The High Court judged that no rational jury could have convicted Cardinal Pell on any of the charges. The evidence at trial, the judges ruled, left behind an incorrigible “reasonable doubt.” These judges’ task did not require them to say more than that. But the unbiased reader of their judgment (as well as Weinberg’s encyclopedic, masterful opinion) would easily draw the inference: Nothing happened. A’s whole story, with respect to both alleged incidents, was “fanciful.”
The High Court listed the legal mistakes responsible for the miscarriage. One was that the lower court judges (and, evidently, the jurors, too) effectively applied a double standard to the two sides . . . .