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Catholic Archbishop Fights Child Abuse Charge

By Dan Box
The Australian
July 25, 2016

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The Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide will ask the NSW Supreme Court to dismiss a criminal prosecution alleging he failed to report child abuse by a priest.

Archbishop Philip Wilson, the most senior Catholic official worldwide to be charged with such an offence, had unsuccessfully argued that the prosecution was “unjustly oppressive” to him, and “will culminate in an unfair trial”, court documents show.

His appeal will be heard before a Supreme Court judge in September, days after the end of two royal commission hearings into child abuse within the Catholic Church, including in the archbishop’s former diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in NSW.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will devote two public hearings into abuse within the Newcastle area over the next few months, with the city’s Anglican Church also under investi­gation. The commission is expect­ed to hear evidence of a ­potential pedophile ring involving former Anglican officials.

The diocese’s bishop, Greg Thompson, last year apologised to abuse victims who suffered in “a culture that ­intimidated them and kept them silent’’.

 

 

 

 

 




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