.2015.1077552#.Vte9-EWjNJM">has shown</a>, Roman Catholic canon law – ironically – has the oldest and most clearly articulated legal provisions for the prosecution of sexual offences against children. Yet the enactment of these provisions is entirely in the diocesan bishop’s hands. </p>
<p>A diocesan bishop has a fundamental conflict of interest in the discipline of clergy in their diocese. He is simultaneously responsible for the pastoral care of the priest and for their punishment. This contravenes a <a href="http://www.legal-glossary.org/nemo-judex-in-sua-causa/">basic principle</a> of natural law – that no-one should be a judge in their own case.</p>
<p>If church authorities had believed the children’s allegations, investigated them and kept records of those investigations, it is possible that offending priests could have been removed and disciplined. Instead, allegations were regarded as implausible, offending priests’ denials were believed, and records were destroyed. </p>
<p>And where allegations were too stark to be denied, the gravity of the offending was denied, and priests were sent for “counselling” and relocated.</p>
<p>It is evident that Archbishop Frank Little and Bishop Ronald Mulkearns neglected their responsibilities and even contravened canon law in their dealings with sexually offending clergy. But Pell’s claims to have fulfilled his moral responsibility in the face of this dysfunction ring hollow.</p>
<p>Pell chose to keep knowledge of his fellow priests’ offending at bay and allowed his superiors’ neglect and malpractice to continue. After the exposure of this legal dysfunction and moral cowardice, we can expect the royal commission’s recommendations will include changes to Roman Catholic governance and canon law.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51184/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy W. Jones has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Research Theology Foundation Incorporated, and has worked as a consultant with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.</span></em></p>One of the most important lessons we have learnt from George Pell’s royal commission appearance is the Catholic Church was – and still is – in a state of denial over child sexual abuse.Timothy W. Jones, Senior Lecturer in History, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/555612016-03-01T00:57:40Z2016-03-01T00:57:40ZTo believe or not to believe: child witnesses and the sex abuse royal commission<p>Testifying from Rome on Monday, Cardinal George Pell told the royal commission into child sex abuse that the Catholic Church had a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/29/george-pell-church-made-enormous-mistakes-in-dealing-with-paedophile-priests">“predisposition not to believe”</a> children who made complaints about abuse. </p>
<p>You would be forgiven for thinking such attitudes towards children were common “back then”. Maybe they were. You might think that children were only ever seen, not heard “in those days”. Not so.</p>
<p>Throughout the 20th century offences against children were being prosecuted in courts across Australia – often. Guilty verdicts were handed down – often. Perpetrators went to prison – often.</p>
<p>Countless cases clearly show that children were believed in police stations and courtrooms. Juries believed them. Judges believed them. Even defendants are known to have admitted that children were <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111542000">telling the truth</a>. But to believe or not to believe a child’s allegation of abuse is an issue that has challenged legal systems from time immemorial.</p>
<h2>The historical context</h2>
<p>From the mid-18th century until the late 20th century, before a child could give evidence in court they first had to demonstrate that they understood the nature of an oath. This involved demonstrating their belief in God and understanding that they would go to hell if they lied.</p>
<p>Many children failed this test. The absurdity of asking young children such a question is <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article40683129">demonstrated by the response</a> of a four-year-old boy giving evidence in Melbourne in 1929. Asked if he knew “who watches over us and knows everything we do?”, the boy rather smartly replied:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The police. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>His evidence was rejected.</p>
