Category Archives: Melbourne

The Kid and The Choirboy – the harrowing story of George Pell’s victims

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In this extract from Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, one boy’s family tell Louise Milligan the cataclysmic effect abuse had on him

This is the story of two teenage boys sent on scholarships from what were then Melbourne’s inner suburbs to a Catholic boys’ school – St Kevin’s College. St Kevin’s is in Toorak, Melbourne’s most exclusive precinct.

The school is wedged between the Kooyong Tennis Club and the Yarra River, and closed behind grand iron gates with gilded lettering. The boys wear boater hats and navy blazers, candy-striped with emerald and gold. While the area the boys came from has now gentrified, in the 1990s it might as well have been a different planet.

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‘Take him away, please’: George Pell hadn’t dressed for prison, but that’s where he went

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The only question on the agenda today was how long the man who once bestrode the Catholic world will be living behind bars

The script was bare. “Take him away, please,” said Judge Peter Kidd at 3.10pm and Cardinal George Pell picked up his stick, nodded to the guards fore and aft and walked through a blank door at the end of the dock into the underworld.

Nothing his barrister, Robert Richter, argued could have saved Pell from this fate.

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George Pell’s lawyer says child abuse was ‘plain vanilla’ sex as cardinal heads to jail

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Cardinal Pell is remanded in custody following his conviction for child sexual assault, which judge calls ‘callous, brazen offending’

Cardinal George Pell has been taken in custody following a sentencing hearing in which his lawyer, Robert Richter, described one of Pell’s offences as a “plain vanilla sexual penetration case where the child is not actively participating”.

After the hearing, with Pell’s lawyer having withdrawn his application for bail, the chief judge, Peter Kidd, said: “Take him away, please.” Pell will be sentenced on 13 March after his conviction for sexually assaulting two 13-year-old boys.

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Cardinal Pell guilty: Vatican treasurer convicted on child sex abuse charges – latest news

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George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two 13-year-olds in 1996 and 1997 at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne. Follow live updates
• Full report: Pell found guilty of child sexual assault
• Explainer: what has Pell been convicted of?
• Five times guilty: how Pell’s past caught up with him
• Journalists accused of breaking suppression order may face jail
• ‘Disgraceful rubbish’: the moment Pell reacted to child abuse allegations

Some detail on the process behind stripping someone of the Order of Australia.

in what circumstance could George Pell's Order of Australia be rescinded? per the Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General

-Council for the Order of Australia investigates
-recommends action to the GG
-process can't be finalised until end of court proceedings pic.twitter.com/eUlOXYL5v9

Another blow.

Richmond Football Club has today removed Cardinal George Pell as a Club Vice Patron. While acknowledging his right to appeal, the Club has formed a view that his association is no longer tenable or appropriate.

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Huge crowds attend Invasion Day marches across Australia’s capital cities

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Scott Morrison talks of his ancestor’s arrival on the continent, and defends celebration of Australia Day

• Hundreds attend first dawn service to be held on Australia Day

Scott Morrison has said 26 January 1788 was “pretty miserable” for his ancestor, in a speech defending the celebration of Australia Day, while tens of thousands of people joined Invasion Day marches around the country calling for the public holiday to be abolished.

Morrison told a citizenship ceremony in Canberra that his fifth great grandfather, William Roberts, arrived with the first fleet in a group that was “wretched, naked, filthy, dirty, lousy, and many of them utterly unable to stand, or even to stir hand or foot”.

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‘Please help me’: refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi tells of his Thai jail ordeal

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Exclusive: In an interview with the Guardian he pleads for his release and says he fears torture and jail if extradited to Bahrain

Hakeem al-Araibi, the refugee footballer from Bahrain who was detained in Thailand while on his honeymoon, has said he is “losing hope” and believes he will be tortured again or even killed if he is deported to Bahrain.

Speaking to the Guardian from Bangkok Remand Prison, a visibly distressed Al-Araibi said he was “terrified ” and that his fear was “getting worse every day”. Al-Araibi was given asylum in Australia in 2017 after fleeing his home country where he was persecuted for his beliefs, tortured in prison and convicted on a trumped-up vandalism charge.

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Aiia Maasarwe: 20-year old Melbourne man charged over Bundoora killing

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The Greensborough man has been charged with one count of murder and will appear at the Melbourne magistrates’ court

The Victorian police have charged a 20-year-old man with the murder of Palestinian student Aiia Maasarwe.

Maasarwe, a 21-year-old an Israeli national from the predominantly Arab city of Baqa al-Gharbiyye had been in Melbourne for six months, and was attacked just after midnight on Tuesday, Victorian police believe.

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Great Australian heatwave takes a breather – only to return again soon

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Late monsoon and lack of strong cold fronts cited as main reasons behind back-to-back spells of abnormally hot weather

This week’s record-smashing heatwave is over for now in Australia’s south-east, but the reprieve will be short-lived as temperatures build up again in the coming days.

A perfect storm, or rather the lack of one, is partly to blame for the extreme temperatures, with neither the northern monsoons nor the southern cool fronts making their usual appearances.

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Bundoora death: Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe on video call with sister when attacked

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The 21-year-old student at Melbourne’s LaTrobe University is believed to have been returning home from a comedy show

A young woman who was killed outside a Bundoora shopping centre was an Israeli student who was on a video call to her younger sister when she was attacked.

Aiia Maasarwe, 21, had been in Australia for about six months on a study abroad program at LaTrobe University.

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Victoria police falsified breath tests to meet ‘unachievable’ targets, inquiry finds

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Police ramped up breath testing target from 3.2m to 4.5m but had a ‘perverse’ incentive to limit the number of drunk drivers netted

An independent investigation has branded Victoria police’s widespread practice of falsifying breath tests as an “ethical failure”.

The former police chief commissioner Neil Comrie’s inquiry was unable to determine exactly how many times police had manipulated breath test devices to falsely inflate the number of tests conducted.

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Suspicious packages sent to US, Pakistani and other consulates in Melbourne

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Diplomatic headquarters in Canberra also targeted as firefighters remove bags labelled ‘Danger asbestos’

The United States, Pakistani, Swiss, Indian, South Korean and New Zealand consulates in Melbourne are among a number of foreign diplomatic headquarters across the city and in Canberra targeted with suspicious packages.

The deliveries on Wednesday sparked an emergency “hazardous material” response and, in some cases, evacuation.

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Far-right and anti-racism groups face off in Melbourne flashpoint

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A rally against immigration at St Kilda beach prompts counter-protests but police keep rivals groups apart

Tensions reached boiling point at St Kilda beach in Melbourne as hundreds of far-right wing extremists and anti-racism campaigners faced off in a screaming match and minor scuffles broke out.

Scores of police including some with riot shields and on horseback were on hand to keep the groups apart. A police boat kept watch from the water and two helicopters circled overhead.

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