Wilfred Dennis was ordained in 1961 as a priest of the Anglican Church and he ministered first in Brisbane, Queensland. In 1965 he moved to Adelaide, South Australia, where he ministered in Anglican parishes until he resigned in the 1980s. He then joined the "Anglican Catholic Church" — a group of Anglicans who were opposed to the ordination of women.

In 2003 the South Australian Police established a pedophile taskforce, and in 2005 this unit investigated certain complaints against Father Dennis. The Dennis case — involving alleged offences against two boys in Adelaide parishes in the 1970s — reached the South Australian District Court in 2009, when a trial was held before a judge alone (with no jury). Dennis, aged 74, pleaded not guilty to all charges.

On 1 October 2009 Judge Sydney Tilmouth found that Dennis (born 1 May 1935) was:

• GUILTY of committing an act carnal knowledge against a boy, aged between 15 and 16, in the mid-1970s (the act was penile penetration of the boy's anus); and

• NOT GUILTY of committing three acts of indecent assault (that is, indecent touching) and one of gross indecency (that is, performing an indecent act in the presence of a child), committed against another boy aged between 10 and 12, in the early 1970s.

After receiving the letter, Father Dennis contacted Archbishop John Hepworth, who in 2002 was the head of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia, living in Adelaide. Archbishop Hepworth contacted police and helped to organise a lawyer for Dennis, the court was told.

However, in 2002 the police could not act on the sex-abuse complaint because South Australia's criminal law system had a Statute of Limitations that put a time-limit on sex-abuse prosecutions (South Australia removed this time-limit in 2003).

[Broken Rites understands that Archbishop John Anthony Hepworth was originally a Catholic priest in Adelaide in the late 1960s but left the Catholic ministry and joined the Anglican Church of Australia in 1976, becoming licensed in the Ballarat Anglican diocese in Victoria. In 1992 he joined the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia. In 2002 he became the primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion; this communion has been involved in discussions with the Vatican with view to becoming associated with the Roman Catholic Church.]

The prosecution called Archbishop Hepworth to give evidence at the trial. The court was told that Archbishop Hepworth first met Father Dennis shortly after late 1974 and they became associated after Hepworth became a bishop. They were both opposed to the ordination of women and they frequently lunched together, the court heard.

According to Hepworth, Dennis admitted to him in their June 2002 conversation that the child-abuse complaints against Dennis were true. Archbishop Hepworth said that he therefore suspended Dennis from parish work.

Giving evidence in court, Dennis denied all the allegations that had been made against him.

Convicting Dennis, Judge Tilmouth told the court that Dennis' testimony during the trial had been unconvincing. The judge remanded Dennis on continuing bail to appear for sentencing submissions in November 2009.