<p>But judges and courts could also be quite creative in how they approached this issue – far more so than they can be now. When it mattered – to them – judges often found creative ways for children to satisfy the oath question. Presiding over the trial of a known sex offender and not satisfied the eight-year-old witness understood the nature of an oath, a judge in Maryborough in 1910 <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148736798">adjourned the matter</a> so that the boy could be:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… instructed as to the nature of the difference between truth and falsehood.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In response to a child witness saying he would go to hell if he lied, Judge Foster in Victoria once <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91071921">famously remarked</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Don’t you believe it, sonny. There is no hell. It is a shame that children should be taught such a thing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not surprisingly, the Catholic Freeman’s Journal took great exception to Foster’s remarks. It <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146410875">noted</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every Catholic is … taught that perjury by a false oath is a mortal sin. And every Catholic is also taught that those who die in a state of mortal sin go to hell.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even where children could not satisfactorily demonstrate an understanding of the oath, they were often permitted to give unsworn evidence. This, in turn, presented another hurdle for the child. The law differed from state to state, but generally a child’s unsworn testimony needed to be corroborated by the sworn testimony of an independent witness. </p>
<p>This was problematic for offences involving the abuse of children. Either the child victim was alone or the other children present could not give sworn testimony. Such cases were frequently dismissed for want of corroborative evidence.</p>
<h2>Attempts at reform</h2>
<p>The legal system often presented a significant barrier to the satisfactory resolution of offences against children. It still does. The chair of the royal commission, Peter McClellan, has previously spoken of the problems posed by the justice system’s <a href="http://childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/media-centre/speeches/14th-australasian-conference-on-child-abuse-and-ne">historical attitudes towards children</a>.</p>
<p>But it was never the case that such offences could not be prosecuted. In the right circumstances they could be, and they were.</p>
<p>The Australian Law Reform Commission has <a href="http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/14-childrens-evidence/children-reliable-witnesses">previously noted</a> that the requirement to swear an oath discriminated against children who did not have religious beliefs or even knowledge of religion.</p>
<p>Presumably, then, the child residents of the religious institutions investigated during the royal commission would have been some of the most competent of witnesses. They would have had the message about God and hell <a href="http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/case-study/860eabc6-e0fc-453a-b9d4-51a89852fede/case-study-28,-may-and-november-2015">literally beaten</a> into them. </p>
<p>They would have been in a position to give sworn evidence. And if they couldn’t, it would have been likely that other children who had witnessed the abuse could give sworn evidence corroborating the unsworn testimony.</p>
<p>Truth-telling is a base premise of Catholic religious instruction. Therefore, child witnesses who emerged from these institutions – through fear alone of the fiery depths of hell – had another dimension of witness reliability. In the right circumstances, with adult police and adult judges and adult juries ready to believe them, the impediments to these children being heard were significantly reduced.</p>
<p>That children from religious institutions were not listened to or protected, in circumstances where the law may well have done so, speaks volumes about the Catholic Church. While Pell claims these “muck-ups” were due to the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/29/george-pell-church-made-enormous-mistakes-in-dealing-with-paedophile-priests">personal failings</a> of a few members of the church, the history of children in Australian courts suggests otherwise. </p>
<p>All the structures were in place, bolstered by Catholic dogma, to hear the testimonies of these children within the courts. That they were not heard points to an organisational structure that consistently and repugnantly failed the most vulnerable of its members.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55561/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn Blewer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>George Pell told the royal commission into child sex abuse the Catholic Church was predisposed not to believe children’s complaints. But, when abuse was reported, police and the courts believed them.Robyn Blewer, PhD Candidate, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/550252016-02-19T03:17:45Z2016-02-19T03:17:45ZPolitics podcast: Francis Sullivan on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church<p>Soaring community outrage over the issue of child sexual abuse was this week fanned by a Tim Minchin song calling for Cardinal George Pell to return home to Australia to give evidence to the royal commission.</p>
<p>Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, tells Michelle Grattan that his organisation supports the crowd-funded push to fly victims to Rome and describes Pell as a lightning rod for discontent.</p>
