The court ruled there is a significant possibility that an innocent person had been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof.

“The High Court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place,” the summary of the decision said.

The judgement was delivered to an almost empty courtroom in Brisbane because of national restrictions on travel and public gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The court’s seven judges ordered the convictions be quashed and verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place.

Pell, who has maintained his innocence, cannot be retried on the charges, ending the most high profile case alleged sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church.

The 78-year-old cardinal was the highest ranked Catholic official in the world to have been jailed for child sex offences when he began serving a six-year sentence a year ago.

He was charged in 2017 with one charge of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and four charges of an indecent act with a child under 16, which the plaintiff said took place when Pell was archbishop of the city of Melbourne.

Pell’s first trial ended in a hung jury, before the jury in a second trial unanimously found him guilty in 2018.

Pell did not take the stand at either trial.

The cardinal’s first appeal went to a court in Victoria, where a majority of two judges against one upheld his conviction.

Pell’s lawyers then took the case to the High Court, arguing that the Victoria appeals court had made an error in shifting the onus of proof to the defence and in finding that it was open to the jury to find Pell guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

The High Court said the lower court of appeal had “failed to engage with the question of whether there remained a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place, such that there ought to have been a reasonable doubt as to the applicant’s guilt”.

Pell was appointed by Pope Francis in 2014 to overhaul the Vatican’s vast finances but was stripped of his role last year after being charged.

He has remained a cardinal despite pressure on the church from victims of sexual abuse and their advocates to dismiss him.

Pell has released a statement in his first public comments since being jailed.

“I have consistently maintained my innocence while suffering from a serious injustice,” he said.

“I hold no ill will to my accuser, I do not want my acquittal to add to the hurt and bitterness so many feel; there is certainly hurt and bitterness enough.

“However my trial was not a referendum on the Catholic Church; nor a referendum on how Church authorities in Australia dealt with the crime of paedophilia in the Church.

“The point was whether I committed these awful crimes, and I did not.”

Victoria Police said in a statement following the decision: “We respect the decision of the High Court in this matter and continue to provide support to those complainants involved.”