Catholic’s free pass

Home detention likely for archbishop who shielded pervert

THE most senior Catholic official in the world to be convicted of concealing child sex abuse is likely to be spared jail by a NSW magistrate.

Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson was found guilty in May of failing to report to police the abuse of two altar boys by a paedophile priest in the 1970s.

Magistrate Robert Stone in Newcastle Local Court yesterday sentenced the 67-yearold to 12 months jail with a non-parole period of six months. However, he ordered that Wilson be assessed for an intensive corrections order, which would allow him to serve his sentence in the community.

“The whole of the community is devastated in so many ways by the decades of abuse and its concealment,” the magistrate said.

“We are all the poorer for what has occurred.”

Several people in the packed courtroom sighed at the idea of home detention.

Abuse survivor Peter Gogarty said he was a “little disappointed” with the sentence but the fact he had been convicted was still significant. “My personal view is that is probably letting him off a little bit too lightly,” he said.

Peter Creigh and another altar boy told Wilson in 1976 that priest James Fletcher had abused them in the NSW Hunter region but the clergyman did nothing.

Mr Creigh, who was just 10 when he was targeted by Fletcher, trusted that Wilson – then an assistant priest – would take action.

The second altar boy, who can’t be named for legal reasons, said he was about 11 when he went into the confessional box to tell Wilson that Fletcher had abused him.

He said Wilson told him he was telling lies because Fletcher “was a good bloke”.

Wilson’s offence related to the 2004 to 2006 period, when Fletcher had been charged with child sex offences, and the magistrate found that Wilson had obtained the level of belief needed to report what he knew to authorities.

Wilson, who is potentially suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, told his landmark magistrate-only trial that he couldn’t remember being told about the abuse.

Fletcher was found guilty in 2004 of nine counts of child sexual abuse and died in jail of a stroke in 2016.

Picture: AAP IMAGE Archbishop Philip Wilson leaves Newcastle Local Court after being sentenced yesterday to 12 months in jail for concealing historical child sexual abuse and (inset) victim Peter Creigh arrives at court.