Pell threatens legal action

[slim]

Hopefully I'm not reposting...

Any SC's here? If so, are you okay for some pro bono work?


http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/cardi...508-1yamk.html

Cardinal threatens to sue over comedian's tweet
Nathan Partenza
May 8, 2012 - 5:01PM
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Lawyers for Cardinal George Pell have taken the unusual step of threatening to sue Twitter for defamation, claiming a tweet from comedian Catherine Deveny implied he was involved in the "sexual abuse of young boys".

A defamation claim sent to Twitter, based in San Francisco, on April 19 came after the social networking site allegedly failed to remove the offending tweet despite two complaint letters from Cardinal Pell's lawyers.

General Counsel for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, Jennifer Cook, requested Twitter remove the tweet on the basis it contained "unlawful, defamatory content".

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Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, appeared on the ABC's Q&A program for a one-off debate with atheist Richard Dawkins on April 9.

During the program, Cardinal Pell evoked laughter from the audience and sent the Twittersphere into a frenzy when he said: "When in England, we were preparing some young English boys...for Holy Communion."

A tweet sent by Deveny the following day, which she has since deleted, showed a picture of Pell's face surrounded by the partial quote: "When in England, we were preparing some young English boys".

Pell's lawyers say the omission by Deveny "intentionally and maliciously" took Cardinal Pell's actual comments "out of context".

"The publication ridicules Cardinal Pell and conveys to Australian readers the false and seriously defamatory imputation that Cardinal Pell is associated with the sexual abuse of young boys," the claim said.

The claim notes that while Twitter's computer servers may be outside Australia, the tweet was published in Australia and was therefore subject to Australian defamation law.

Mr Pell's lawyers said Twitter was "jointly and severally liable" with Deveny for the defamation and called for it to delete the tweet.

"Should it fail to do so, we will hold it liable for the damage and harm caused to Cardinal Pell's reputation," the claim said.

Deveny, who has more than 16,000 Twitter followers, issued a statement on her blog saying she apologised unreservedly for any hurt Cardinal Pell may have suffered and that she never intended to suggest he was a paedophile.

"Clearly it was significant enough hurt and embarrassment caused for him to lawyer up and spend the Catholic Church's money to pursue defamation action against Twitter and me," she said.

"There must have been deep deliberation over the decision to spend thousands of dollars of parishioners' money on legal fees.

"Spending money that could have been spent feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless or alleviating suffering, instead of on defamation litigation, clearly illustrates how serious the breach I allegedly committed was in the eyes of Cardinal Pell."

Deveny noted many other Twitter users had distributed the image and called on Cardinal Pell to "forgive" her.

The comedian is no stranger to controversy when it comes to Twitter. She was sacked as a columnist for The Age following tweets she made during the 2010 Logie Awards.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/ca...#ixzz1uGKyw1YY

So much for turning the other cheek. What a farking hypocritical arsehole.

[gruber]

I saw another pic with him and his pedo buddy

[the_gelf]

This is why SOPA and PIPA failed. This guy is nothing.

[wearestardust]

To paraphrase Tim Minchin:

Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker, he's a fucking motherfucker

Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the fucking fucker
Fuck the motherfucker, he's a total fucking fucker

Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker, fucking fuck the motherfucker

Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the motherfucking Pell

http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/

I commend the "what's new" link. Search for the word "Pell" on that page.

[Mother of Chaos]

RT @CatherineDeveny: Backstage #iq2oz @JulianBurnside has offered to represent me pro bono against Cardinal George Pell. Game on.

[wearestardust]

I've mentioned before that I'm not that enamoured of Deveny, but in this case: you go, girl.

[Logic please]

It's interesting that George was offended, despite the Deveney quote being word-for-word accurate, AFAIK. George's complaint appears to be that by omitting a subsequent phrase, a misleading impression may have been created about him and his views. He feels that he was unfairly quotemined or taken out of context, I guess:

Originally Posted by The standard is set!

Pell's lawyers said the omission by Deveny "intentionally and maliciously" took Cardinal Pell's actual comments "out of context".

Well, I think that most fair-minded people can agree with those general sentiments, after a fashion.

So, given George's new-found zeal for contextual quoting accuracy, and for fully and accurately representing the views and positions of others...





... no doubt he's currently busy drafting a fulsome mea culpa for his blatant quotemine and misrepresentation of Charles Darwin's views on theism during the Q&A debate with Richard Dawkins, as outlined here?

And methinks that George might reconsider his self-serving mangling on Q&A of Lawrence Krauss' A Universe from Nothing, stat! After all, George has self-set the standard that such matters should be pursued legally, and it's often observed that the US is a fairly litigous place...

Perhaps Richard Dawkins should also have a think about whether George's gratuitous unevidenced backhander that he hadn't read that same book, that he wrote the afterword for, might be creating a similarly unfairly misleading impression...

Y'see, presumably George wanted to elevate the quality of public discourse that should apply, and to take a public (and legal) stand on defending it. It naturally follows that he and his ilk should also abide by that elevated standard, and take all of the attendant consequences of failing to do so.

Because any other approach might come across as rank hypocrisy, no?

[Loki]

I thought George considered imaginary majic man and his institutions to be above (or perhaps beyond) the law, else he would have called the cops after every abuse allegation and allowed them to investigate right?

Double standards? Surely not.

[davo]

I suppose this opens up YEC's, woo artists, conspiracy theorists etc to defamation cases from scientists.

[Fearless]

Just the general reaction in the crowd that night on Q&A to his slip up is telling enough about how Joe Public sees the catholic church. Respect is out the window for bloody good reason and he needs to understand that too. He would have done better to accept how bad it sounded unintentionally and re-enforce their commitment to addressing the problems. They need to wear this problem until it is resolved (if ever) and keep a lower bloody profile.

It's not a funny subject of course but he is clearly not worth taking seriously and has not earned respect enough to demand it.