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In the pursuit of justice for Pell’s accuser: confusion or perversion?
Jul 19, 2020It is time to examine the committal and the connections related to the case of the former third-highest official in the Vatican, freed from prison by the High Court of Australia earlier this year, after spending twelve months locked up for offences he did not, and according the 7 judges on the high court, could not have committed.
By the “committal” I mean the pre-trial hearing before Magistrate Belinda Wallington of the police case against George Cardinal Pell in March 2018. In closed court the magistrate heard from Pell’s accusers, in particular the complainant “J” (whose allegations went before a jury in the “Cathedral” trial). He was cross-examined by Pell’s defence (Robert Richter QC). Then, from 14 March 2018 the committal opened up to the public with the first witness Dr Bernard Barrett of Broken Rites continuing with other key figures such as current affairs presented and author of ‘Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell,’ Louise Milligan (27 March) and concluding with detectives Sergeant Chris Reed and Inspector Paul Sheridan, who led the Pell investigation.
Of course, before the committal hearing the defence had been provided with the “hand up brief” which contained (or should have contained) all the relevant evidence the police have a duty of full disclosure. Obviously, this document would have been one basis for Richter’s cross-examination.[i]
By the “connections” I mean the network or milieu behind the complainant. Plainly, these include Barrett and Milligan who had spoken to or met up with him. Also relevant are the parents of the other boy who had died of heroin addiction in April 2014, and as we shall explain, figures such as witness former St Patrick’s Cathedral chorister Andrew La Greca and retired detective Doug Smith. The former but not the latter gave evidence at the committal.
In general, our perspective is to figure out what was going on and specifically, to look at the network in its chronology and communications. Here we are attempting to draw on what was said at committal. Our prejudice, so to speak, is the opposite of the Victorian Police. For it can be supposed that when faced with a series of apparently independent complaints the police felt that a reasonable case could be made out against the Cardinal. By contrast, our opinion has always been that the “planets aligned” mysteriously in or around May 2015 and that these facts would indicate a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
We are writing, however, literally from the other side of the world. We had no concern with the case prior to the publication of the verdict (splashed to us by Melissa Davey’s Five Times Guilty) and we only started researching after we read Frank Brennan’s Truth and Justice. For the most part we have drawn on open sources, gradually figuring out what we can, by a “logic of question and answer.” Clearly, this is a disadvantage as plainly, even the hand up brief may not tell the whole story. Of necessity we have to speculate in the hope that others may take up our leads.
The Victim
Let us begin by airing what we suppose the court must have learned from Pell’s complainant. Writing under correction, we think that that the death of his friend in April 2014 was inwardly momentous for the young man. J had known the other boy at least from 1996 when they started at St Kevin’s having won a choral scholarship to sing at St Patrick’s. Both boys would leave the choir by the end of 1997. Although they moved on to other schools, and gradually drifted away from each other, our sense is that for a good few years they were still in contact. We think that both boys had mothers who worried about their teenage sons in fact, the families were in touch as they lived nearby and car-pooled to school (and to the cathedral). J’s parents underwent a divorce in 1996, and we do not think that the one Milligan calls Mary was happy with the one she calls John.
We imagine J to have been a troubled soul, in the malaise of depression, drink and drugs and perhaps debt. The mother referred to him at one point as “desperate and confused,” a sign perhaps that J’s grasp on reality was at times tenuous.
It seems as though both mother and son attended the funeral of the other boy, and from that time he began to confide about some abuse suffered when he served as an altar boy in year six. The alleged perpetrator was Father Nazareno Galea who died in 2002, and J alleged that he had exposed himself to him in the sacristy. The priest shared a first name with Father Nazareno Fasciale who had become notorious, a fact that seems to have led to some confusion in the very earliest editions of Cardinal. Fasciale died in 1996. One wonders whether at some point J shared the same confusion.
Eventually in December 2014 J’s mother contacted Broken Rites about the identity of the Maltese priest, receiving an email in reply a couple of days later from Barrett who notified her of the clergyman’s death. It seems as though the mother was acting independently from the son who learned of the communications later though when exactly seems an unresolved point. One might expect that the mother, on learning that her son’s tormentor was dead, would have informed J promptly. This is perhaps a significant point as Barrett also advised that the son phone him and he recommended a lawyer, Dr Vivian Waller.[ii] The story seems to be that at that stage Pell’s name was not mentioned but then in June 2015 it became the topic of a conversation with Barrett. At Barrett’s urging J went on to make a complaint with SANO.
