The Crown Prosecutor’s Retraction



The first of the two incidents supposedly took place shortly after a Sunday Solemn Mass on either December 15 or December 22, 1996, in the priests’ sacristy of the cathedral. This was a room in which then Archbishop Pell was assisted by the cathedral’s master of ceremonies, Charles Portelli, to robe before the Mass, and to disrobe afterwards. It was the room to which altar servers returned sacred objects used in the Mass and in its exit procession. What remained of the sacramental wine was returned there, and the cash from the worshippers’ collection was deposited in its vault. It was out of bounds for choirboys.

The sole choirboy complainant said he and his companion (who died of a drug overdose in 2014) had broken all the rules and ventured into the unlocked priests’ sacristy shortly after their post-Mass procession had ended. They found some wine and started drinking it, when Pell suddenly appeared. The fully-robed Archbishop was unaccompanied and there was nobody else but him and the boys in the room for the next five or six minutes while the alleged abuse occurred.

The defence argument was that this scenario never took place. At the time the choirboys supposedly arrived at the sacristy it would have been already occupied by the altar servers, who were ahead of the choirboys in the post-Mass exit procession. The altar servers included the crucifer carrying the cross at the head of the procession, the censer bearer with incense, and other acolytes assisting the service. They would then assist the sacristan remove other liturgical objects from the cathedral sanctuary to the sacristy, clean them, and store them properly there. The objects included the wine chalice and cruets, bread patens, altar cloths, water jugs and flowers. The crucifer left the cross on display in the priests’ sacristy and protocol demanded those who followed him bow to it before starting their duties in the room.

The timing of these activities was crucial. The defence argued there was a “hive of activity” at the time, with between six and twelve people coming and going from the sacristy for a period of ten to fifteen minutes after the altar servers first arrived. The room was never empty for Pell to assault the boys, or indeed for the boys to even go there.

However, the Crown prosecutor, Mark Gibson, argued that as soon as the altar servers arrived at the sacristy they bowed to the cross and then left the room and went elsewhere. For the next five or six minutes, the sacristan Max Potter waited for cathedral worshippers to have a “private time” of prayer near the sanctuary. At the end of this time gap or hiatus, Potter would give the altar servers the “green light” to come and perform their duties. It was during this five-minute hiatus, which Gibson called an “interval of decorum” in the cathedral, that the boys supposedly entered the sacristy, where Pell found them.

So where did the altar servers go while all this was happening? Where was the “elsewhere” they went to?

During the trial on December 3, 2018, this question produced a genuine courtroom drama. In his final address to the jury, Crown prosecutor Gibson tried to argue that during the “interval of decorum”, the altar servers went to a place he called “their worker sacristy”. But Ruth Shann for the defence protested to Judge Peter Kidd that Gibson was not sticking to the trial evidence; he was making it up. Kidd obviously agreed because later that day Gibson retracted his earlier version of events. The scene reads like something from the script of a good television series. Here is an edited version of the transcript:


Altar servers, according to McGlone [an altar server in December 1996], go in to priest sacristy, bow to the crucifix to end the mass, according to McGlone, before returning to their worker sacristy awaiting the interval of decorum, that Potter and Portelli spoke about, that must elapse before clearing duties can begin. Poking around the corridor, priest sacristy door unlocked and opened, altar boys [altar servers] go in, bow to the crucifix before returning to their worker sacristy awaiting this interval of decorum before people can attend the sanctuary to start their clearing duties.

The prosecutor went on to say (at 1461):


Ms Shann for the Defence put this to the judge:





The altar servers would have entered the Priests’ Sacristy and bowed to the crucifix, marking the end of the formal part of the Mass. The altar servers would then have left the Sacristy — either for the workers’ room, where they disrobed, or for the sanctuary to assist Potter. The Priests’ Sacristy would be unlocked and open.

The Crown’s case was that A and B then entered the Priests’ Sacristy. They were shortly followed by the applicant [Pell]. The offending occurred for 5–6 minutes. It was only after A and B [the choirboys] left the Priests’ Sacristy after the first incident that Potter and/or altar servers first returned to the Priests’ Sacristy with items from the sanctuary.

