One leave to appeal is granted with respect to ground one only, and the appeal is dismissed.

I will now read a summary by a majority of 2 to 1.

The Court of Appeal has dismissed Cardinal Pell George Pell's appeal against his conviction for the Commission of sexual Offenses.

Hey will continue to serve his sentence off six years imprisonment.

Hey will remain eligible to apply for parole after he has served three years and eight months off his sentence where the Cardinal Pell will be released on parole.

It will be a matter for the adult parole board, not the courts, before describing in summary form why the court has reached the decision it has, there is some relevant context off nose.

Last year, Cardinal Pell was convicted of five specific sexual offenses alleged to have been committed on two occasions in the meat 19 nineties, when he was the Catholic archbishop off Melbourne.

In a previous trial on the same charges, the jury were unable to reach a verdict.

Cardinal Pell's position is that he should not have been convicted.

Cardinal Pell's conviction and this appeal have attracted widespread attention both in Australia and beyond.

He is the saying a figure in the Catholic Church and is internationally well known as the trial judge.

Chief Judge Kid commented when sentencing Cardinal Pell.

There has been vigorous and sometimes emotional criticism off the cardinal and he has been publicly vilified in some sections of the community.

There has also been strong support for the cardinal by others.

Indeed, it's fair to sigh that this case has divided the community.

It is important to stress at the outset that Cardinal Pell's conviction only concerns the five offenses alleged to have been committed by him again.

As the trial judge observed, He is not to be made escape boat goat for any perceived failings of the Catholic Church, nor for any failure in relation to child sexual abuse by other clergy.

His conviction and sentence could not be a vindication off the trawler by other victims.

Off sexual abuse defenses, in respect of which Cardinal Pell was found guilty by a county court jury, were one charge of sexual penetration of a child under six staying and four charges are being decent act with a child under six stain.

The trial lasted for five weeks the jury deliberated for several dies.

The jury's verdict was unanimous.

Each of us has watched recordings off the evidence given by 12 of the 24 witnesses at the trial.

We have also watched recordings off the view.

The jury were taken on the walk through really technical issues, Yes, which is, which is a pity.

But where you do know now what the result is?

Absolutely.

The court has decided by 2 to 1 majority to dismiss George Pills application.

He's appeal, which means he's lost.

He gets to stay in prison now, as the chief justice, and Ferguson pointed out to continue his six years imprisonment until he's eligible for parole.

That's not until needing end of 2022.

This is a major blow for George Hill and his supporters, the head, their hopes on the finding that the jury couldn't offend in guilty.

That was the biggest hope that the Court of Appeal would find that the jury could not have found beyond reasonable doubt that he didn't molest those two schoolboys back in the 19 nineties.

And yet, as you conceived out, there are lots of people there who are outside the court who are waiting for this decision.

Those that representatives of artisans of office groups Kristina Annual day.

Now what reaction you're getting.

There was a big cheer that went out.

Went up here outside the Supreme Court when news filtered through that.

That appeal had Bean dismissed.

I'm here with Michael.

You're a very well known survivor advocate Michael.

What is the feeling now that you know that George Pell is going back behind bars to serve out the rest of his sentence?

Look, it's absolutely outstanding news, you know.

So we can now officially say bye or high court appeal and no debt.

Pel, you know he's a master using every legal tactic theories.

But we can comfortably say Pelle is a criminal.

Pel is a pedophile.

Pel is a destroyer on a maim A off young Children.

He's a pathetic human being, a pig of them in on.

We are elated.

Look, three years and eight months we can live with that is no non parole period.

I'd also like to say I think it's outrageous that he's being able to receive fan mile of up to 2000 letters while is their prison isn't a retreat.

Prison isn't a holiday Prison isn't a process where you know you you respond to your fan mile.

Michael, Can I just ask where you were you anxious today?

Because obviously there was the possibility that George Hill could be walking free today.

Describe what it's been like for you and other advocates today and the relief that you now feel Look, it's it's being truly and not me.

I had a victim on the phone to me last night at 20 to wait just in tears.

Couldn't talk for the 1st 5 minutes.

You know, our relief is his phenomenal.

I must proudly say I I did predict this, that it would be overturned than ever, and almost other people said no on the reason being is you know, it all came down to these beyond reasonable doubt.

