From the Catholic Herald:
Cardinal Pell’s plans to appeal his conviction for rape have been thrown into confusion by an extraordinary statement from his own lawyer which describes the assault of which the cardinal was found guilty as a “plain vanilla sexual penetration case where the child is not actively participating”.
In the course of arguing that Pell did not deserve to be held in custody, Robert Richter QC gave the impression that he was conceding that Pell was guilty. This was apparently not his intention: Richter was trying to argue that if Pell had committed the offence, which the cardinal strongly denies, then it was a lesser crime than other assaults against children.