Philip Wilson, the archbishop of Adelaide, is expected to be sentenced by the court in June
Philip Wilson
An Australian archbishop was found guilty on Tuesday of concealing child sex abuse by a priest, which Australian media said made him the most senior Catholic in the world to be convicted on such a charge.
Philip Wilson, the archbishop of Adelaide, is expected to be sentenced by the court in June. He faces a maximum penalty of two years in jail. He was accused of covering up a serious indictable offence by another priest, James Fletcher, after being told about it in 1976 when he was an assistant parish priest in New South Wales.
Lawyers for Wilson, 67, had argued that he did not know that Fletcher had abused a boy, Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) reported. Fletcher was found guilty in 2004 of nine counts of child sexual abuse and died in jail in 2006.
An emailed statement from the local court in Newcastle said Magistrate Robert Stone ruled the "offence proven." Stone said he did not accept that Wilson could not remember a conversation in 1976 in which the victim, who would have been 15 at the time, had described how he was abused by Fletcher a few years earlier, the broadcaster reported.
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