UNITED KINGDOM
Your Local Guardian
By Clare Buchanan
A homosexual priest who looked at child pornography sent to him via gay chat rooms has been spared jail.
Father Edmund Higgins, who appeared at Isleworth Crown Court on August 16, admitted possessing 174 indecent images of children on his laptop.
The court heard Higgins, who had practised as a priest since he was 18, had struggled to make his sexuality public and visited gay chat rooms, where he was sent mostly adult pornographic images.
It emerged that 39-year-old Higgins, who was a priest at St Elizabeth’s Church in Richmond, was sent indecent images of children which he looked at then deleted.
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