Although the defence protested at the trial that this version of events had no evidence to support it, in the new DPP submission there is a footnote to the claim that “the altar servers would then have left the Sacristy — either for the workers’ room, where they disrobed, or for the sanctuary to assist Potter”. Footnote 224 references two passages of the trial’s transcript where it records questions put to the sacristan, Max Potter.

Anyone who compares the trial transcript in these passages with the claims made by Gibson in the new DPP submission will be puzzled, to say the least, because they don’t support his case. The actual pieces of the transcript the DPP cites are lines 8 to 25 in paragraph 496, where Gibson questions Potter about where the altar servers disrobed after finishing their sacristy duties. They did not disrobe in the sacristy themselves, Potter said, but in a room they called the “candle room”, which he clarified for his questioner as the “altar servers utility room” [a room opposite the priests’ sacristy, called “utility” in the court’s floorplan of the cathedral — also known as “workers’ room” and “workshop”.] There is nothing in lines 8 to 25 about the altar servers retreating to this room for a five-minute hiatus, and no mention of a “green light” telling them when they could resume their tasks in the sacristy.

But then in lines 26 to 28 of the same paragraph 496 — lines which are not cited in the DPP’s footnote but which anyone checking the transcript can readily see — Gibson’s questioning continues:

26 You say that they derobe in the altar servers room or the
27 utility room after they had assisted you in clearing the
28 sanctuary? — Correct, yes

In other words, Potter’s full examination not only fails to support the DPP’s submission, it says the opposite of what the DPP claims in its text. The altar servers only went to the utility room after they had performed their duties moving things from the sanctuary to the sacristy, not before. This confirms that in the original trial, both Ruth Shann and Judge Kidd were correct to call for Gibson to retract his assertion, since it ran counter to the evidence.

The second citation in the footnotes to the DPP text is to the transcript’s paragraph 518, lines 5 to 7, when Pell’s defence counsel Robert Richter is questioning Potter. In these lines, also, Potter provides no support for the DPP’s claims. Potter does not mention any altar servers leaving the sacristy and waiting in the ”workers room” for the interval of decorum to pass. Lines 5 to 7 in paragraph 518 records Richter questioning Potter as follows:

5 The altar servers would bow to the cross, and what would happen
6 then? —They would go into the workshops or the
7 sacristies and disrobe.

Potter seems to have misunderstood the question because his answer was not about what happened “then”, that is, next, but what happened when their duties were all done and they could disrobe in the “workshops” or utility room. But, in any case, Potter cleared up the issue shortly afterwards when answering the following questions from Richter [paragraph 518, lines 23 to 31]:

23 And the other altar servers would then go into the priest’s
24 sacristy? — Sacristy.
25 And in the priest’s sacristy they would do their bows? — Bow,
26 yes.
27 Then they would go and follow directions as to what they should
28 do with the various vessels and — ? — Yes, yes.
29 All right. So at that stage you’re at the priest’s sacristy,
30 is that right? — Yes.
31 When they do that, when they arrive? — Yes.

Needless to say, the DPP submission does not cite these lines in its footnote. They make it clear that when the altar servers first arrive in the sacristy they bow to the cross, and then immediately turn to Potter and follow his instructions about what to do with the various items from the Mass. The altar servers did not retreat to the utility room until after they had assisted Potter clear the sanctuary of its “various vessels” and stored them safely in the priests’ sacristy.

Hence, there is no hiatus when the choirboys or Pell were in the priests’ sacristy on their own. From the moment the altar servers entered the room it was plainly a “hive of activity”. The altar servers did not have to wait five-or-six minutes for Potter’s “green light” (a concept completely absent from any of the evidence) to tell them to come and start their duties. They began their work as soon as they had arrived and bowed.

In short, the footnote references to Potter’s answers to Gibson and Richter do not support the prosecution’s formerly retracted, but now newly revived, case. Instead, they refute it. Such are the standards of legal argument that now prevail within the Victorian Department of Public Prosecutions.