And we're the jury over emotional about it.

At the end of the day, the witness supposedly waas whether the jury had attended the two scenes of the crime they had.

They saw that there was an opportunity.

It was beyond reasonable doubt.

They've called it right.

God bless the 12 good people of Australia.

Thanks very much for joining us, Michael.

We know that you are very relieved and we do appreciate your time here will just give you a look around because obviously there's some.

Or choose that it going up here outside the Supreme Court.

Now that the decision has been made that the appeal is dismissed on the cardinal will remain behind bars.

Of course, he was sentenced to a maximum of six years in prison as Michael just mentioned there to non parole period of three years and eight months.

Eso Just after that decision was made, a news filtered through here.

There certainly was a cheer and there is celebration, said it, continuing here outside the Supreme Court with survive advocates after the Court of Appeal handed down their judgment just a short time ago.

Britain Hitch.

Thank you, Christine.

Way have rectified.

Now we seem to have anyway, some of the audio issues they had before.

Shall we go back inside the appeal court to fear more off the way the UN raised novelists grand is relied upon?

The task for the Appeal Court is to decide whether on the whole of the evidence it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt.

that the accused was guilty.

Be inquiry, which this grand requires is a purely factual one rather than a discreet question of law, where the argument is that the trial judge has made an era when the UN raise anomalous ground is relied upon.

The appeal court reviews the evidence as it was presented to the jury, the Appeal court asks itself whether on that factual material, it was reasonably open to the jury to convict the accused.

Having reviewed the Hall of the Evidence, two of the judges of the Court of Appeal, Justice Maxwell, president of the Court of Appeal and Die I have decided that it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Cardinal Pell was guilty off the offenses charged.

In other words, we decided that there was nothing about the compliance evidence or about the opportunity evidence went.

That meant, which meant that the jury must have had a doubt about the truth of the complainants account in a written raisins.

We have stated that it is not enough that one or more jurors might have had a dash.

Rather, the jury must have had a doubt.

We also state that we did not experience a doubt.

Justice Maxwell and I accepted the prosecution's submission that the complainant was a very compelling witness, was clearly not a liar, was not a fantasist and was a witness of truth in a written raisins, we start.

Throughout his evidence, the complainant came across as someone who was telling the truth.

He did not seek to embellish his evidence or Taylor is in a manner favorable to the prosecution.

As Mart have been expected.

There were some things that he could remember and many things which he could not, and his explanations of why that was so had the ring of truth.

We examined the evidence of other witnesses relevant to the issue of whether there was a realistic opportunity for the offending to have occurred.

Was there a reason to doubt the complainant's account?

Having read and in some cases watched the evidence of all of the opportunity witnesses, we accepted that there was general consistency and substantial mutual support in the picture they painted of what occurred at the cathedral before, during and after Sunday mess.

In the period when Cardinal Pell was Archbishop, Justice Maxwell and I take the view that this was unsurprising, since the defining feature of religious observance is adherence to ritual and compliance with established practice.

Justice Maxwell and I state that at the same time, the evidence of the opportunity witnesses varied in quality and consistency, ending the degree of recall both as between witnesses and within the evidence of individual witnesses.

We saw it at least two possible explanations for these first, the passage of 22 years between the alleged events and the trial meant that their waas inescapably a real degree of uncertainty attaching to the memories of the opportunity witnesses.

Secondly, attempting to recall particular events is all the more difficult when the events being described, uh, as they were here of a kind which was repeated week after week, year after year and involved the same participants in the same sitting.

Performing the same rituals and following the same retains part of Cardinal Pell's case on the appeal was that there were 13 solid obstacles in the path of a conviction.

Justice Maxwell and I have rejected all 13 by why Example.

One of the 13 obstacles was said to bay that the acts alleged to have been committed by Cardinal Pell in the first incident were physically impossible.

The defense relied on categorical statements by Monsignor Pio telly, the perfect of ceremonies to Cardinal Pell and by Mr Potter, the SEC Kristen that it was not possible to pull the cardinal's robes to the side.

The robes were an exhibit at the trial and had it been available to the jury in the jury room during their deliberation.

