MAGISTRATE Robert Stone has rejected a defence application to call two witnesses during the landmark hearing of Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson, which the defence said showed he had a tendency to report allegations of child sexual abuse to the authorities.
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Mr Stone found the evidence, two statements from people who had dealings with Archbishop Wilson during his time at Wollongong and Adelaide, didn’t have “significant probative value” because it did nothing to assist Mr Stone in understanding what the Archbishop’s personal belief was in relation to reporting matters of child sexual abuse.
At the conclusion of the crown case, Archbishop Wilson’s defence barrister, Stephen Odgers, SC, moved to have the case against him dismissed, making a ‘no case to answer’ application and handing up detailed written submissions.
If successful that would mean Archbishop Wilson would not be required to run a defence and the charge would be dismissed.
The case will resume at 2pm on Tuesday for argument on the application.
EARLIER REPORT:
THE high-powered legal team of Philip Edward Wilson are seeking to call evidence from two people, including one of Australia's most influential clerics, to prove the accused Adelaide Archbishop had a tendency to report allegations of child sexual abuse to the authorities.
The landmark hearing into allegations Archbishop Wilson concealed child sexual abuse allegations against Hunter priest Jim Fletcher resumed in Newcastle Local Court on Monday, four months after it began with the revelation that the Adelaide Archbishop had been given a “working diagnosis” of Alzheimer’s disease.
Barrister Stephen Odgers, SC, who represents Archbishop Wilson, the most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be charged with concealing child sex allegations involving another priest, sought an “advanced ruling” from Magistrate Robert Stone to tender the statement of two people, including Senior Catholic priest Monsignor David Cappo, to show he had a tendency to report allegations of child sexual abuse and not conceal them.
Crown prosecutor Gareth Harrison opposed the defence application and said that if Mr Stone allowed it he would seek to call evidence from three people that he said showed the Archbishop had a tendency to protect the church.
The 67-year-old has pleaded not guilty to failing to advise police between April, 2004 and January, 2006 that Father Fletcher allegedly indecently assaulted Peter Creigh when he was 10 years old in 1971.
If successful that would mean Archbishop Wilson would not be required to run a defence and the charge would be dismissed.
The prosecution must prove that Mr Creigh told Archbishop Wilson, then a junior Maitland-Newcastle priest, about the sexual abuse in 1976 and that Archbishop Wilson remembered it and had a belief that the allegations were true between 2004 and 2006, after Fletcher had been charged with child sex offences and before his death in jail.
Mr Odgers said the tendency evidence was crucial to the case.
“Those tendencies make it more likely that he didn’t have in his head at that time a memory of this 1976 allegation,” Mr Odgers said.
“Or alternatively, makes it more likely that he didn’t believe it. “If he remembered it and believed it he would have reported it, as was his tendency at the time.”