<p>“It’s a build-up of the angst, the anger, the hurt surrounding the whole issue of child sex abuse and the history of the Catholic Church, which has been a history of cover-up and a history of distrust,” he says.</p>
<p>“In such a short time it’s raised so much money and it shows you the intense concentration in the community not only about this specific issue, but about the broader issue of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.”</p>
<p>Sullivan also criticises the Turnbull government for appearing to wash its hands of a national redress scheme for victims, instead placing it in the hands of the states, territories and major institutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Soaring community outrage over the issue of child sexual abuse was this week fanned by a Tim Minchin song calling for Cardinal George Pell to return home to Australia to give evidence to the royal commission.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549452016-02-18T00:09:05Z2016-02-18T00:09:05ZTim Minchin’s Come Home Cardinal Pell is a pitch-perfect protest song<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111869/original/image-20160217-1240-h9afbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tim Minchin’s song-craft is direct yet sophisticated, and artfully constructed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tim Minchin’s latest musical offering, Come Home (Cardinal Pell), released online on February 16, is provoking <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/17/when-i-first-heard-tim-minchins-song-about-cardinal-pell-i-laughed-then-i-started-crying">strong reactions</a> around Australia (as well as the Vatican) because of its blunt and direct message to Cardinal George Pell.</p>
<p>The song addresses calls for <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/02/18/pell-responds-calls-come-home">Cardinal Pell to return to Australia</a> to give evidence at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/royal-commission-into-child-sex-abuse">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a>. The inquiry has accepted a report from Pell’s doctors that says <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-05/cardinal-george-pell-too-ill-to-child-sex-abuse-inquiry-lawyers/7140584">the cardinal is too ill to fly to Australia</a> to give personal testimony. </p>
<p>Cardinal Pell’s office released a statement earlier today stating that Minchin has given “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-18/cardinal-geroge-pell-royal-commission-abuse-tim-minchin-song/7179112">incorrect information</a>” about his participation in the royal commission, saying,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Cardinal is anxious to present the facts without further delays.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Essentially, Come Home Cardinal Pell is a protest song, a genre with a long and proud history of motivating social change. Where delivery by prose would merely constitute fighting words, the garb of song gives the message malleability. In this case, the blunt-force attack becomes humorous, playful and spiteful all at once.</p>
<p>To give just a sense of the lyrics, Minchin sings:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I know what it’s like when you feel a little shitty <br>
You just want to curl up and have an itty bitty doona day <br>
But a lot of people here really miss you Georgie<br>
They really think you oughta just get on a plane<br>
(Just get on a plane)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether or not you agree with the sentiments expressed throughout the song, it’s worth looking at it from a purely mechanical point of view. There are reasons it “works” that have nothing to do with the scathing critique of Cardinal Pell – a political issue that this article is not trying to address.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EtHOmforqxk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tim Minchin performing Come Home (Cardinal Pell).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The mechanics of musical sarcasm</h2>
<p>Analysing music is another way of knowing music and, therefore, another potential way of loving it. While engaging in analysis is in no sense a pre-condition for enjoying music, it can be a fascinating process to think about why and how a particular song works.</p>
<p>Minchin’s overall approach is compelling. He underscores sarcastic and bitter lyrics with a sweet, almost romantic musical language. There’s an ironic relationship between text and sound; the acerbic nature of the lyrics is offset by a beautiful, even poignant use of musical elements.</p>
<p>How does he pull off this sarcastic-yet-beautiful trick? Mainly through the sophisticated use of harmony and melody to throw the meaning of the lyrics into emotional relief.</p>
<p>The familiar and standard chord progressions relate in the first instance to piano-based pop (but also to classical music). In an era dominated by increasingly electronic forms of sound production, the simplicity and emotional directness of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxEPV4kolz0">Piano Man</a> model is refreshing.</p>
