Roundup: Australian archbishop wins High Court appeal against sexual abuse convictions

George Pell, once the most powerful Australian in the Catholic Church, has walked free from prison after the nation's highest court overturned his child sexual abuse convictions.

Cardinal Pell, 78, had been serving a six-year jail sentence after a jury in 2018 convicted him of sexually abusing two choirboys in the 1990s, when he was the Archbishop of Melbourne - a decision that was upheld by the Victorian Court of Appeal in a two-to-one verdict in August 2019.

In a unanimous 7-0 decision delivered on Tuesday, the High Court of Australia ruled that there was not enough evidence to convict Pell "because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof."

"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," the judgment said.

The decision, which was delivered in front of a near-empty court because of COVID-19 social distancing measures, comes less than a month after the court heard two days of legal arguments from prosecutors and Pell's lawyers.

Only one of his alleged victims gave evidence at the trial, with the second having died in 2014.

In a statement released following the verdict, Pell said he held "no ill will toward my accuser."

"I have consistently maintained my innocence while suffering from a serious injustice," he said. "My trial was not a referendum on the Catholic Church; nor a referendum on how Church authorities in Australia dealt with the crime of paedophilia in the church."

"The point was whether I had committed these awful crimes, and I did not," the archbishop said.

Prosecutors alleged that the crimes were committed after Pell found the boys swigging altar wine in the priests' sacristy after mass in Melbourne's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The High Court said the Victorian Court of Appeal judges "failed to engage with the question of whether there remained a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place."

In a statement, Victoria Police, who began investigating Pell in 2015, said it respected the decision and would continue to provide support to the complainants, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"Victoria Police remains committed to investigating sexual assault offences and providing justice for victims no matter how many years have passed," the statement said.

"We would also like to acknowledge the tireless work on this case by Taskforce Sano investigators over many years."