It was a ground-breaking legal case that no one was allowed to talk about, an unnamed defendant who everybody could name was found guilty of five counts of child sex offences.

The case went to the Victorian court of appeals, who still agreed the defendant was guilty. Cardinal George Pell was sentenced to prison where he was to spend what could very well have been the remainder of his life, until a high court ruling overturned the decision this past Tuesday.

Pell is a free man for now, but he’s not in the clear yet as more civil lawsuits hang in the wind. The case has been socially and legally complex, with many people unable to understand how someone convicted of crimes of this nature could now be acquitted.

We were joined to help us understand the case by Senior Lecturer Mark Thomas from the Queensland University of Technology.