<p>Minchin foreshadows the crux of the musical argument by encapsulating its most important element at the very beginning: the chord progression in the opening piano solo. That solo piano progression comes back in a magnified form during the emotionally charged choruses.</p>
<p>Something very small but very important happens here. The very first piano figuration stretches upwards, almost sweetly, only to fall some distance to a pair of pitches that turn out not to “belong” to the darkly tinged second harmony, but then resolve upwards into that darker harmony.</p>
<p>In other words, the very first two chords establish a sense of light and dark.</p>
<p>This tonal ambiguity is what makes <a href="https://theconversation.com/questions-to-ask-your-teenager-about-music-and-mental-health-54824">love songs so attractive to insecure teenagers</a> – the music reflects hope and fear at the same time.</p>
<p>Indeed, Minchin makes the opening sound like a pensive love song. Here begins the sarcasm:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a lovely day in Ballarat <br>
I’m kicking back, thinking of you</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And how else should Minchin begin his attack? Words cut more when delivered through a smile, or in this case when embroidered into a relatively saccharine harmonic language.</p>
<h2>Overtones and undercurrents</h2>
<p>Throughout the first verse you’ll notice the chords don’t change all that much. Harmonically, he treads water, getting through text, keeping harmonic interest on the back-burner.</p>
<p>The verse ends with the almost endearingly gentle suggestion that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a lot of people here really miss ya, Georgie – They really think you oughta just get on a plane … just get on a plane!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is all in aid of preparing for a gut-punching chorus. After the suspended feel of the verse, we finally get the chord progression from the beginning again, referring strongly to the “home” key (called the tonic) while literally suggesting the cardinal come home:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Come home Cardinal Pell, I know you’re not feeling well <br>
And being crook ain’t much fun <br>
Even so, we think you should <br>
Come home, Cardinal Pell <br>
Come down from your citadel, it’s just the right thing to do <br>
They have a right to know what you knew.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EtHOmforqxk?wmode=transparent&start=54" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Click here to listen to the chorus, beginning at 0:54.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the bass guitar and piano had been providing longer and more sustained support through the verse, they adopt a crisper sound in the chorus for contrast. The piano vamp especially gives it energy.</p>
<p>Melodically, Minchin combines his main point (“Come home, Cardinal Pell”), with the most interesting part of the song vocally. There are two features – he substantially widens the range of notes being used, and uses strategically placed “wrong” notes.</p>
<p>By widening the range, there are more melodic leaps for him to manage. Leaping to or from a note creates more expression (think <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fahr069-fzE">Somewhere, Over the Rainbow)</a>. I’m not sure there’s a simple reason for that, but you can hear it working here.</p>
<p>There’s a big downward leap after “Come home”; isolating those two words gives them a slightly emphatic (nagging?) quality. Then the line ascends again on its way to “Pell”. And it’s this note in the chorus that probably defines the whole song.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111861/original/image-20160217-19260-1wy6f7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cardinal George Pell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Munoz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The harmonic and melodic change on “Pell” shifts the musical colour from light to dark. Minchin doubles the emotional impact of that darker turn by having the vocal melody land on a note that doesn’t match the underlying harmony, just like the opening piano solo (here, on “Pell”). This, of course, is called dissonance in musical terms.</p>
<p>Dissonances usually get resolved in harmonically traditional music, often involving naught but a small adjustment by one melodic step. It’s always great if dissonances don’t resolve of course, because then the listener’s attention is stretched further in time.</p>
<p>So instead of resolving “Pell” by step, Minchin elides it with “I know you’re not feeling well” via another large downward leap, essentially repeating the first shape of the chorus a bit lower.</p>
<p>The tension created by the large leaps and dissonant notes in the first part of the chorus is balanced and ironed out by a more conventional melodic shape and harmonic sequence for the second. This progression is so good that we get to hear it twice each chorus.</p>
<h2>Musical text</h2>