What appears to be clouded over is any communication between J and Barrett in the interim. Just how the allegations took shape remains in the dark.
The Signs of the Times
We shall, however, attempt to shed some light on the milieu of The Kid.[iii] It is perhaps worth noting that he came forward at the time when the Royal Commission into Institutional Sex Abuse heard witnesses for the Ballarat case study. It is not an exaggeration to speak of in terms of hysteria. So we find that one day before that phase of the Royal Commission commenced (on 19 May) the ABC ran an article on the Ballarat suicides.[iv] And one day after The Age posted a death call on its Facebook page to its 100k followers. As witnesses were heard throughout the coming weeks, commentators on Twitter, most especially @LyndsayFarlow delivered their hateful opinion the feed is pockmarked by nasty cartoons. Perhaps the high point (or for Pell, the low point) was Gerald’s Ridsdale’s testimony from jail the photograph of the accused accompanied by his supporter being widely shared. Later, at the end of May Australia was graced by a visitation from Peter Saunders.[v] He was an ardent champion of Carl Beech who had made the most lurid of allegations about a murderous sex ring in Westminster and he pronounced that Pell was a sociopath devoid of empathy. Tom Watson, incidentally, the MP who had championed that cause had visited Australia in 2013 when Operation Tethering was set up.
Finally, although we have entertained a degree of scepticism about the Billy Doe thesis (a pseudonym for an altar boy whose lies convicted two innocent priests, a lay teacher and a monsignor in Philadelphia of lurid tales including the imbibing of altar wine), we find Farlow tweeting Sabrina Erderly’s original article in Rolling Stone on 27 May.[vi] It is not improbable that J was affected by this atmosphere.
The Researcher
Let’s turn now to the first public witness at the pre-trial. Former state historian, and researcher of twenty five years for Broken Rites, Bernard Barrett was the first person (it seems) to hear that the complaint involved Pell. How remarkable. It was Barrett who had pressed Scott to make a complaint against the then Archbishop in 2002, a coincidence that ought to have set alarm bells ringing.[vii]
Barrett’s police statement given just one week after J’s initial complaint, however, suggested a minimalist involvement. While Galea is named, the clergyman who abused J in the side room of the Cathedral isn’t. Nor did Barrett show any awareness that the other boy was abused with him, though the impact of MR’s death is referenced. The story seems to have been that between an initial contact with the mother in December, and a later call with the son in June, the complaint went to SANO. After this Barrett had no further contact, and that was that.
This narrative would come under pressure from Pell’s defence. Clearly exasperated at Barrett’s evasiveness, Richter sought to undermine this minimalist account. Thus, and for example, he drew attention to details of the email exchange that was not mentioned in the police statement such as Barrett’s recommendation of Dr Vivian Waller as a lawyer.
Again, Richter cross-examined Barrett on his email exchange with the mother (he had never met her, nor his son) but on 4 June 2015, six months after initial contact, she emailed him about her son again and later J called the researcher himself. Barrett relates that he was told about some abuse at the Cathedral and although Pell’s name was mentioned he did not make a big fuss about it. On this point, Barrett’s in-court evidence was at odds with his out-of-court statement (in which Pell was not mentioned).
Moreover, though I am not clear about this, it appears that “two months before,” that is, in April, J had told Barrett about the death of the other boy generally speaking Barrett’s failure to keep notes or record dates did not make for transparency. We can remark, however, that it would have been relatively straightforward to establish the identity of the other boy from the published death notices.
At committal Richter cited the mother’s email of 4 June, and quoted Barrett’s communication with the son the same day:
J, on second thoughts I now think that you might get the attention of the SANO Task Force better if you would authorise me to ring Detective Doug Smith first so that I can explain to him that you would like to have an introductory chat with him or one of his team regarding two offenders. If you give the go ahead, I could do it on Friday morning and I can tell Sergeant Smith that you had some important information to give them. Then Sergeant Smith could arrange for someone to contact you to arrange a time to have a confidential meeting with you. What do you reckon, J? The choice is yours.
Richter went on to accuse Barrett of “big-noting” himself with SANO by raising the complaint on J’s behalf, a point picked up by Melissa Davey.[viii] Barrett rejected this forcefully explaining that it was difficult to get through to SANO at times, and this is why he was providing the direct line (to the thrice-mentioned Smith).
