Stooped, frail and grey, church's big man makes shuffling 'perp walk'
There was the same roiling media maul that once regularly greeted George Pell for his pre-trial hearings, those held last year across the road in the Melbourne Magistrates courts when it was being decided whether the cardinal even had a case to answer.
There were the familiar catcalls and jeers from members of the public who had come to see the most powerful Australian Catholic brought low.
But this time was altogether different. Graver by a degree barely comprehensible.
Pell was now a convicted criminal, found guilty by a jury of sexual offences against choirboys 22 years ago. His shuffle from the roadside, Lonsdale Street, to the glass-walled County Court, walking stick in hand, through the lines of police, cameras whirring all around and a great crowd jostling just to see him, was now what is known in the crime novels as a ‘‘perp walk’’.
There were those in the crowd who fantasised, out loud, that they’d soon see this man of the church in handcuffs. The truth was, Pell was, indeed, a perp: the most senior Catholic clergyman in the world found to have been the perpetrator of sex crimes against children.
Upstairs, in courtroom 3.3 on the third floor, his immediate fate was to be decided by the judge who had overseen his trial, Peter Kidd, and who had declared him, after the jury had done its work, guilty. Five times.
One count of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and four of committing an indecent act with or in the presence of a child under 16. Each carrying a potential maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Pell sat alone at the very rear of the court. The dock.
Security guards sat at a distance either side.
Pell had aged visibly over the past months. Gravity seemed to have been at work. The stoop of the body was almost now resolving to the shape of a hump. The hair, grey for years, was thinner, the scalp more visible. The perp walk revealed the big body, once that of a ruckman, moved slower.
Within courtroom 3.3, Pell, never expressive, gazed through spectacles, chin in hand, over the heads of the packed public gallery where sat journalists and artists and the silent ranks of those known as victims, or the families of victims or their representatives, which is to say, victims of the crimes of the clergy.
At the bar table Pell’s bearded defender, Robert Richter QC, sat jotting notes as the prosecutor, Mark Gibson SC, launched into a re-telling of the evidence that led to Pell’s conviction, of two choirboys, aged 13, in the sacristy at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, 22 years ago.
There were no catcalls in here. The gallery sat silent. It seemed unimaginable. It was not. A cardinal was to be remanded.
If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or beyondblue 1300 224 636.