<p>Minchin also uses lyrics creatively. Rather than rhyming “bell” with the obvious “Pell”, “Minchin instead works in "Pellian knell”.</p>
<p>In many of his songs, Minchin keeps listeners on their toes by avoiding a square relationship between lyric and music, often by overlapping the text across two major sections of music.</p>
<p>These four lines, for example, straddle the two very distinct halves of the chorus, with “home” finishing the text of the previous section, but providing the important first beat of the new section:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Perhaps you just need some sun <br>
It’s lovely here, you should come <br>
Home, you pompous buffoon<br>
(Pompous buffoon)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The faux-yearning imitative counterpoint provided by the bassist and drummer, especially on “you pompous buffoon”, highlights the logic of transforming bald insults into art – because it’s beautiful, they can somehow get away with it.</p>
<p>This technique allows Minchin to build a crescendo of verbal robustness. Sneaking “scum” in right at the end of the second verse is brilliant – the immediate switch into chorus mode brings the focus back to the music.</p>
<p>And while “scum” might seem to be pushing things on the personal front, it’s also nothing we haven’t heard from Australia’s eminent political leaders before (it also rhymes with “come”, which may have been the real consideration here).</p>
<p>But “scum” has another function. Boosting the rude factor in the second verse paves the way for the ensuing taunt climax: the simultaneously blasphemous and emasculating “goddamn coward” line that comes at the very end of the bridge.</p>
<p>The entire bridge is familiar Minchin. You could read the whole thing as prose and not sense song-worthiness anywhere (apart from one rhyme):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to be transparent here, George, I’m not the greatest fan of your religion, and I personally believe that those who cover up abuse should go to prison. But your ethical hypocrisy, your intellectual vacuity, and your arrogance don’t bother me as much as the fact that you have turned out to be such a goddamn coward.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EtHOmforqxk?wmode=transparent&start=131" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Starting at the 2:11 mark, the bridge delivers an emphatic emotional punch.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This fluidity is again underpinned by harmonically wandering music; not letting itself find the stability of the “home” chord, so that the lyrics can be focused on more clearly.</p>
<p>There’s a slightly soaring quality to the second half of the bridge. After building up the tension before “goddamn coward”, the drums, bass and piano drop out for a moment to allow the weight of the sentiment to cut through.</p>
<p>Drums re-enter to reinforce the word “coward”, Minchin drops a glissando on the piano, and the expected harmony (the one from the chorus) is actually denied.</p>
<p>Instead, we get a long stepwise-bass progression, gospel-style Hammond organ appearing from somewhere in the background, and another build-up. Resolution denied, anticipation growing. We are really ready for that chorus again!</p>
<p>Lyrically, he’s suggesting the cardinal should return to “face the music, the music” as the tension rebuilds. Musical expectations are thwarted yet again as Handel’s 235-year-old <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usfiAsWR4qU">Hallelujah Chorus</a> from the Messiah gets a cameo, as if “face the music, the music” had given him the idea of quoting some recognisably famous “music”.</p>
<p>The texture thins out to just one line for “If the Lord God omnipotent reigneth”, highlighting the joke, but also because that’s what the original Handel chorus does at that line. From an atheist’s perspective, it also highlights the “if” of the proposition, a pretty obvious challenge to the perceived integrity of the song’s target. To top it off, Minchin raises his eyes heavenward.</p>
<p>After this, we’ve earned the chorus again, which we are treated to by a bearded god-possibly-santa-Minchin singing in his best imitation of basso profundo. Minchin here is barely able to take himself seriously. The ridiculousness helps soften the blow he’s just delivered.</p>
<p>The Hammond organ returns for the gospel-choir feel of the lyrics that talk of time running out for atonement and the Lord’s forgiveness.</p>
<p>Finally, the song returns to piano solo and voice only as Minchin concludes by speculating as to the legal implications of his song, almost hopefully suggesting that perhaps the cardinal will at least come home to sue him.</p>
<p>By emblazoning his lyrics onto a musical fabric, Minchin gives his rhetorical argument the advantage of making people want to sing and dance along.</p>
<p>Come Home (Cardinal Pell) is a prime example of the power music has to project a political message into the public sphere. Tim Minchin’s songcraft is direct yet sophisticated, artfully constructed and undeniably catchy.</p>