A day later,[ix] presumably in an email and presumably again to J, Richter cites Barrett who was incidentally contacted by SANO on “a different matter, not yours.” “So I took the opportunity of asking for a suitable phone number for a victim.” The identity of the detective to whom Barrett spoke, however, could not be recalled. Towards the end of the cross-examination we learn that J had mentioned Pell by name (though, to repeat, Barrett had not explained that point in his statement). Richter was incredulous Barrett simply had no reason whatsoever to omit this detail. The cross-examination ends with the barrister asking, “Is that the best answer you can give?”
What can we learn from this joust? Plainly, Barrett has tried to keep his cards close to his chest making those inclined to suspicion all the more eager to see them. The suggestion is that Barrett’s involvement with J was more extensive than he has let on, both to Richter and in his police statement. Moreover, we might infer that SANO were in the habit of getting in touch with this researcher, and that Barrett was especially linked to Smith who perhaps would be especially sympathetic. Clearly, these are stones that the suspicious would not leave unturned, though it does not appear that the police were so-minded.
Let us now turn to the journalist whom Barrett had actually met for coffee at the time of the RC.
The Investigator
Louise Milligan was equally cagey under cross-examination. She had met the complainants of the swimmers trial (Lyndon Monument and the recently deceased Damian Dignan) and also Michael Breen.[x] Her police statement was surprisingly late, being taken only in July 2017. This was after the police had twice made submissions to the OPP before pressing charges independently. In any case, it seems extraordinary that she had not been interviewed previously especially as at one point in the proceedings Richter would refer to the record of a complaint from J who was described as very angry about being contacted by the journalist. Obviously, the police had long had reason to speak to the investigator.
Though interrogated by Richter, Milligan repeatedly refused to give information that might reveal her sources. However, it seems that the date when she met with J was identified as Thursday 5 May 2016 we had at least guessed the day of the week as it was on that day that the two step is danced at the RSL, a detail helpfully supplied by the journalist on the first page of her award winning book. Moreover, it seems as though it was Thursday 12 May when Milligan met up with the “lovely” mother of the other boy, the one Milligan calls Mary. It was Milligan’s assistant, Andy Burns, however, who first contacted her.
As Cardinal related, and as the author repeated to the committal, Milligan had only the scantest of details before contacting J. How did she know about the Cathedral allegations? If we rule out Waller and the other boy’s mother, and of course J and his mother, the natural guesses include Barrett or Smith or perhaps the father of the other boy, the one Milligan calls John.
Those in the Know
The suspicious might wonder whether Barrett had been less than discrete. Thus, by coincidence, we find Peter Fox, in a tweet[xi] liked by Lyndsay Farlow, making an interesting but more than likely overlooked observation:
As we have pointed out, Peter Fox had been in contact with both Barrett and the Fosters from 2012, in fact, Fox is the only person on Twitter to refer to Barrett as “Bernie.”[xii] It is plausible to think that it was he who was the member of Broken Rites that Fox had met up with, and that the researcher was eager to share what was on his mind.
Both Fox and Farlow had tweeted on Pell regularly, including, of course through May 2015. As we have indicated, from Tuesday 19 May for three weeks the Royal Commission had heard witnesses for the Ballarat case study, and in that period we find on average about four tweets per day from each of them, with the pair tweeting to each other on average every other day.[xiii]
Milligan, too, appears to have become interested in Pell at that time. After the committal she spoke at Melbourne University Media Centre (at a forum that included Joanne McCarthy and others). The topic was holding priests and presidents to power.[xiv] She was described by some listeners as verging on the triumphal, and while saying that “she could not talk about the Pell matter” she foreshadowed that “there is more to come” and that “she could say so much more about Pell.” She explained that her interest in Pell came about because she had returned from covering the execution of some Australian drug-runners in Bali and recognising she was “down” from that experience, her editor sent her to Ballarat to cover the background stories of clerical sex abuse at St Alipius and other Catholic institutions where several alleged victims had become determined to shine a light on the perpetrators.[xv] To repeat, we know from Richter’s cross-examination of Barrett that he had shared a coffee with Milligan at around this time.
Finally, and to complete the Milligan to Barrett to Fox to Farlow to Milligan circle, we find that Milligan was communicating with Farlow on Twitter on 27 May.[xvi] No wonder that we find in the centre of this metaphorical circle a person of special interest. Milligan herself tells us that she had met with Phil Scott in May. The former accuser rebuffed the door-stepper (and Richter was able to draw from her the fact that she was aware that Operation Tethering had already tried in vain to resurrect the complaint) but it seems to us that the QC took his eye off the ball here. For Richter failed to pick up on a detail that Milligan was silent on at committal, but which she had recorded in Cardinal, namely that she told Scott that others had come forward.[xvii]
How could she have known that fact?
