Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd QC, senior crown prosecutor Mark Gibson SC and crown prosecutor Angela Ellis.

* There were opportunities for Cardinal George Pell, newly-installed as Archbishop of Melbourne, to sexually abuse two choirboys in the late 1990s. Evidence that the boys slipped away unnoticed from the post-mass procession because of "mischief" and were "caught" by Pell while drinking wine in the priest's sacristy, withstood defence arguments.

* Pell used the priest's sacristy to vest and disrobe during Sunday mass because of renovations which rendered the Archbishop's sacristy unusable. There were times Pell was left alone while still robed. It was still possible for Pell to expose his penis to the boys while robed because of slits in the alb, an under-tunic, which were designed to access pockets.

* Neither victim reported the abuse at the time but that does not mean it didn't happen. Mr Gibson quoted the surviving complainant: it "took a courage much later in life" to even consider speaking out. He feared jeopardising his scholarship to the prestigious St Kevin's College, making things difficult for his parents and struggling to understand what had happened and if it was "normal".

Barristers Robert Richter QC and Ruth Shann.

* The prosecution timeline relied on 10 "independently impossible" events involving 40 or more people occurring within the same 10-minute window in order for the events to have happened and gone unnoticed. That includes: the two 13-year-old boys slipping away from the middle of the post-mass procession without being seen; Pell being alone and robed in the sacristy and not on the cathedral steps; and there being no other priests or altar servers moving between the sanctuary and priest's sacristy as was their practice after mass.

* It would have been "inhumanly possible" for Pell to expose his penis to the boys while wearing the Archbishop's robes. The ensemble was made up of the alb, an ankle-length white under-tunic which included two slits to allow access to pockets, locked into place around the waist with a knotted rope cincture. A decorative chasuble was worn over top and, on special occasions a dalmatic as well. Pell required help robing and disrobing and Pell's master-of-ceremonies recalled only twice in five years not assisting.

* The surviving complainant's memories aren't of real events, but are a far-fetched fantasy that he, now aged in his 30s, may have come to believe as the truth. Mr Richter pointed to the fact neither victim came forward immediately, that the complainant who has since died denied being abused when asked directly by his parents, and that after the first incident involving both boys the surviving complainant did not warn his friend when he was later abused again.

Australian Associated Press