<p>There are probably thousands of earworm-afflicted people all over the country today, each infected by the latest Minchin chorus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liam Viney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tim Minchin’s latest musical offering, Come Home Cardinal Pell, is provoking strong reactions because of its blunt and direct message to Cardinal George Pell. But in terms of song-craft, it’s a winner.Liam Viney, Piano Performance Fellow, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/498102015-11-11T00:02:56Z2015-11-11T00:02:56ZA small act to give abused children a voice<p>The <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a> is shifting its attention from Brisbane Grammar to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-09/child-abuse-royal-commission-brisbane-st-pauls-school/6923996">St Paul’s School</a>. In two weeks’ time, the commission will return to issues in Melbourne and Ballarat. Anglican, non-denominational and Catholic institutions in different states are being scrutinised.</p>
<p>The adults who survived the abuse finally get the opportunity they were denied as children: to describe the abuse, after years of being silenced, and to identify the perpetrators and those who failed to listen and protect them.</p>
<p>Other adults are called to explain what they did, if anything, to protect the children and to stop the offenders. They will be asked about what was done to silence the children and to protect the institution. Some of these people are important – for example, Cardinal George Pell and former governor-general Peter Hollingworth.</p>
<p>The silencing of children has as long a history as child abuse itself. So many myths are used to silence children and minimise crimes: children were said to lie, fantasise and be seductive. </p>
<p>Neerosh Mudaly and I wrote a <a href="http://www.jkp.com/uk/the-truth-is-longer-than-a-lie.html">2006 book</a> about children’s experiences of abuse and professional interventions, The Truth is Longer Than a Lie, which has now been adapted for <a href="http://www.theatrepeople.com.au/the-truth-is-longer-than-a-lie-says-playwright-kieran-carroll/">a play</a> of the same name. Its premiere is in Melbourne on November 11.</p>
<h2>Even when prosecuted, crimes are still minimised</h2>
<p>Prior to a <a href="http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/media-centre/speeches/anzatsa-7th-biennial-conference">speech</a> last week by the chair of the royal commission, Peter McClellan, The Australian <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/royal-commission-refers-800-sex-abuse-cases-to-police/story-fngburq5-1227596533412?sv=c665da0f7de34531b9357e4ec1fe952c">reported</a> that almost 800 cases of child sexual abuse had been referred to police, with 23 prosecutions begun.</p>
<p>Sadly, even when children are listened to and prosecution of the perpetrators begins, the minimisation of the crimes continues. </p>
<p>As Mudaly and I have <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/crimes-cloaked-in-euphemisms/story-e6frg6zo-1226121529565">written</a>, when prosecutions occur, the crimes may be “cloaked in euphemisms”. A man who repeatedly sexually assaults a child may be charged with “maintaining a sexual relationship” with that child, not multiple rapes. Imagine the outcry if a man who repeatedly raped a woman was charged with “maintaining a relationship” with her.</p>
<p>Other language and other professions continue the minimisation, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/Kneejerk-reactions-wont-help-in-fight-against-child-sexual-abuse/2005/02/28/1109546794104.html">the silencing of children</a>. The child rapist may be called a “paedophile”, originally meaning “lover of children”. Imagine the response if a man who raped women was called a “gynophile”.</p>
<p>State and federal governments join the law and other professions in obstructing justice for children who have been abused. In our report, <a href="http://www.capra.monash.org/assets/files/theycountfornothing.pdf">They Count for Nothing</a>, we noted that the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) used a public health model to develop a <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/publications-articles/protecting-children-is-everyones-business">National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children</a>. The first step in such an approach is to gather quality child abuse and protection data. Unfortunately, high-quality data are not available in Australia.</p>
<p>I gave some examples of this in my appearance before the <a href="http://www.rcfv.com.au/">Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence</a>. Even the definitions of “child” vary. In New South Wales, <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/national-comparison-child-protection-systems">for example</a>, the mandatory reporting obligation does not include young people aged 16 or 17.</p>
<p>Every year, there is extraordinary variation in the substantiation rates. In the latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=60129550762">Child Protection Australia 2013-14</a>, the rates of sexual abuse vary from almost 20% of all substantiations in WA to only 2.4% in the NT. Neglect comprises only 5% of cases in Victoria, compared to almost 50% in the ACT.</p>
