Landmark verdict to prompt fresh police investigations into similar cases

THE landmark conviction of Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has opened the prospect for more clergy to be charged with covering up child sex abuse, police have warned.

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THE landmark conviction of Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has opened the prospect for more clergy to be charged with covering up child sex abuse, police have warned.

New South Wales detectives from a specialised taskforce have been investigating paedophile priests in the Newcastle and Maitland diocese, in the Hunter Valley, since October 2010.

Police successfully charged Wilson’s former colleague and flatmate, Father James Patrick Fletcher, with the sexual abuse of a young altar boy, Daniel Feenan, now 41, in the 1970s and 1980s.

Now, senior detectives say Wilson’s landmark conviction paves the way for additional, similar prosecutions.

Wilson is understood to have become the highest ranking church official worldwide to be successfully prosecuted for concealing child sex abuse, in what is also seen as an Australian test case.

Thanking a committed prosecution team, the Officer in Charge of Strike Force Lantle, NSW Detective Acting Inspector Jeff Little, said Wilson’s prosecution could potentially assist other cases.

Archbishop Philip Wilson has been found guilty of concealing historical child sexual abuse. Picture: Peter Lorimer

“Clearly this lays the pathway and potential for other similar matters to be scrutinised more closely,” he told The Advertiser outside Newcastle Local Court.

He said police, prosecutors and the judiciary acknowledged victims’ scars of pain and suffering.

“Whilst the bible certainly has stories about ‘Doubting Thomas’, evidently it is clear that Australia has its very own ‘Doubting Philip’,” he said.

“And it is criminal that ‘Doubting Philip’ failed these sexual assault victims at the hands of the clergy.

“To be sent to hell and back and survived, the victims who have long been part of Strike Force Lantle are clearly tough people in their own right.

“And to these brave souls who fought against a backdrop of betrayal, cultural dysfunction and moral decay and could not survive, I salute.”

He added: “Criminal complicity by any person is a blessing for ruthless paedophiles who must be exposed.”

One of the main victims in Wilson’s case, Peter Creigh, also told of his hope that more victims would come forward.

“The decision, hopefully, will allow the authorities to (go after) all those with knowledge, or the perpetrators, to make them accountable,” he said.

Det Insp Little said investigations into threats made to one of the victims remained ongoing.