Article by Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (November 14)
At last, Cardinal George Pell could get the justice he deserves. The High Court has agreed to hear his appeal. Next step: it must now decide whether Pell was, as I believe, wrongly convicted of the sexual assault of two choir boys.
But it’s significant that it has already decided there is something in this case that deserves its attention.
This should worry the two Victorian Court of Appeal judges - president Chris Maxwell and Chief Justice Anne Ferguson - who in August said the jury verdict against Pell was “reasonable”.
They overruled the third judge, Justice Mark Weinberg, the only one with extensive experience in criminal law, who damned the case against Pell.
Weinberg in his dissent seemed to accuse then other two judges of putting too much faith in the demeanour of Pell’s sole accuser, noting the High Court in the past “has observed that it can be dangerous to place too much reliance upon the appearance of a witness, rather than …More