Tapped Out: The ABC Lies For Its Cause
TO promote last night's Lateline - which included a third instalment in the ABC's taxpayer-funded jihad against the Archbishop of Sydney - Ali Moore interviewed George Pell on the 7.30 Report. (Video here). After the previous night's line-up of ultra-liberals and Pellophobes, the Cardinal may have welcomed the opportunity for a one-on-one chance to speak. Unbeknown to him, however, Ms Moore was point-woman for a new, entirely phony, Gotcha Mission. She revealed that police phone taps had been leaked to the ABC relating to the Goodall-Jones case. They record convicted sex offender, Fr Terence Goodall, admitting to Anthony Jones that the sexual encounter involving the two men - which followed a candle-lit dinner for two, a private swim and ended with Jones, then 29, sitting on Goodall's bed wearing only a towel - was not consensual. In other words, Goodall had confessed to a sexual assault. The tapes were made in 2003 but were evidently of no legal use for a rape charge in 2005 when the best that prosecutors could achieve against Goodall in court was a token sentence for an indecent assault charge using an antiquated law of convenience.
You might be asking yourself how a phone tap of which Cardinal Pell was unaware could possibly be contorted into a mark against him. Ali Moore attempted to solve that problem - a problem, that is, for the ABC - by arguing that Goodall never told investigator Howard Murray that the episode involving Anthony Jones was consensual and that no such testimony appeared in Murray's report. Ergo: Pell decided there was doubt surrounding consent of his own partial volition. Ms Moore: "In that report of Howard Murray there is nothing in it to indicate that Father Goodall insisted it was consensual, there was nothing about insistence of it being a consensual act." And: "Now given that there is nothing in the investigator's report regarding Goodall insisting it was consensual..." Ms Moore was mistaken or fibbing. Lateline itself told its viewers Monday night that "the report says that Fr Goodall raised the issue of an element of consent..." The Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday quoted Mr Murray as having reported that Goodall "agreed generally with Mr Jones's account" of the major sexual incident but that it was "more consensual, than forced upon Tony."
_____________________________________________________ _________________________________________________
_________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________
For obvious reasons, Lateline did not pursue that line. So Ali Moore gilded the lily or was untruthful. Why? To create a tawdry impression that Cardinal Pell had no real conundrum of conflicting testimonies to weigh but was shielding Goodall or was naively credulous regarding his most serious transgression out of a sense of clerical solidarity. In fact he acknowledged the other charges against Goodall in relation to Jones as upheld and stood him down. With no collaborative evidence, he was sceptical about a charge of rape vis-a-vis a 29 year-old. That view was vindicated in 2005 when Goodall could only be prosecuted on an expedient technicality rather than for aggravated assault. Ms Moore, without blushing, asked Pell how he could "make an innocent error, a mistake, an overstatement and use bad wording? How does that happen?" Well, she should know. So should Lateline anchor Tony Jones who falsely claimed in 2004 that Tony Abbott met Cardinal Pell to arrange for his mate The Arch to criticise Mark Latham's stance on funding for non government schools. Jones bungled the dates - to say nothing of the intentions. Oops. He never apologised.
That Goodall lied according to circumstance is obvious from what he says to Anthony Jones in the taped conversation of 2003: "I certainly did not say it was consensual, I don't know where they got that from." They got it from Goodall, of course, as the Murray report makes clear. Despite the admission - more likely a cur's attempt to placate a victim - Goodall refused to plead guilty to buggery two years later. It was presumably during those proceedings that Church lawyers became aware of the police phone taps. Without specifying the circumstances, Lateline reported the tapes were made available to them in 2005. No explanation was provided as to why Goodall's admission of guilt was apparently of no prosecutorial use in the court case of that year, for which a rape charge wasn't even made out. George Pell, to summarise, was originally accused by Lateline of falsely claiming - in a letter to Anthony Jones - not to have been aware that Goodall had had other charges made against him. That accusation was false. He was accused of a cover-up. That accusation was and is false. He was sceptical of the rape charge and was vindicated by a court case in 2005.
You might be asking yourself how a phone tap of which Cardinal Pell was unaware could possibly be contorted into a mark against him. Ali Moore attempted to solve that problem - a problem, that is, for the ABC - by arguing that Goodall never told investigator Howard Murray that the episode involving Anthony Jones was consensual and that no such testimony appeared in Murray's report. Ergo: Pell decided there was doubt surrounding consent of his own partial volition. Ms Moore: "In that report of Howard Murray there is nothing in it to indicate that Father Goodall insisted it was consensual, there was nothing about insistence of it being a consensual act." And: "Now given that there is nothing in the investigator's report regarding Goodall insisting it was consensual..." Ms Moore was mistaken or fibbing. Lateline itself told its viewers Monday night that "the report says that Fr Goodall raised the issue of an element of consent..." The Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday quoted Mr Murray as having reported that Goodall "agreed generally with Mr Jones's account" of the major sexual incident but that it was "more consensual, than forced upon Tony."
For obvious reasons, Lateline did not pursue that line. So Ali Moore gilded the lily or was untruthful. Why? To create a tawdry impression that Cardinal Pell had no real conundrum of conflicting testimonies to weigh but was shielding Goodall or was naively credulous regarding his most serious transgression out of a sense of clerical solidarity. In fact he acknowledged the other charges against Goodall in relation to Jones as upheld and stood him down. With no collaborative evidence, he was sceptical about a charge of rape vis-a-vis a 29 year-old. That view was vindicated in 2005 when Goodall could only be prosecuted on an expedient technicality rather than for aggravated assault. Ms Moore, without blushing, asked Pell how he could "make an innocent error, a mistake, an overstatement and use bad wording? How does that happen?" Well, she should know. So should Lateline anchor Tony Jones who falsely claimed in 2004 that Tony Abbott met Cardinal Pell to arrange for his mate The Arch to criticise Mark Latham's stance on funding for non government schools. Jones bungled the dates - to say nothing of the intentions. Oops. He never apologised.
That Goodall lied according to circumstance is obvious from what he says to Anthony Jones in the taped conversation of 2003: "I certainly did not say it was consensual, I don't know where they got that from." They got it from Goodall, of course, as the Murray report makes clear. Despite the admission - more likely a cur's attempt to placate a victim - Goodall refused to plead guilty to buggery two years later. It was presumably during those proceedings that Church lawyers became aware of the police phone taps. Without specifying the circumstances, Lateline reported the tapes were made available to them in 2005. No explanation was provided as to why Goodall's admission of guilt was apparently of no prosecutorial use in the court case of that year, for which a rape charge wasn't even made out. George Pell, to summarise, was originally accused by Lateline of falsely claiming - in a letter to Anthony Jones - not to have been aware that Goodall had had other charges made against him. That accusation was false. He was accused of a cover-up. That accusation was and is false. He was sceptical of the rape charge and was vindicated by a court case in 2005.
<< Home