Philip Wilson to step down as Archbishop of Adelaide after conviction, but refuses to resign

Adelaide's Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson, who is facing up to two years in jail for covering up child sexual abuse, says he will stand aside from his duties, but will not resign unless it becomes "necessary or appropriate". An emailed statement from the local court in Newcastle, New South Wales, said Magistrate Robert Stone ruled the “offense proven.”

Stone said he did not accept that Wilson could not remember a conversation in 1976 in which a victim, who would have been 15 at the time, had described how he was abused by Fletcher a few years earlier, Australian Broadcasting Corp reported. MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian archbishop was convicted on Tuesday of covering up a claim of sexual abuse dating back decades, and now faces a prison sentence of up to two years. MELBOURNE (Reuters) - 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. Cardinal George Pell, also an Australian and the Vatican’s de facto finance chief, was ordered last month to stand trial on charges of “historical sexual abuse.”

Archbishop Wilson, 67, was accused of covering up abuse by a priest, Jim Fletcher, in the state of New South Wales in the 1970s. Image copyright EPA Image caption Peter Creigh testified that he had told Wilson about being abused

Magistrate Robert Stone rejected Wilson's claims that he had no memory of the conversation, and said he had found Mr Creigh to be a reliable witness. The 67-year-old Archbishop was accused of failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse against paedophile priest Father Jim Fletcher, who died in jail in 2006.
Philip Wilson, the Catholic archbishop of Adelaide, Australia, is convicted of concealing sexual abuse of children from authorities.