<p>In his speech, McClellan referred to the analysis of almost 2800 private sessions conducted by the royal commission (I supported a victim in one of these). In arguing for a national redress scheme for victims, he argued that “survivors would be treated equally regardless of the institution, or place in Australia, in which they were abused”. </p>
<p>Justice for children demands this, whether the abuse occurs in the family or in an institution.</p>
<h2>Why listening is the key to protection</h2>
<p>Those of us who have worked in child protection have powerful, painful memories of the silencing of children. Some children were silenced because they were too young or too damaged, like the boy I saw in hospital dying of skull fractures too numerous to count.</p>
<p>There are also memories of conversations with children. The child in the back seat of the car, only her eyes visible in my rear-view mirror, as I drove her with a colleague to foster care: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You know what he does to me, don’t you?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then there was the teenage boy rescued (not a fashionable word now) from a brutal household after being repeatedly beaten by his mother and stepfather. A small, fragile young person, stroking a formidable, stamping, snorting racehorse, proud of his new job as a stablehand, while I cowered behind the half-closed stable door. “You know what I like about this job?” he asked me, as I half-listened, very nervously. “Horses can’t hurt you.”</p>
<p>The greatest insight into the failures of child protection and the silencing of children came from the interviews Mudaly undertook with children who had been abused. Addressing the ethical issues, balancing our belief that children have a right to be heard but also need to be protected from further harm, meant that the work took several years to complete.</p>
<p>It was a 12-year-old girl who so clearly defined for us what a professional’s role should be in working with children. She told us that they:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… are supposed to listen, they’re not supposed to sit there and tell you what you’re thinking or what you’re feeling …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The girl went on to give us the title of our book, and now the play by <a href="http://kierancarroll.com/">Kieran Carroll</a>, as she reflected upon her experiences in the child protection system:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… that’s always the problem with these people. They don’t want to believe the truth, they just want to believe the easiest side … so then they get paid and go on to the next one and just pick the simplest out of that. They don’t want to hear the truth because the truth is much harder to understand and so much longer than a lie about the truth.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ongoing royal commission daily demonstrates that not listening to children costs us all very dearly and that, in every part of Australia, the truth about child abuse is longer than a lie.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101348/original/image-20151110-29309-1bt7lox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101348/original/image-20151110-29309-1bt7lox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101348/original/image-20151110-29309-1bt7lox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101348/original/image-20151110-29309-1bt7lox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101348/original/image-20151110-29309-1bt7lox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101348/original/image-20151110-29309-1bt7lox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101348/original/image-20151110-29309-1bt7lox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101348/original/image-20151110-29309-1bt7lox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=392dadc1fef35d80f94caae58&id=8e543752cf&e=459c714399">Monash University/Type Faster Productions</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>The play, The Truth is Longer Than a Lie, is being <a href="http://www.ticketebo.com.au/type-faster-productions-and-monash-university/the-truth-is-longer-than-a-lie.html">staged at the Richmond Theatre</a> in Richmond, Victoria, from November 11 to 22.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Goddard consults to the Australian Childhood Foundation.</span></em></p>The silencing of children has as long a history as child abuse itself. It is why we need royal commissions, books, and now a play: to allow children to tell us the truth of what was done to them.Chris Goddard, Adjunct Professor, Child Abuse Prevention Research Australia, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/428832015-06-05T01:05:58Z2015-06-05T01:05:58ZCommercial current affairs and the case of Cardinal Pell<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84035/original/image-20150605-14125-17o2xs3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">60 Minutes/Nine Network/YouTube</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An early finding of the ARC-funded research I and my QUT colleagues are doing on the Australian political media is the gradual withdrawal of free-to-air commercial TV from the current affairs space. If I may paraphrase an old Soviet joke – there’s as much current affairs in A Current Affair as there is truth in Pravda. Which is to say, not very much. </p>
