There was a media uproar as 12 Australian media companies pleaded guilty in the supreme court of Victoria to contempt of court as they had breached the gag order imposed by the county court of Victoria preventing Cardinal George Pell from being named in the country as a convicted child sex offender until February of 2019.
The media companies charged included The Herald and Weekly Times, News Life Media, Queensland Newspapers, Nationwide News, Advertiser Newspapers, Fairfax Media Publications, Mamamia, Allure Media, General Television Corporation, Radio 2GB Sydney, the Age Company and Geelong Advertiser.
The guilty pleas are a part pf a plea bargain that was offered to end the trial, apart from this the chargers against the journalist and editors were also dropped as the entire company took the blame for the breach of law and not just the individuals that worked on the stories along with the contempt chargers were also dropped against the companies.
None of the media companies or the individuals working for the companies ever mentioned Pell’s name when the stories were being published or aired before the gag order came to an end, the prosecution argued that there were certain terms that were used such as “ high-profile Australian” and “being convicted” were prejudicial to legal proceedings.
It was in December 2018 that cardinal Pell was convicted in the count court of Victoria by a jury and chief judge Peter Kidd of “one charge of sexual penetration of a child under 16 years and four charges of committing an act of indecency with or in the presence of a child under the age of 16 years.” The abuse of this child supposedly took place in the St. Patrick’s Cathedral where Cardinal Pell served as the Archbishop of Melbourne.
Pell’s conviction was later on quashed by the High Court of Australia in an h=judgement released in April 2020. A Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was also released in 2020 as they found out that Pell knew about child sexual abuse in the 1970’s committed by clergy personnel but did not do anything about it.
After Monday’s hearing, Supreme Court of Victoria prosecutor Lisa De Ferrari commented “The prosecution has resolved. Each corporate respondent has indicated that it will plead guilty in respect of each publication for which they are charged to contempt by breaching the proceeding suppression order. Given the plea and acceptance of responsibility in respect of each publication, and other matters relevant to an assessment of the public interest, the [Director of Public Prosecutions] has determined that it is in the public interest to withdraw the remaining charges.”