Having taken the advantage of the opportunity to feel the weight of the robes and assess their maneuverability is garments.

Justice Maxwell and I decided that it was well open to the jury to Riddick Project the contention off physical impossibility.

The roads were not so heavy nor saw removable as the evidence of Monsignor Pio Telly and Mr Potter had suggested we found that the roads were capable of being maneuvered in a way that might be described as being moved or pulled to one side or pulled apart.

We know that Cardinal Pell did not have to prove anything in the trial.

Rather, at all stages of trial, the burden of proof rested with the prosecution.

It was a matter for the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was a realistic opportunity for the offending to take place that involves showing that the offending was not impossible.

The prosecution also bore the burden of proving beyond reasonable doubt that the particular sexual acts took place.

Justice Maxwell and I observed that while the defense for Cardinal Pell Main tanks admissions based on impossibility in the appeal way steadily boring, mind that they're waas and is no onus whatsoever upon Cardinal Pell to prove impossibility, that is that it was impossible for the offending to have occurred.

In his dissenting judgment, Judge Justice Weinberg found that at times the complainant was inclined to embellish aspects off his account.

Hey concluded that he's evidence contained discrepancies, displayed inadequacies and otherwise lacked property value so as to cause him to have a doubt as to the applicants, kilt, hey could not exclude as a reasonable possibility.

That's some of what the compliance did was concocted, particularly in relation to the second incident.

Justice Weinberg found that the complainant's account of the second incident was entirely implausible and quite unconvincing.

Nevertheless, Justice Weinberg stated that in relation to the first incident, if the complainant's evidence was the only evidence he might well have found it difficult to say that the jury, acting reasonably, were bound to have a reasonable doubt about the Cardinals guilt.

He went on to night, however, that there was more than just the complainant's evidence, injustice.

Weinberg's view.

There was a significant body of cogent and in some cases in president, impressive evidence suggesting that the complainant's account was, in a realistic sense, impossible to accept.

To his mind, there is a significant possibility that the cardinal may not have committed the offenses in those circumstances.

Justice Weinberg stated that in his view, the convictions could not stand.

Nevertheless, the appeal on the unreasonable list ground has been dismissed.

Because two of us took a different view of the facts.

I will now turn to the second and third grounds of appeal.

The court has unanimously refused leave to appeal in relation to the second and third grounds, which, concerned legal rather than factual issues, ground too concerned an animation.

The animation depicts the blueprint of the cathedral complex with a Siri's of colored dots and lines shown moving through the complex.

H colored dot, or line, is attributed to a particular person or group, for example, the complainant or the choir is a hole when processing out of the cathedral after Sunday Salam mess on the right hand side of the screen.

Our window of text is fate should at the top of the wind I quotes taken from the transcript of evidence of witnesses favorable to Cardinal Pell's case fighting an out throughout the course of the animation.

These quotes are said to accord with the movements of the various dots and lines depicted at the bottom of the wind I quotes taken from the transcript of the complainants.

Evidence fade in and out, ostensibly to accord with the movement of the dots representing himself and the other boy.

The trial judge ruled that the animation could not be shown to the jury as part of the Defense Final address.

We have a grade with the trial judge.

The animation bore little resemblance to the actual state of the evidence, but rather presented a distorted picture of that evidence.

The animation was tendentious in the extreme.

For example, it showed the priest test sacristy with the complainant and the other boy in the room in company with a large number of Kinsella Brint priests.

There was no evidence of any kind that this particular scenario had occurred.

It was plainly intended to implant in the minds of the jury that the complainant's A can't must have been impossible because the evidence charge that they work.

Unsellable int, pray STs in the room at the time of the alleged defending, the visual representation, ostensibly based on the state of the evidence at trial, had the potential of misleading or at least confusing, the jury.

We have held that the trial judge correctly ruled that the animation should not be used in the way contemplated by cardinal pills lawyers, as noted Ground three concerned whether there was a fundamental irregularity in the trial process.

This was said to be on the basis that Cardinal Pell was not arraigned in the presence of the jury panel, as required by the criminal process.

A direct a person is around.

When the court asked the accused in this coast Cardinal Pell, if he is the person named on the indictment, H charges read out, and the accused is asked whether he plaids guilty or not guilty.