13 and 14 February 2019 Pre-trial hearings take place for the swimmers trial. Prosecutors push to be allowed to submit evidence that Pell had a “tendency” to molest boys in swimming pools, including from a man who says that when he was a child in Ballarat Pell touched him on the genitals while playing with him in a pool.
But the man is unsure whether the touching was deliberate.
22 February 2019: Kidd finds the tendency evidence is inadmissible. It’s a significant blow to the prosecutor’s case.
26 February 2019: Prosecutors announce they have dropped the swimmers trial owing to a lack of evidence, and because one of Pell’s key accusers died in January 2018. As there is no longer a risk of prejudicing a jury, Kidd lifts the suppression order on the cathedral trial.
