The most senior Catholic official found guilty of abusing children, has been granted leave to appeal by Australia’s highest court. The decision allows Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s former finance minister, a final chance at overturning his convictions for molesting two 13-year-old choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in the late 1990s.
The 78-year-old, who was archbishop of Australia’s second-largest city at the time of the abuse, was jailed for six years in March. Victoria state’s Court of Appeal rejected his appeal in August. His lawyers argued in a 12-page application to the High Court of Australia that two state judges were wrong to require Pell to prove the abuse was impossible, rather than putting the onus on prosecutors, quotes the independent.co.uk.
However, the bishop has arrived at Rome for further trial.
