So prosecutors are unfairly out to get George, due to his status as a clergyman. And the evidence for this is how rarely they’ve gone after other clergy? :dubious:
What’s so special about right now, that the status of Catholic clergyman has gone from such an effective shield to being chum in the water? And what’s you evidence for that. People have been upset about sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church for decades.
He created his own narrative that he was guilty by refusing to “come home” as the OP put it.
And I will point out that the law also allows judges to punish people as an example. If he’s guilty, then it makes sense to throw the book at him.
If he’s not, then he needs to stop acting like a guilty person. If people think he’s guilty, it won’t matter if the trial says otherwise. It will still harm the Church.
There’s two different issues here BigT. When the thread started last year, Cardinal Pell had been summoned to appear before (what we call here in Aus) a Royal Commission into Clergy Abuse. He was wanted to answer questions about how much knowledge he had of clergy within his Diocese abusing children. Very simple, but he was apparently too ill to travel to Australia to face the board. That Commission is still ongoing btw.
The thread was bumped yesterday because now Cardinal Pell has had charges laid for being a child abuser himself, dating back quite some years.
The plot thickens…
Without comment on Mr Pell’s case specifically, I have to say I am uncomfortable with the idea of charging people with “historical” offences, especially from a decade or more previously.
Where do you draw the line?
Many murderers get away with their crime for years until some evidence or witness comes forward. Should the murderer not be charged because the crime happened > 10 yrs ago?
Why should any other crime against a person be treated differently?
So … any Auschwitz prison guards still out there in hiding, it’s OK, **Martini’s **got your back…
Murder, basically.
Why shouldn’t it? Personally, I think the resources, stress (especially on the accused) and time required to prosecute many historical offences far outweigh the wider benefits in doing so.
So you don’t give much weight to actual justice then? Gotcha.
Hundreds of case raised by the Royal Commission have been referred to the police over the past couple of years. Not all of these will have led to charges (and they relate to a range of public institutions). It’s not surprising that at least one of these would be high profile.
It often takes abuse victims a long time to report, for a range of reasons. I know of one case of a man aged in his 70s reporting past abuse to the Commission, having never disclosed it before because he was too ashamed (In that case I assume the perpetrator is likely deceased, and I doubt it was referred to police).
I think historical allegations do make the court case more difficult to prosecute, but allegations shouldn’t be viewed as suspicious solely because they are historical.
That said, I don’t know whether Cardinal Pell is innocent or guilty - I don’t have sufficient details about the evidence, and will leave it to the courts.
As I mentioned upthread, the charges against Pell have not been made public yet. And like you, I have no idea whether he is guilty of any of these (as yet) unspecified charges. Time and the courts will tell.
“Is this worth the expense, effort, and resources?” is a component of “actual justice”.
I’m sure you’ll dig up a cite for the above, but would you consider ‘cold-cases’ being closed ‘just’ (despite successes of cold-cases being solved many decades after the fact) because it is not work the expense, effort or resources?
Would you like to propose this to victims of crime, or even families of missing folk who are presumed dead? One week after the fact, six months, 20 years?
Like I said, murder is the exception IMO. Otherwise, yes, I would be happy with non-murder or otherwise extremely significant cold cases being closed after a fairly long time (maybe 15-20 years) when it’s pretty obvious they’re never going to get solved, or punishing the perpetrators for something so far in the past really isn’t productive.
Take the DB Cooper case - even assuming he survived, it was 45 years ago. The FBI have suspended active investigation of the case, presumably acknowledging old mate is either dead or long vanished and it’s not worth the resources to keep looking into it anymore.
Did you read my earlier point where I excluded murder from this?
Having said that, I think there is a point where we have to accept missing people are dead, although the time frame would depend on the nature of the disappearance IMO.
Isn’t finding and charging a perpetrator productive in itself?
You do understand that whilst we accept victims are likely dead, we as a civilised community want to understand why? Should Daniel Morecombe’s mum and dad have stopped their search after x months? While the Beaumont kiddies have been missing for 50 years now, should they be just shoved to the back of the filing cabinet because JUSTICE?
Nah, bugger that.
Not if it’s been a really, really long time since the offence, no, IMHO.
You’re confusing my belief that people who disappear for long periods of time are almost certainly dead with the idea murderers should never be charged, no matter how long it takes to catch them. For the third time, that’s not my view. There should be no statute of limitations on murder.
Should there be a statute of limitations on other crimes against a person? Are there circumstances where a charge of assault cannot be laid until many years after the event…should the perp be given immunity because of the time lapse?
It seems pretty clear that his answer is yes.
Didn’t ask you Ambi 
Yes, definitely. The time to say something was fairly soon after the assault, not years later.
Why should crimes against a person be treated differently to crimes that lead to loss of life?