An Australian court has found a Catholic archbishop guilty of concealing child sexual abuse in the 1970s
Philip Wilson, the archbishop of Adelaide, becomes the most senior Catholic in the world to be charged and convicted of the offence.
He was found to have covered up the abuse of altar boys by a paedophile priest colleague in New South Wales.
During his trial he denied being told about the abuse by some of the victims.
In a statement issued by the church on Wednesday, Wilson said he was “obviously disappointed” with the verdict and would consider his legal options.
Last month, Wilson told the Newcastle Local Court he had no knowledge of priest James Fletcher’s actions, which took place when he was an assistant priest in Maitland, 130km (80 miles) north of Sydney.
Fletcher was later convicted of nine child sexual abuse charges in 2004, and died in jail in 2006.
One of his victims, former altar boy Peter Creigh, told the court he had described the abuse to Wilson in detail in 1976, five years after it took place.
Source: BBC news
