Cardinal George Pell has admitted he was 'excessively optimistic' he would be granted bail after being wrongly convicted of child sex abuse charges. Australia's highest-ranking Catholic official was convicted in December 2018 of five counts of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral in 1996. He spent 404 days behind bars before his six-year jail sentence was overturned in a final appeal to the High Court in April 2020. Pell, who turns 80 next month, has since returned to his life in Rome having left his job as prefect of the Vatican's economy ministry in 2017 to face the charges. 'Looking back, I was probably excessively optimistic that I'd get bail,' Pell said during a candid interview from his flat in the Italian city.