AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Giselle Wakatama
The Archbishop of Adelaide has told a court he may have empathised with a victim’s father, who said he “wanted to kill” a paedophile priest.
Archbishop Philip Wilson is accused of covering up the child sexual abuse of Father Jim Fletcher in the New South Wales Hunter Valley in this 1970s.
At Newcastle Local Court today, prosecutors alleged Archbishop Wilson spoke with the father of one of Fletcher’s victims, who said: “If I had a gun, I would kill him.”
The court was told the Archbishop replied: “I wouldn’t blame you.”
That exchange is alleged to have taken place in 2004, a year before Fletcher was sentenced to 10 years in prison for child sexual offences. He died in jail.
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