“Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson seeks to have charge of hiding child sex abuse thrown out” & related article

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ABC News  Australia

18 May 2017

Lawyers for Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson, accused of concealing child sex abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, have fronted court again for their third attempt to stop the case against him from going ahead.

Wilson, who has retained his position amid the criminal proceedings, is accused of failing to pass onto police information he had between 2004 and 2006 that might have helped convict Father Jim Fletcher.

It is alleged a boy told the senior clergyman, he had been indecently assaulted by Father Fletcher several years earlier.

Prosecutors claim Wilson came to believe the allegation decades later, after learning of other cases.

Father Fletcher died in prison in 2006.

Wilson’s barrister, Bret Walker SC, told the Court of Appeal in Sydney today that the charge was invalid.

It is Wilson’s third attempt to permanently stay the proceedings.

Two separate applications were previously rejected by a magistrate and a Supreme Court judge.

Timing of assault at centre of lawyers’ arguments

In his written submissions to the hearing, Mr Walker argued that the charge of concealment, required the crime that was allegedly concealed, to be a “serious indictable offence”, or at least five years imprisonment.

He said in the 1970s when the actual indecent assault occurred, the crime carried a maximum penalty of five years “penal servitude”, or hard labour, not imprisonment.

Mr Walker told the court according to the definition at the time, the indecent assault Wilson was accused of concealing did not require imprisonment and therefore “does not fall within the definition of a seriously indictable offence”.

Mr Walker said Justice Monika Schmidt, in her October 2016 decision, was wrong to conclude that it was a “serious indictable offence”.

Justice Schmidt did not rely on the definition of indecent assault at the time Father Fletcher’s crime was committed.

Instead, she had relied on the definition of indecent assault, relevant between 2004 to 2006, when Wilson was accused of concealing the crime.

That definition, also relevant today, requires that someone charged with indecent assault face a maximum five years jail, thereby — by today’s standards — making it an serious indictable offence.

Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb SC said Justice Schmidt had “correctly determined that the charge is valid”.

The three appeal court judges hearing the case, including Chief Justice Tom Bathurst, reserved their decision.

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Archbishop Philip Wilson seeks permanent stay against conceal charge

Lakes Mail18 May 2017, 12:30 p.m.

FORMER Hunter priest Archbishop Philip Wilson, the most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be charged with concealing the child sex crimes of another priest, has launched his third attempt to stop the case against him from proceeding.

Barrister Bret Walker, SC, for the archbishop, told three judges of the NSW Court of Appeal on Thursday that the charge against his client was invalid because of changes to the law since 1971, when Hunter priest Jim Fletcher is alleged to have sexually assaulted a 10-year-old boy at Maitland.

Archbishop Wilson was charged with failing to tell police between 2004 and 2006 of what he allegedly knew or believed about Fletcher, based on alleged conversations with two alleged victims of Fletcher in 1976.

Police allege the information might have helped in 2004 after Fletcher was charged with offences against a third victim, and convicted of serious child sex offences. Fletcher died in jail in 2006. The police case is that a Hunter woman and a priest told Archbishop Wilson in 2004 that Fletcher had sexually assaulted a fourth victim.

The evidence was capable of showing that by 2004 Archbishop Wilson would have formed a belief that Fletcher committed offences against the 10-year-old in 1971, and the information should have been reported to police, police allege.

Archbishop Wilson pleaded not guilty after he was charged in March, 2015 with an offence under section 316 of the NSW Crimes Act, of concealing what he knew about Fletcher.

Archbishop Wilson became the most senior cleric, and one of only a handful of Catholic clerics in the world, to be charged with a conceal offence.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard evidence that few countries in the world, and only two Australian states, NSW and Victoria, have legislation allowing for people to be charged with conceal offences for failing to report alleged crimes to police.

In February 2016 Newcastle Local Court magistrate Robert Stone rejected the archbishop’s application to permanently stop the case after the archbishop argued the charge was invalid, the evidence was incapable of proving the offence and the matter was “foredoomed to fail”.

Mr Stone noted there were “significant issues for the prosecution” but rejected the permanent stay application which was “only used in most exceptional circumstances”.

In October NSW Supreme Court Justice Monika Schmidt rejected Archbishop Wilson’s appeal against Mr Stone’s decision.

The evidence on which the prosecution case relied involved “considerably more than the mere making of an allegation by a victim” to the young priest Philip Wilson about Fletcher in 1976, Justice Schmidt said.

The alleged victim from 1971 was a teenager who “got on very well” with the then Father Wilson through a church youth group “in a way he had not, to that point, been able to do with any other adult”, Justice Schmidt noted.

“The victim’s allegations (against Fletcher) were about repeated offending of the most serious kind, involving masturbation, oral and other sexual assault of a young child by a priest, contrary not only to law, but it may be reasonably inferred, contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church,” Justice Schmidt said.

The police case is that Father Wilson reacted with shock to the information and told the victim he would report his allegations. When the victim approached him again later in 1976, police allege Father Wilson said the matter was still being investigated.

Police allege a second young man in 1976 disclosed to Father Wilson in the confessional that he had also been sexually assaulted by Fletcher.

The police case is that in 2004, after Father Wilson was an archbishop, a Hunter woman and a priest told him about allegations against Fletcher from another victim. The priest is expected to give evidence that the archbishop told him he had a legal obligation to report the allegations to police.

After a short hearing on Thursday, where NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb represented the prosecution, NSW Court of Appeal Chief Justice Tom Bathurst reserved the court’s decision.

The story Archbishop mounts third appeal first appeared on Newcastle Herald.

3 Responses to “Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson seeks to have charge of hiding child sex abuse thrown out” & related article

  1. Sylvia says:

    First, note that the duty to report in Australia is to police. It makes a world of sense, doesn’t it? Report a crime or suspicions of a crime to the people who investigate criminal activity, and it makes all the more sense when there is knowledge or suspicion that a sexual predator is on the loose.

    Next, isn’t this so pathetic:

    In his written submissions to the hearing, Mr Walker argued that the charge of concealment, required the crime that was allegedly concealed, to be a “serious indictable offence”, or at least five years imprisonment.

    He said in the 1970s when the actual indecent assault occurred, the crime carried a maximum penalty of five years “penal servitude”, or hard labour, not imprisonment.

    Mr Walker told the court according to the definition at the time, the indecent assault Wilson was accused of concealing did not require imprisonment and therefore “does not fall within the definition of a seriously indictable offence”.

    Mr Walker said Justice Monika Schmidt, in her October 2016 decision, was wrong to conclude that it was a “serious indictable offence”.

    Justice Schmidt did not rely on the definition of indecent assault at the time Father Fletcher’s crime was committed.

    Instead, she had relied on the definition of indecent assault, relevant between 2004 to 2006, when Wilson was accused of concealing the crime.

    That’s the latest attempt by Archbishop Wilson to elude justice: the abuse was really no big deal.

    And this man is an archbishop?

  2. Mike Fitzgerald says:

    I would think the good Archbishop should maybe re-examine which way he wants to go with this.
    Judging by what I see, I don’t believe he would survive even one day of “penal servitude”. It appears to me that the Archbishop has not seen any form of physical labour in a LONG time.
    Take your lumps, admit it, and get on with it. The money being spent here trying to defend the indefensible is abominable. Mike.

  3. Geenda says:

    Yes admit that you are a disgusting piece of refuse Archbishop. Many of these men suffer from the same difficulty, being unable to accept responsibility for their revolting actions. I might be able to muster up some modicum of respect if they had the guts to admit their crimes, accept the Lords forgiveness and offer some peace to the children and families.

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