Church paedophile John Aitchison fails in appeal bid as judge says 'Pell did not change the law'

A jury found John Philip Aitchison, 70, guilty in 2018 of five counts of sexual intercourse with a child and seven counts of committing an act of indecency with a child.

Justice Michael Elkaim later sentenced him to nine years in jail, with a non-parole period of five years, describing the man as "unquestionably a paedophile".

The offences in question occurred between 1987 and 1989, when Aitchison, who later became a priest, was a deacon at the All Saints Anglican Church in Ainslie.

In one of the relevant incidents, which all involved the same teenage victim, Aitchison raped the girl on a pew after suggesting she could pray to be reunited with her dead dog.

Aitchison quickly appealed against the jury's verdicts, but dropped his challenge after being advised it had "almost zero chance of success".

An ACT Court of Appeal judgment, published on Friday, shows he decided to try again earlier this year, with his lawyers filing an application seeking leave to appeal out of time.

"After speaking to a number of solicitors informally and family members, [Aitchison] believed that his prospects of a successful appeal had increased significantly due to the High Court decision in [the case of Cardinal Pell]," Justice David Mossop wrote.

The High Court last year unanimously upheld an appeal by Cardinal Pell against his convictions for five child sex offences, finding the jury in his trial should have entertained a doubt about his guilt.

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Justice Mossop said Aitchison had contended, in his application, that the decision in Cardinal Pell's case "effected a change in the law or, for reasons which were not explained, the factual similarity rendered the prospects of an appeal greater".

However, the judge did not agree.

"The decision in Pell did not change the law," he wrote, noting the High Court had in that case recognised the continuing significance of a legal test established in 1994.

Justice Mossop added that it should go without saying that a mere factual similarity in the two matters was "not a basis to say that an appeal in this case has merit".

Aitchison also put forward a number of other proposed grounds of appeal in his application.

But Justice Mossop said the material before him suggested the proposed grounds were weak and the prospects of an appeal being successful were poor.

"I am not persuaded that there is a sufficiently arguable case of a miscarriage of justice as would warrant an extension [of time to appeal]," he wrote.

"Therefore, the application will be dismissed."

Aitchison's non-parole period does not expire until April 2023.

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