Archbishop denies charges
Adelaide’s Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson has again tried to stop criminal proceedings against him over claims he concealed a colleague’s sexual abuse of a young boy. In the NSW Court of Appeal yesterday, his lawyer, Bret Walker SC, questioned the validity of the offence with which the archbishop is charged.
ADELAIDE’S Catholic archbishop has again tried to stop criminal proceedings against him over claims he concealed a colleague’s sexual abuse of a young boy.
In the NSW Court of Appeal yesterday, his lawyer, Bret Walker SC, questioned the validity of the offence with which Archbishop Philip Wilson is charged. He is accused of concealing information about the 1971 sexual assault of a 10-yearold boy by the now-dead pedophile priest James Fletcher in the NSW town of Maitland.
The Crown claims Wilson had information that might have helped to secure a prosecution of the priest between 2004 and 2006.
The archbishop, who has pleaded not guilty to the charge in the Newcastle Local Court, is the most senior Catholic official worldwide to be charged with such an offence.
A magistrate in February 2016 refused to quash or permanently stay the proceedings.
In October, in the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Monika Schmidt dismissed the archbishop’s appeal against that decision.
In the appeal court, Mr Walker contended that Justice Schmidt erred in failing to find the magistrate erred in finding that the offence with which Wilson is charged is valid.
“The appellant is being prosecuted for failing to report information to the police (in essence an allegation) some 28 to 30 years after an alleged conversation that took place in 1976,” he said.
NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb SC submitted the appeal should be dismissed, contending Justice Schmidt correctly determined that the charge was valid.
The three appeal court judges will hand down their decision on a later date.