The Adelaide archbishop Philip Wilson has been found guilty of concealing child sexual abuse during the 1970s in the Hunter region of New South Wales.
The magistrate Robert Stone handed down the verdict in Newcastle local court on Tuesday after a magistrate-only trial. Wilson faces a maximum two years in prison.
The prosecutor, Gareth Harrison, told the court the 67-year-old had to be jailed for what he had done to deter others from trying to protect the Catholic church from abuse allegations.
The clergyman is the most senior Catholic official in the world to be charged and convicted of the offence.
Wilson was accused of covering up the abuse of four boys by the paedophile priest James Fletcher during the 1970s.
A former NSW police detective chief inspector, Peter Fox, who had previously alleged that the church covered up Fletcher’s offending, said he was “delighted” by the court’s decision because someone within the church was being held to account.
Source: The Guardian