<p>The reasons for this are clear. What we like to call “serious” current affairs – as opposed to the glorified product placement that comprises most of the program of that name on Channel Nine – rarely attracts the audience ratings that game shows, reality TV and other cheap and cheerful formats achieve. </p>
<p>In a hyper-competitive media marketplace, with more platforms and more choice for consumers than ever before, prime-time free-to-air is just too important to the shareholders’ bottom line to be given over to anything that won’t bring eyeballs to the screen.</p>
<p>This is a global trend. All over the world, commercial TV companies that used to make high-quality, high-impact current affairs shows such as the UK’s World In Action have abandoned the territory.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I love a dose of well-made reality TV as much as the next person, and can even see the point of the Kardashians. And by “quality” current affairs I don’t mean white middle-aged men in suits talking about interest rates – it can be about topics of undoubtedly human interest, dramatic and sensational, but hugely important to people’s everyday lives such as the epidemic of domestic violence, or corruption in FIFA. </p>
<p>Current affairs TV can and should address the personal and the private, the things that matter to us all. And there’s nothing wrong with making that material, along with the big picture issues of economic and politics, accessible to an audience not all of whom have uni degrees.</p>
<p>My point is that even this broad definition of current affairs is increasingly scarce in the free-to-air commercial landscape. We have the ABC, legally mandated to provide such content. And Sky News does an excellent job of providing real time news coverage of public affairs, although its audience is restricted to subscribers of Foxtel. And there are exceptions in the free-to-air space. </p>
<p>Andrew Bolt’s Sunday show on Channel Ten is an increasingly rare free-to-air political debate slot. And as long as you accept its provocatively controversialist style – which helps in the ratings competition, of course – it is very watchable. </p>
<p>And then there is 60 Minutes on Nine, which this week demonstrated what can still be done in the field of current affairs journalism by the commercial broadcasters. In 2002, Cardinal George Pell was interviewed by Richard Carlton on 60 Minutes about payments he had allegedly authorised to victims of paedophile priests, including the nephew of convicted abuser Gerald Ridsdale. </p>
<p>On <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajWT4BERoHc">YouTube</a>, you can watch Pell obfuscate with cringe-inducing obviousness as the journalist pressed him on “the conspiracy of silence”. This was tough adversarial journalism of the very best kind, and very courageous for its time. </p>
<p>The most recent 60 Minutes update interviewed Peter Saunders, a Vatican-appointed commissioner who is investigating child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Saunders condemned Cardinal Pell in the harshest terms, to the extent that Pell is reported to be consulting his lawyers. A bevy of Australian archbishops subsequently wrote <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-04/archbishops-write-letter-backing-cardinal-george-pell/6520188">an open letter</a> defending Pell, so damaging was the item perceived to have been. </p>
<p>Now, like most stories of this kind, there is more than one side to it, and there can be no rush to judgement until Pell has had his say before the Royal Commission. But this item, when taken alongside the statements of abuse survivors who have already testified in Ballarat and elsewhere, and other evidence such as the minutes of a Church meeting where the need to move Ridsdale to another diocese was discussed, has performed a real service to the victims of paedophile priests – a public service. </p>
<p>Commercial television has a long and honourable history of fearless current affairs journalism, in Australia and overseas. 60 Minutes’ work on Pell exemplifies that tradition. Long may it continue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42883/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McNair receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is Chief Investigator on the ARC-funded Discovery project, Politics, Media and Democracy in Australia.</span></em></p>An early finding of the ARC-funded research I and my QUT colleagues are doing on the Australian political media is the gradual withdrawal of free-to-air commercial TV from the current affairs space. If…Brian McNair, Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.