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Adelaide’s Catholic archbishop again fails to stop legal case

Adelaide’s Catholic archbishop has again failed to stop criminal proceedings against him over claims he concealed a colleague’s sexual abuse of a young boy.

Jun 07, 2017, updated Jun 07, 2017
The Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson.

The Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson.

Archbishop Philip Wilson is accused of concealing information about the 1971 sexual assault of a 10-year-old boy by the now-dead pedophile priest James Fletcher in the NSW Hunter region town of Maitland.

The NSW Court of Appeal on Tuesday dismissed his third attempt to have the proceedings quashed or permanently stayed.

The prosecution claims Wilson knew or had information that might have helped to secure a prosecution of the priest between 2004-2006.

The archbishop, who has pleaded not guilty to the charge in the Newcastle Local Court, is the most senior Catholic official worldwide to be charged with such an offence.

In February last year, a magistrate refused to quash or permanently stay the proceedings.

Last October in the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Monika Schmidt dismissed the archbishop’s appeal against that decision.

– AAP

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