Cardinal George Pell sued by father of Australian choirboy

The father of a choirboy who prosecutors alleged was sexually abused by Cardinal George Pell has launched a lawsuit against the cleric and the Catholic Church.

The man is seeking damages for mental injury that he suffered after learning of the allegations, his lawyers said.

In 2018 Cardinal Pell was convicted of abusing two choirboys in the 1990s.

But Australia’s top court later quashed the convictions. Cardinal Pell has always maintained his innocence.

The Australian cleric had spent more than a year in prison when he was released in 2020 following a successful appeal.

One of the choirboys’ fathers has now lodged a civil claim against Cardinal Pell and the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

Neither the man nor his son – who died in 2014 – can be named for legal reasons.

His father is suing Cardinal Pell for an amount not yet known to compensate for the “nervous shock” he suffered as a result of losing his son and learning about the allegations a year later.

Nervous shock is a legal term for a recognised mental disorder, injury or illness caused by the actions or omissions of another party.

In statement of claim, he argues the Church is also liable as it breached its duty of care.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne has been contacted for comment.

The court on Thursday set down a hearing for the suit next month.

He rose to prominence in the Church as a strong supporter of traditional Catholic values, often taking conservative views and advocating for priestly celibacy.

Cardinal Pell was summoned to Rome in 2014 to clean up the Vatican’s finances, and was often described as the Church’s third-ranked official.

He left the Vatican in 2017 to fight the charges against him in his home state, Victoria.

In December 2018, a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing the two 13-year-old choirboys in the mid-1990s. He was the highest-ranking Catholic figure to receive such a conviction.

But in his appeal to the High Court of Australia, the cleric argued that the jury’s verdict had relied too heavily on evidence from the surviving former choirboy. His lawyers did not try to discredit that testimony, but argued that other evidence had not been properly considered.

The court’s seven judges ruled unanimously in his favour, saying that other testimonies had introduced “a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place”.

Source: bbc.co.uk