Sex abuse counselling service Blue Knot Foundation slams George Pell

A trauma counselling service for sex assault victims has slammed George Pell's jail sentence, saying it was a "mockery of accountability".

Cardinal Pell was sentenced to six years jail on Tuesday after being found guilty of orally raping a 13-year-old choirboy and molesting another at St Patrick’s Cathedral after a Sunday mass.
Blue Knot Foundation president Cathy Kezelman said the length of sentence was not as much as her organisation had hoped.

“It’s profoundly disappointing for survivors whose own lives have been destroyed by the crime of child sexual abuse,” she said in a statement released shortly after Pell was sentenced.

“It also makes a mockery of the concept of true accountability and is not a sentence commensurate with the crimes committed and the harm reaped.”

The sentence was handed down in front of a packed courtroom and a global television audience streaming across the globe.

Pell, who was until late-February the Vatican’s treasurer, is the highest-ranking Catholic to be convicted and jailed for child sexual abuse.
Dr Kezelman said while seeing a man of Pell’s status being convicted gave victims hope, the sentence itself was devastating.

“Instead of hope, many will feel despair. It is high time that sentences are informed by the destruction of victims’ lives, regardless of who the accused is,” she said.

“Nothing will ever compensate victims for the harm done to them when they are sexually abused as a child and in this case, one of the victims is dead.”