"I hold no ill will to my accuser": Pell responds George Pell has issued a statement following the court’s decision. Dr Cathy Kezelman AM, president of the Blue Knot Foundation, said for many survivors the decision would be “crushing, as the immense courage it takes to stand up and be seen and heard is enormous”. She says: “To have to prove that you were abused and betrayed can be more than overwhelming given the profound impacts of trauma. “The child sexual abuse pandemic within the Catholic church has threatened the safety of millions of children, the adults they become and the very moral fibre of what it means to be human. Pell now has his freedom, but many abuse victims have never been free – trapped in the horror of the crimes which decimated their lives.” My colleague Melissa Davey has filed her news story on the court’s decision today. She writes: Cardinal George Pell, the former financial controller of the Vatican and the most senior Catholic in the world to have been found guilty of historical child sexual abuse, will be freed from prison and have his convictions overturned following a two-year legal battle. A Victoria police statement following the court’s decisions reads: We respect the decision of the high court in this matter and continue to provide support to those complainants involved. Victoria police remains committed to investigating sexual assault offences and providing justice for victims no matter how many years have passed. We would also like to acknowledge the tireless work on this case by Taskforce Sano investigators over many years. The court held that, on the assumption that the jury had assessed the complainant’s evidence as thoroughly credible and reliable, the evidence of the opportunity witnesses nonetheless required the jury, acting rationally, to have entertained a reasonable doubt as to the applicant’s guilt in relation to the offences involved in both alleged incidents. With respect to each of the applicant’s convictions, there was, consistently with the words the court used in Chidiac v The Queen (1991) 171 CLR 432 at 444 and M v The Queen (1994) 181 CLR 487 at 494, “a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof”. The court’s statement today begins: Today, the high court granted special leave to appeal against a decision of the court of appeal of the supreme court of Victoria and unanimously allowed the appeal. The high court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place. Just to be clear, this is the conclusion of the legal process in Australia. The high court has quashed his conviction. There will be no further trials. After more than 400 days in prison, he will be released today. High court"s judgment continued The high court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to Pell’s guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place. In other words, it wasn’t enough jurors they found the witness believable, compelling and honest. The other evidence should have called his account into question, the bench found. In a summary of the judgment, the bench said that “on the assumption that the jury had assessed the complainant’s evidence as thoroughly credible and reliable, the evidence of the opportunity witnesses nonetheless required the jury, acting rationally, to have entertained a reasonable doubt as to the applicant’s guilt in relation to the offences involved in both alleged incidents”. There was “a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof,” the bench found. Perhaps the most significant, the most anticipated criminal decision in Australian history was delivered to a half-empty courtroom, seven journalists and two lawyers. Four of the reporters (me included) were standing in the hallway. So utterly, utterly bizarre. The full judgment has just been sent to journalists and it has taken aim at the court of appeal in Victoria, which initially dismissed Pell’s appeal by a majority of two-to-one. The judgment says while the court of appeal majority assessed the evidence of the opportunity witnesses as leaving open the possibility that the complainant’s account was correct, their honours’ analysis “failed to engage with the question of whether there remained a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place, such that there ought to have been a reasonable doubt as to the applicant’s guilt”. “The unchallenged evidence of the opportunity witnesses was inconsistent with the complainant’s account, and described: (i) the applicant’s practice of greeting congregants on or near the cathedral steps after Sunday solemn mass; (ii) the established and historical Catholic church practice that required that the applicant, as an archbishop, always be accompanied when robed in the cathedral; and (iii) the continuous traffic in and out of the priests’ sacristy for 10 to 15 minutes after the conclusion of the procession that ended Sunday solemn mass.” We will have more details for you about the court’s reasons for its decision shortly. My colleague Ben Smee reported that the full bench was unanimous in allowing his appeal. The court’s ruling today means that Cardinal George Pell will be released from Barwon prison today. As we reported earlier, Pell was not in the courtroom. His lawyers will be informing him of the news as we speak. While my colleague Ben Smee reports that the convictions have been quashed, we are awaiting reasons from the court. Unfortunately, the court’s website has crashed. The High Court has quashed Cardinal George Pell’s convictions, unanimously allowing his appeal.