Updated
Former prime minister John Howard is one of 10 people to provide a character reference for George Pell after his conviction for child sex offences, while Melbourne’s Archbishop says he plans to visit Pell if he is sent to prison.
Key points:
- A judge is considering George Pell’s sentence for abusing two choirboys
- His defence lawyer said 10 references show Pell is a person “of highest character”
- Melbourne’s Archbishop he did not shy away from his ongoing friendship with Pell
Pell was convicted of child sex offences in December and is before Melbourne’s County Court for pre-sentence submissions today.
Pell’s barrister, Robert Richter QC, said the 10 character references tendered at today’s hearing came from people who did not “believe him capable” of the crimes.
“They speak of a … man who has a great deal of passion … has a great sense of humour, a man who relates to everyone from prime ministers down to street beggars,” Mr Richter said.
Meanwhile, Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli defended his personal friendship with Pell, telling commercial radio he was able to separate it from his role as leader of the city’s archdiocese.
“Cardinal Pell has been a friend of mine for a number of years, a good teacher to me, so I remain a friend and I don’t shy away from that,” he told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.
“But as the Archbishop of Melbourne, I separate that sort of sense of a personal relationship, to how do I — as the Archbishop of Melbourne — reach out to our own people, especially those who have been harmed by sexual abuse.”
When asked by interviewer Mitchell if he would visit Pell in jail, the Archbishop replied “yes”.
“As soon as possible?” Mitchell asked.
“As soon as I can get in, yeah,” Archbishop Comensoli said.
Earlier, on ABC Radio Melbourne, Archbishop Comensoli said more people had come forward to report cases of abuse by members of the Catholic clergy following coverage of Pell’s conviction.
“There were others who made contact with us yesterday and I suspect will over the next few days, because of what’s come to light through the lifting of the suppression order, who will come forward and say I too was abused at a particular time in certain circumstances,” he said.
“That’s already happened.”
In the past 131 alleged survivors of sexual abuse had come forward under the church’s Melbourne Response, he said.
He said people were still coming to the church, despite the battering the institution’s reputation had taken.
“Because people continue to want to process their own situation best as possible,” he said.
Melbourne Response: ‘I can’t just cut it off’
A lawyer representing one of Pell’s victims said the Cardinal’s conviction had raised mixed feelings among survivors of abuse by other members of the clergy.
Lawyer Vivian Waller told Radio National she hoped the findings led to a review of the Melbourne Response, which was established by Pell to deal with claims of sexual assault within the church.
“Recent events have cast a pall over the entire response of the Archdiocese of Melbourne,” she said.
“It would be good if of its own initiative the archdiocese would agree to reconsider all matters that have resolved under the Melbourne Response.”
The call to review the Melbourne Response has been made from other quarters since Pell’s conviction was made public, including by Chrissy Foster, whose two daughters were abused by a Catholic priest.
Archbishop Comensoli said not everyone had a bad experience seeking compensation through the church.
“I’ve spoken to a number of them — a couple of dozen of them — and they’ve given me their own sense, a lot of them feeling quite brutalised, but most have not had that experience,” he said.
“That’s not the publicly known reality of the Melbourne Response, in fact for many people the process has been helpful for them and they’re receiving ongoing care through our Carelink program.”
But he made an apology to victims, and conceded the church needed to improve on its past approach, particularly its use of the courts to defend itself against compensation claims over abusive priests.
“I think there needs to be a building up a trust and to do that, I first, then with those I’m working with and the whole of our Catholic community, need to take steps to become trustworthy,” he said.
“It’s not just what I say, but what I do. For instance, I make myself available as someone to sue. That’s an automatic process if we receive a request from a legal firm, I make myself available legally.”
The Archibishop, who took over the role in July last year, said he was reviewing the scheme and believed it would come to an end in “due course”.
“I can’t just cut it off now, because there are three parts to it,” he said.
He said he planned to “look carefully” at the investigation and compensation parts of the Melbourne Response and believed people would be turning to the national redress scheme in favour of it anyway.
But he said he did not want to lose Carelink, set up to offer ongoing pastoral care to survivors.
“It’s a great process, survivors are grateful for it,” he said.
Pell ‘received a fair trial’
Speaking to Jon Faine on ABC Melbourne Radio, Archbishop Comensoli said he believed Pell had received a fair trial and would not disparage the process as others had.
“You and I might have a belief about where the matter stands but neither of us were in the court,” he said.
“Those who were actually in the court, particularly the jury and the judge himself, went through the processes, they’ve heard the whole story … and in hearing both sides have come to the conclusion they have.”
He said the Melbourne Archdiocese did not pay for Pell’s defence, nor did any other church body to his knowledge.
“I imagine it is very expensive, but as far as it has come from private sources,” he said.
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