Priest’s punishment for abuse below the minimum, says AG

MALTA
Times of Malta

September 10, 2017

By Matthew Xuereb

Charles Fenech was handed a suspended jail sentence

The punishment meted out to a priest convicted of having sexually exploited a vulnerable woman was below the minimum permissible by law, according to the Attorney General’s office.

This emerged in an appeal it filed on behalf of the police following the conviction of Fr Charles Fenech, found guilty of the violent indecent assault of a woman who was not in a fit mental state.

The former director of the Kerygma Movement was jailed for three months, suspended for a year, when according to the AG, the minimum should have been a six-month suspended jail term.

Fr Fenech was charged in 2014, and it was the Times of Malta that broke the news the priest was facing criminal charges.

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