The Classmate
Milligan, however, consistently maintained the confidentiality of her sources, and would not implicate Barrett even when Richter explained to her that Barrett had told the court of their contact. Milligan was equally silent about another choirboy that she had met apparently in May 2016. The anonymity of Andrew La Greca was maintained in the 2017 edition, though it was easy to guess the identity after he appeared on Guilty after the verdict was out, and the name is given in the 2019 edition of Milligan’s book. Appearing with La Greca was Doug Smith who had probably formed a connection previously given that Smith had retired from Vic Pol in March 2016 yet La Greca had managed to like Smith’s first tweet.[xviii] This was a clue perhaps that he was on the scene when Smith was investigating yet the police would only take an official statement from La Greca on 19 July 2017, just a couple of days before the final statements in the hand-up brief from Reed and Sheridan.
From the first we were suspicious of the artifice related in the first edition. The story was that “one of the choristers volunteered to me that there was a boy who had that year become difficult at school. He couldn’t remember the name at first. I listed a random selection of other names from the choir, with The Choirboy’s buried in it. “That’s it!” his former classmate remembered. He told me that The Choirboy had become difficult at school angry and a bit of a bully.”
Yet on Guilty La Greca could remember his friend’s “cheeky smile” on the train. Moreover, from the trial we learn that La Greca was a friend of The Choirboy, and that despite some indications given out by Milligan in the later edition, they were contemporaries. Thus, the 2019 edition omits the 2017 “classmates” and makes a point of distinguishing La Greca the alto from the victims who were sopranos, and has La Greca as an older boy feeling responsible for his young friends yet all three were born in the same year.
Worse, another guess that we had made has proved correct.[xix] La Greca told the police that Pell had lived at the Cathedral, the context being that he used to drop in on choir practice. But Pell lived in Kew, a suburb 5 kilometres away, and so we find La Greca back-tracking on TV (though the audience would not have known about the false information). La Greca would prove a useful witness to the Crown: Portelli and Pell were not always together; each were to be seen on their own. The external procession was often disorderly: two choir boys could easily slip away. Finally, they could return through allegedly locked doors: La Greca was on hand to remember the doorstops propping them open.
La Greca is quite partisan, “humming” after the initial verdict and referring to the complainant as a hero, a man for others. How then did Milligan meet La Greca? The official story is as we guessed, a list from the sleeve of a CD produced in 1997 of Handel’s Messiah and directed by John Mallinson. With Andy Burns the ABC journalists contacted around 35 choirboys of the time this a full year before the police started to inquire about the choir. But how did they get the CD? It does not appear easy to track down from my limited experience, and the more likely source would seem to be one of those choristers. Clearly, if La Greca supplied the journalists then Milligan’s story is not simply artificial but a complete fabrication (as regards how they found La Greca). Another possibility is that Milligan obtained the CD from John, the “honorary probation officer,” who seems ready and waiting for the police with MR’s records and probably memorabilia.
The Honorary Probation Officer
John is highly suspicious too given the story put out to Adam Cooper.[xx] For on the one hand John is supposed to have remembered J well. He was a good boy who used to stay at times for weeks. At the funeral, however, he is unnoticed and only makes his acquaintance after hearing the CD that he recognised. Moreover, John wanted to stay in touch but simply lost the contact details. To us it seems as though John wishes it known a little too forcefully that he had no contact with The Kid whatsoever after the funeral.
At every stage in the legal proceedings John has mastered the art of finding a camera to plead his own cause for compensation which he may well pursue via the civil route. He clearly had a financial interest in J pursuing Pell, and we are not surprised to find that J was extremely concerned to learn Milligan’s source. The Kid seemed to have been worried about someone not Pell which is why he urges the reporter to keep investigating.
That mysterious apercu was not pursued at committal.
The Circle
Let us pause here.[xxi] From what we have learned about the committal proceedings we have discerned a circle surrounding the complainant. Scott had once stood in the centre, but now a new victim stands in his place and beyond that circle shrieks a wall of sound. Such is the milieu of The Kid.
