Former Adelaide Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson wins appeal, conviction for covering up child sex abuse is quashed

The state’s former Catholic Church leader is a free man after a judge quashed his landmark child sex abuse cover-up conviction over his “honest” testimony about his memory failures.

The state’s former Catholic Church leader is a free man after a judge quashed his landmark child sex abuse cover-up conviction over his “honest” testimony about his memory failures.

In a judgment with far- reaching legal implications, the NSW District Court on Thursday upheld an appeal by previous Adelaide Archbishop Philip Edward Wilson, 68.

But amid fury from emotional abuse victims and their families, the NSW Government last night ordered its prosecution chief to “consider the prospects” of a Court of Criminal Appeal bid.

The Advertiser has learnt the decision risks potential prosecutions of other church and community leaders accused of concealing similar crimes.

The Adelaide Archdiocese is also considering the successful appeal’s “ramifications” after Bishop Wilson resigned to the Pope in August following a jail sentence over alleged silence on a paedophile priest.

Former Adelaide Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson leaves Newcastle Local Court after being sentenced to home detention. Picture: AAP / Darren Pateman

On the 14th anniversary of predator James “Jim” Patrick Fletcher’s altar boy abuse conviction, a church spokeswoman refused to say if his former friend and flatmate would be reinstated as the state’s highest ranking Catholic.

The Bishop, who maintained his innocence, was last night enjoying freedom at his sister’s Central Coast home more than 3½ years after a police strike force charged him.

The clergyman, who has early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, was the world’s highest-ranking church official to be prosecuted for allegedly failing to tell authorities about abuse from the 1970s and 1980s.

He has spent the past four months on home detention at the family’s North Avoca home, 88km north of Sydney, while serving half of a 12-month jail term. Previously eligible for parole in February, he had faced two years’ jail.

But Judge Roy Ellis on Thursday found “no direct evidence” he had concealed Fletcher’s “serious indictable” crimes between April 22, 2004 and January 7, 2006 at East Maitland, near Newcastle.

Victim Peter Creigh at Newcastle Local Court last month.

Fletcher, 64, died in prison in 2006 while serving a 10-year jail term for abusing altar boy, Daniel Feenan, 41, who gave evidence at the Bishop’s trial.

The judge excused Bishop Wilson from attending the Newcastle hearing to avoid a “media scrum”.

He instead listened intently via video link from his sister’s home.

Questioning the “accuracy” of another abused 10-year-old altar boy’s evidence, the judge accepted the Bishop’s consistent claims of memory failure about an alleged Easter youth group conversation in 1976.

In his judgment, which sparked angry courtroom scenes, he ruled prosecutors had not proved “beyond reasonable” doubt victim, Peter Aidan Creigh, 57, had revealed Fletcher’s abuse five years earlier.

Accepting Mr Creigh was an “honest witness”, the judge aired 14 points of concern on his reliability, including about memory, lack of complaint for 33 years, no notes and contradictory evidence.

In comments that left Mr Creigh visibly distressed, he published 12 “inconsistencies” with his graphic testimony, including conversation timings, length and location as well as other abuse details.

Bishop Philip Wilson was excused from attending Thursday’s hearing

“Acceptance of Mr Creigh that a conversation took place with Philip Wilson regarding Father Fletcher is not necessarily an acceptance that (he) was able to recall the details of such a conversation with any accuracy,” he found.

Mr Creigh, who declined to comment outside court on Thursday night, met with senior detectives and prosecutors, who are considering an appeal.

Despite Bishop Wilson’s poor health, the judge found him an “intelligent and reasonably articulate witness” who correctly kept an “open mind” on abuse allegations and did not state he disbelieved victims.

“Claiming disbelief would have just about impossible to realistically challenge (while it) would have been easy to say and maintain in cross examination,” he ruled.

Defending “justice”, judicial “impartiality” and railing against “media pressure”, he said “heinous” child sex abuse was a “blight on our community” and institutional crimes were arguably “even worse”.

“It is not for me to punish the Catholic Church for its institutional moral deficits or to punish Philip Wilson for the sins of the now deceased James Fletcher by finding (him) guilty simply on the basis that he is a Catholic priest,” he wrote.

“I acknowledge that it is important that I deal with this appeal completely impartially by not allowing anger toward the Catholic Church or sympathy for Philip Wilson … to interfere.”

Bishop Wilson, who resigned amid public pressure, had no comment.

The Archdiocese’s Administrator Delegate, Father Philip Marshall, welcomed the “conclusion of a process that has been long and painful for all concerned”.

Originally published as Former Adelaide Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson wins appeal, conviction for covering up child sex abuse is quashed