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Retired Wa Priest Extradited to Britain on Sex Assault Charges

By Nick Miller
Canberra Times
February 1, 2019

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/europe/retired-wa-priest-extradited-to-britain-on-sex-assault-charges-20190202-p50v82.html

Sussex: An Anglican priest from Perth, Western Australia, has been extradited to Britain to face sex assault charges dating back to the 1970s and 80s.

Meirion Griffiths, 80, from Maddington in Perth, was charged on an extradition warrant issued by Westminster magistrates court in London in December 2016, Sussex police said.

The warrant alleges that he committed several indecent assaults against a girl then in her late teens in the mid-1970s, and several indecent assaults against a woman then in her mid-20s in 1982.

St Pancras' parish church, Chichester, West Sussex.

The offences allegedly took place in West Sussex. At the time of the alleged offences Griffiths was Church of England vicar of St Pancras in Chichester, police said in a statement issued on Thursday.

Chichester is a cathedral city near the English south coast, between Southampton and Brighton.

Griffiths arrived at Heathrow from Australia on Thursday in the custody of Sussex Police officers.

He appeared in court the same day, pleaded not guilty and was remanded in custody to appear at Portsmouth Crown Court on March 1, the police statement said.

“The prosecution follows an investigation by Sussex Police detectives after the allegations were received in 2014,” the statement said.

He was arrested in Perth in November 2017 by WA police, and has been fighting the extradition order since then.

Sussex police said they had “full cooperation” from the Chichester diocese of the Church of England during the investigation, and there were no current risks to anyone connected to the St Pancras church.

According to the English website of the Church Times, Griffiths was believed to be the first Anglican priest to be extradited to the UK on historic sexual charges – the only other such case was a Roman Catholic.

The Church Times reported that Griffiths was ordained in 1966 and worked in London, Chichester and Wales then moved to Australia in 1988.

There he was assistant curate of Albany, rector of Collie and then priest in charge of Maddington before retiring in 2000.

 

 

 

 

 




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