Understandably, perhaps, at first the police might have believed in the several complaints relating to different times and places (though all emerging at roughly the same time). However, the circle we have sketched is not difficult to make out, and so the police cannot have looked too hard for it.
Worse, the connections that the committal established do not appear to have been disclosed in the brief what, precisely, was Doug Smith’s contribution to Tethering? What were the early connections with Milligan, Barrett, and La Greca?
These are some of the unresolved questions that require an answer.[xxii]
Many other dots remain unconnected, in particular, those relating to the way J would come to change his story. For example, neither the external procession nor the discovery of wine in the alcove were mentioned at first, details that the police would learn were immensely problematic.[xxiii]
However, eventually the relevant “memories” were retrieved (or altered) in ways that would suggest that J had received help. On the face of it we have here clear evidence for a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Who the coach or coaches were who helped iron out the difficulties, of course remains an unknown.
References:
[i] Another source, of course, was Milligan’s book: https://www.academia.edu/40135146/Milligans_Cardinal
[ii] Here see: https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/05/the-social-media-witch-hunt-for-george-pell/
[iii]https://www.academia.edu/38971195/The_Milieu_of_the_Kid
https://www.academia.edu/39186933/Milligan_and_the_Kid
[iv] Here see: https://www.academia.edu/39598957/Milligan_on_Plangere
[v]https://www.academia.edu/42901439/The_Diary_of_a_Witch_Hunter
[vi]https://twitter.com/LyndsayFarlow/status/604128645133688832
[vii]https://www.academia.edu/39313677/The_Credibility_of_Phillip_Scott
[viii]https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/14/george-pells-barrister-accuses-witness-of-trying-to-big-note-himself Surprisingly, only three tweets on Twitter include the words “Barrett,” “Richter,” and “Pell.” From Peter Fox and Lyndsay Farlow: https://twitter.com/search?lang=en-gb&q=barrett%20richter%20pell&src=typed_query
[ix] It is always possible that Richter’s tongue had slipped and that he was referring again to the 4 June email.
[x] In Cardinal, Milligan had expressed some nagging reservations about the man (whose name is explicitly mentioned), but as a matter of fact, these are not mentioned in her statement. Breen was quite uncooperative at the committal giving answers such as, “Whatever mate, whatever. Whatever works for you.” He was also upset with Milligan and claimed that he had never given her permission to mention him in her book, a claim she contested. See: https://www.academia.edu/39655329/To_Define_True_Conspiracy_Milligan_on_Breen
https://www.academia.edu/40569461/Believing_Victims_and_Institutional_Stupidity
[xi]https://twitter.com/Peter_Fox59/status/606432314067804160
[xii]https://www.academia.edu/42978110/On_the_Tweets_of_Glenn_Davies
[xiv]https://about.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2018/may/priests-to-presidents-holding-power-to-account
[xv] The Bali executions in April 2015 were covered here:
https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/meet-the-man-set-for-grim-role-in-death-of-bali-9/6281426
[xvi]https://twitter.com/LyndsayFarlow/status/603924387104960513 Coincidentally, Lucie Morris-Marr was busy that same day: https://www.academia.edu/40619146/Lucy_Morris_and_Margaret
[xvii] It has always surprised us that Milligan volunteered this piece of information as it would appear to give the lie that she was only involved in the investigation from February 2016 after Lucie Morris-Marr scooped with “Police Probe Pell.” But then, perhaps she considered honesty the most prudent policy as Scott might easily have embarrassed her had she remained silent on their encounter.
[xviii]https://www.academia.edu/38849150/Was_Doug_Smith_Milligans_Source
[xix]https://www.academia.edu/42939969/Evidence_from_the_Choir_Revisited
[xx] https://www.academia.edu/39072695/Walkabouthttps://www.academia.edu/39115056/The_Kid_The_Choirboy_and_The_Conjunction
[xxi] We might also discuss both Phil Nagle and Les Tyack at this point. Here see: https://www.academia.edu/39227198/The_Credibility_of_Les_Tyack
https://www.academia.edu/39355533/The_Heuristics_of_the_Eureka_Pool
[xxii]https://www.academia.edu/42602456/Questions_on_the_Get_Pell_Investigation
[xxiii] I have explained these points in several places at some length: https://www.academia.edu/43455861/On_the_Journey_to_the_Sacristy
https://www.academia.edu/42272446/How_the_Jury_were_Convinced
Related story: Victorian politician calls for inquiry into investigation of Cardinal Pell