Keith Windschuttle is the editor of Quadrant

  • PT

    Even if the Altar Servers did “retreat” for 5 minutes (the outside procession would eat into this time considerably), what about the other Clergy? Where are they? Are they not also heading to the Sacristy where they do disrobe?
    The tale has more holes than Swiss Cheese. The fact that the prosecution is reduced to presenting speculation as if its evidence is quite damning! You have to wonder about the accuser, is anything else known about him? Prejudice and “believe the victim” are essential to secure a guilty verdict in this case. There’s stronger evidence against Gillard in the AWU affair, yet neither her, nor Wilson were ever charged!

  • Peter Smith

    You have to hope that the defence lawyers and, through them, the high court judges are alive to the issue Keith incisively raises here and to his previous contributions. I fully expect a unanimous acquittal. How in any rational world could there be any other verdict. Moreover, it is up to the high court to ensure that dated cases, dependent solely on the uncorroborated say-so of one complainant, and to boot in the most unlikely and improbable of circumstances, are never in future brought within cooee of a court of law.

  • Doubting Thomas

    And if there was ever compelling evidence for the Federal Government to force the total clean out of the ABC’s news and current affairs, the Pell case provides a superabundance.

  • zsn.sony

    In his dissenting verdict justice Weinberg stated the following:
    “364 The procession was headed by several adult altar servers. There then followed the choir, which was led by the sopranos (these being the younger boys). Next came the altos, the tenors, the baritones, and then the basses. More adult altar servers followed the choir. THEY, IN TURN, WERE FOLLOWED BY ANY PRIESTS, INCLUDING CONCELEBRANTS, WHO HAD ASSISTED IN THE MASS [emphasis added] … ”
    What happened to these priests? Having known several priests who took part in many such processions (including processions with Cardinal Pell) I made some inquiries and I learned that the priests in question had no compelling reason to leave the sacristy immediately after arrival. On the contrary, after disrobing they customarily waited for the Archbishop to arrive to bid him their farewell. Therefore, there could never be any “hiatus” during which the alleged offense could take place! This, I believe, has been overlooked by Cardinal Pell’ s defense team!


    Magna Carta clause 38 provides that no one shall be put on trial of the unsupported word of a royal official -let alone convicted.

  • zsn.sony

    PT – 9th February 2020 asked a question: ” … You have to wonder about the accuser, is anything else known about him? … ”

    Consider the following::
    “‘ … Cardinal Pell’s legal team were on Tuesday denied access to a report regarding one of the complainants when he came before a court.
    Barrister Robert Richter QC said the report was tendered to the court by the alleged victim’s lawyers in an effort to mitigate his sentence, and for him not to have mentioned any allegations against Cardinal Pell at that time “speaks volumes”.
    “It is critical to the credibility of those allegations … when it was entirely in [the complainant’s] interests to make the suggestion of sexual abuse by the Cardinal that no allegation was made,” he said. … “‘

    Since there was an effort to mitigate the sentence, there must have been a sentence, which means the complainant in question is a convicted criminal. It can only be the surviving complainant (of the two involved), since the deceased one never made any complaint to the police : Justices Ferguson & Maxwell ” 51 A made a complaint to police in June 2015. B died in 2014, having never made any complaint to police. … ”

    Also : Justice Weinberg ” 925 In the present case, the prosecution relied entirely upon the evidence of the complainant to establish guilt, and nothing more. [222] There was no supporting evidence of any kind from any other witness. Indeed, there was no supporting evidence of any kind at all. These convictions were based upon jury’s assessment of the complainant as a witness, and nothing more.”

    So here we go … Cardinal Pell was convicted solely on a word of convicted criminal.

  • PT

    Interesting zsn. But is this “the kid” or is it referring to the other claims from the Ballarat swimming pool, wildly promoted by 4 Corners? We know some of them were convicted criminals!

  • john1

    Nobody knows the exact date this crime was supposed to have happened and the Cardinal is guilty?????

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