Judge says disgraced cardinal Pell deserves justice as sentencing begins

Pell is "entitled to the balanced and steady hand of justice", Chief Judge Peter Kidd told the court, lamenting a "lynch mob mentality" among some of the public. "You are not to be made a scapegoat," he said.

"I am not sitting in judgment of the Catholic Church," Kidd said, vowing to deal with only the facts of the case. Pell faces a maximum sentence of 50 years in jail for abusing two boys in 1996 and 1997.

Going through the crimes in graphic detail, Kidd said that Pell's actions had a "profound impact" on the life of the boy who survived his abuse and likely had a similar impact on a boy who later died of a heroin overdose. Assaulting two choirboys in a Melbourne cathedral with both present likely caused additional "degradation and humiliation".

He accused Pell of "callous indifference" to the suffering of the boys, who have not been named.