-With AAP.
Abuse survivors gathered at Melbourne’s County Court this morning for the sentencing of disgraced Cardinal George Pell for abusing two teenage boys in 1996.
Among them was Michael Advocate, a man in a blue shirt who listened to the judge’s hour-long remarks with his head in his hands.
Chief Judge Peter Kidd sentenced Pell to six years in prison with a non-parole period of three years and eight months, three months after he was found guilty of orally raping a 13-year-old choirboy and molesting another at St Patrick’s Cathedral after a Sunday mass.
Listen to Mia Freedman, Holly Wainwright & Jessie Stephens unpack the Pell verdict on Mamamia Out Loud… Post continues after audio.
Advocate, a survivor of child sexual abuse and founder of Victim Group Actions, described the sentence as “pathetic”.
“[I’m] really disappointed,” he told 7 News from outside the court.
“It doesn’t send any deterrent at all. It doesn’t give the victims any sense of justice. You know, less than four years jail time for destroying the lives of two innocent young boys. Is their life only worth two years each?”
“May Pell rot in his cell… But what about appropriate respect for the victims? What about fair justice? … Six years? It’s pathetic.”
Advocate told Studio 10 that every victim got a life time sentence, and he thought Pell’s jail term did not appropriately match his crime.
“I’m a typical victim. I’ve got 41 years to date,” he said.
“My life is just a disaster, every other victim I speak to is a disaster. How much do we have to suffer? How insulted do we have to be before real justice occurs?”
“Every paedophile should get an appropriate jail term reflective of the life time of damage that they cause to their poor, innocent victims. It’s got nothing to do with what Pell has done in his life before or after. He is guilty. He is a monster. He is a criminal paedophile.”
Pell, who was until late-February the Vatican’s treasurer, is the highest-ranking Catholic to be convicted of child sexual abuse.
Anticipating huge public interest in the sentence, the judge permitted a camera in court to broadcast his remarks live globally.
The courtroom was packed with abuse survivors who have their own interest in the result, beyond that of Pell’s surviving victim, now aged in his 30s.
He was orally raped by Pell in the priest’s sacristy after a Sunday mass in December 1996, forced to watch as Pell molested his 13-year-old friend, and then molested again by Pell a month later.
The other boy died in 2014.
Cathy Kezelman from the trauma recovery-focused Blue Knot Foundation said the sentence represented the personal struggle for justice of many other abuse survivors and the outcome was likely to be emotional and polarising.
For some, any sentence would not be enough while others, still reeling from the verdict, will likely be outraged, she said.
“For too long, hermetically sealed systems of power, such as within the Catholic Church, have called the shots, protecting the church, its hierarchy and themselves,” Dr Kezelman said.
“Hopefully this sentence can herald fundamental change to the church and other institutions, starting with accountable, responsible and transparent leadership, hierarchy and culture.”
Pell, 77, was convicted in December of one charge of sexually penetrating a child and four of committing indecent acts with a child.
Pell maintains his innocence and intends to challenge the conviction in the Court of Appeal, which will be heard in June.
He has already served two weeks behind bars.
For more on this topic:
“He was a different boy”. The family of one of George Pell’s victims share their heartbreak.
George Pell is not what a Catholic looks like.
What George Pell’s defenders cannot possibly know about his victim.
The telling words George Pell uttered 16 years ago that shocked members of his own church.
“He was practically shouting.” Exactly how George Pell tried to ‘prove’ his innocence in court.
Top Comments
Our mostly male judges are and have always been, conspicuously lenient in sentencing for 'sex' crimes. Do we need more female judges, who would better see victims as children that needed protecting from men, rather than as people who provided men their entitlement to sexual gratification? Our society still tells men they are entitled to having their sexual needs met, hence the sexualisation of women in our media and in policy-making, and the proliferation of pedophilia due to inadequate prosecution and sentencing. Many men still believe it is their female partner's job to tend to their sexual needs. Hell, it has only been a decade or two since men were legally allowed to rape their wives.
Why wouldn't male judges be tainted with this same even subconscious bias, that child sex abuse perpetrators were only men just trying to get sex?
it was a woman judge that aquitted that laneway rapist wasnt it ? the that was on 4 corners
How would that sentence encourage other victims to come forward, it wouldn’t. Come forward and speak the truth have their lives pushed into the light and media, have hours of interviews going over details - how traumatic and for what? A lousy 3 years non parole period. No words. There are jo words. That is not justice.
Remember, the court can’t take into account stuff he hasn’t been charged with/found guilty of, and that a harsh sentence may be easily appealed.
My heart agrees with you, but it's a delicate legal dance and Chief Judge Kidd has done well.
the law is an ass