Chapter and verse on the Pell Lynching
Much has been written since 9.30am on Wednesday, when two members of a three-judge panel decided the uncorroborated and highly improbable account of cathedral choir boys being molested in an open, unlocked room after Sunday Mass by Cardinal George Pell was sufficiently convincing to see him returned to prison. Where close friends fear he will leave in a coffin, for at 78 such is the parlous state of his health.
Of all the tens of thousands of words, however, none paint such a damning picture of the forces arrayed against an innocent man as the magisterial overview pulled together by the poster Currency Lad (CL) at the Catallaxy Files blog.
A small taste:
And so [ABC journalist Louise] Milligan proceeds to the allegations that led, albeit haltingly, to an infamous prosecution. Needless to say, she leaves out the corrupt “trawling” operation conducted by a vengeful Victoria Police to find somebody – anybody – who wanted to make accusations against one George Pell. Again, this mirrored what British police did at the behest of Carl Beech, the paedophile recently convicted of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice (inter alia).
I by no means thought Pell himself was an abuser until early 2016. From February that year, I began to meet men who made extremely concerning allegations about the Cardinal, going back decades.
She “began to meet men” who made accusations about the Cardinal? How? Where? Who facilitated this exordium of her enlightenment? If a third party made the introductions, what interest might they have had in cultivating an ABC journalist? She won’t say.
And again:
There was nothing in the men whom I began to meet (and whose stories I told in my book, Cardinal, The Rise and Fall of George Pell) that made me think that any of them were not telling the truth.
Let’s emphasise her key assertion: that every single one of them was telling the truth.
In fact, the claims of two of the men Milligan began to meet were blocked by Justice Peter Kidd and abandoned by the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions. For the latter, Fran Dalziel SC had sought to have three swimming-related accusations heard together in order to use “pattern” trickery to push-poll a jury. Justice Kidd ruled this package deal of wild, no-witness charges could never be safely tried. In other words, it was cowboy posturing and legal trash.
Additionally, we know that the two principal swimmer “victims” had serious criminal records, one being a former drug-peddler jailed for assaulting his girlfriend. Also, he had a lengthy history of psychiatric illness. The two mates (for mates they were) also made accusations of far worse abuse against other people – teachers – which Taskforce SANO, mysteriously, didn’t bother to either publicise or prosecute. Why? Because they concluded the allegations were utter nonsense, that’s why.
Milligan leaves out these latter details because they are damning. Instead she asserts that nothing about these men she began to meet made her think they were anything other than admirable truth-tellers. She even worried about the “strain” it was causing them. (Not as big a strain as being bashed by a drug dealer). Prosecutors had already given up on other fanciful charges before the committal. Magistrate Belinda Wallington herself threw out others as warped, fantastical claptrap. In truth, only a solitary accuser (the former choirboy) survived the cull and his claims were not accepted by a majority of jurors in Cardinal Pell’s first, abandoned trial. They were accepted by a second jury for whom George Pell, by then, was obviously synonymous with child molestation – not least because of the dedicated propaganda of Milligan’s employer, the ABC, which devoted an entire episode of the 7.30 Report to the now deep-sixed accusations of the aforementioned “swimmers.”
So much for the men she began to meet…..
Again, read the entire post.
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