So many back-seat lawyers on reddit. It's absolutely comical how many people here think they understand law works.
Fair enough that it's likely none of us here are criminal lawyers, but at least read the court documentation before forming an opinion.
If you want to understand the decision in full detail read the complete documentation of it (or at least the summary):
http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VSCA//2019/186.html
Paragraph 78 is one of many examples of why witness A's testimony is seen as valid, and not a made up story.
The defence also decided not to put Pell on the stand. If they had, he would have the opportunity to shed some light on why witness A's might have lied or made up this accusation. This is a big part of his defence, however he chose to remain silent, which of course is his right and he doesn't have to prove his innocence, it is his guilt which needs to be proven. Normally one avoids the stand to prevent self-incrimintation, but in this instance he simply may not have had anything to explain Witness A's potentially false account and therefore his defence council would have advised him to not take the stand. (I believe this is explained around paragraph ~50)
The only thing the defence had as part of paragraph 60:The defence, for its part, contends that therecord of the trial reveals:
- inconsistenciesbetween A’s evidence and the evidence of the opportunity witnesses;
- inconsistenciesbetween his evidence and what are said to be undisputed facts;
- that Aconsciously altered his evidence when challenged, thus demonstrating hisuntruthfulness; and
- the inherentimprobability of A’s story.
obviously there is a lot to discuss about the trial, as it's 1178 paragraphs long. But you'll see the defence trying to make a lot of claims about what is and what is not possible about the testimony of Witness A, and the prosecution having relevant witnesses to state that the claims are indeed plausible and not impossible.
If you're lazy, read Paragraph 900 onwards to get an understanding of why Pell was convicted and why the testimony of Witness A was held to such high regard.
Until you read the documentation and understand the trial that you're trying to talk about, your opinion literally means nothing.
