The last thing a raging fire burning out of control needs is for a jet of petrol to be sprayed on it.
But Cardinal George Pell’s defence counsel, Robert Richter QC, did exactly that at his client’s sentencing hearing on Wednesday. If Cardinal Pell was guilty, it was of a "plain vanilla sexual penetration case where the child is not actively participating,” he told the court.
Richter has since apologised for his inexplicably tasteless choice of words, which were seized on by the media to suggest - wrongly - that Pell's own lawyer was conceding his guilt. But the damage was done.
