Memories, memories … What the victim said to the bishop … The wraps come off the Bishop Wilson appeal … Fence-sitting by the Godly … Fallibility of victim’s memory greater than that of a bishop who did not report child sex abuse … Gabrielle Hunter reports
However, a sense that the tide was turning in favour of abuse victims and the difficulty they faced in giving evidence was short-lived. Two days after Pell’s sentencing to six years imprisonment the publishable version of Bishop Phillip Wilson’s successful appeal against his conviction was posted on Caselaw.
The decision by Judge Roy Ellis was originally handed down on December 6, but was only made available online on March 15 and amended on March 18 after, it seems, suppression orders were lifted and some identities anonymised.
Bishop Wilson was initially found guilty of covering-up the abuse by Father James Fletcher of a 10-year-old boy.
In August last year Magistrate Robert Stone, who found that the bishop expressed no remorse or contrition, said that Wilson could serve his minimum six months prison sentence at the home of his sister – a sentencing decision that itself caused outrage from Fletcher’s victims.
This was a highly significant case as at the time Wilson was the most senior ranking Catholic anywhere in the world to be sentenced to prison for concealing child sex abuse.
However, on appeal Ellis DCJ was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Wilson knew or believed that the victim had been indecently assaulted by James Fletcher.
Wilson resigned as Roman Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide on June 30, 2018, although he had until then resisted fierce pressure to step down. Bishop Greg Kelly, who is serving as acting archbishop, said he was “keeping Archbishop Wilson in his prayers as he formally commences this stage of his life, while also remembering the victims and survivors of abuse in the church”.
We are now in a position to explore Judge Ellis’s thinking in the Wilson appeal.
In 2004, Father James Fletcher was found guilty of nine counts of indecent assault against young boys in the Catholic Church dating back to the 1970s.
In 2010, one of Fletcher’s victims, Peter Creigh, came forward to NSW police claiming that Wilson had turned a blind eye to the abuse.
Creigh’s claimed that in 1976 he confided in Wilson that he had been sexually abused by Father Fletcher and that Wilson failed to report this conversation to police when Fletcher was charged with other child sex offences in 2004.
According to AdelaideNow Wilson was Fletcher’s housemate in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese during the time of the abuse. When Creigh came forward to police in 2010, Wilson was the Archbishop of Adelaide.
The Maitland-Newcastle diocese had been a centre of significant allegations of priestly abuse brought to light by journalist Joanne McCarthy at The Newcastle Herald, whose work was one of the factors that saw the establishment of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
At the trial Magistrate Stone rejected evidence from Bishop Wilson given on the basis that his response to hypothetical questions used “flawed” reasoning.
When being questioned as to whether he would believe allegations of abuse to be true, Wilson maintained that he “kept an open mind”. In essence, Wilson argued that serious allegations of this type had to be admitted or tested in court before he would form a belief as to whether the allegation was true.
In the appeal, Judge Ellis did not see any flaw in this logic. In his view:
“… keeping an open mind on hearing an allegation of sexual abuse is the appropriate response from any intelligent, reasonable and thoughtful individual.”
Ellis also commended Wilson’s evidence as not taking the easy way out through a potential “disbelief” escape clause.
Overall, Ellis found Wilson to be an “honest … forthright” witness who was not evasive in his answers and did not attempt to blacken the name of Creigh.
This was sufficient to satisfy the judge that Wilson did not believe in 2004-6 that Creigh had been assaulted by Fletcher and therefore would not have known he had information that might be of material assistance to the prosecution of Fletcher.
Creigh, like Wilson, was found to be an honest witness although the accuracy of their evidence and the heavy reliance on memory was a major issue for the court. The risk from delay and memory distortion over long periods of time was reinforced by the evidence of expert witness, Professor Richard Kemp.
The “complaint” conversation between Creigh and Bishop Wilson allegedly took place around 1976 and Wilson wasn’t charged with the current offence until 2015.
After 38 or 39 years Wilson had to ask himself whether he recalled a specific conversation with Creigh in 1976 and, if he did, whether he had remembered it in 2004-6.
The inherent problems with long-term memory were also manifested through inconsistencies in critical details provided in Creigh’s accounts of the alleged conversation. Creigh conceded that the versions recounted in his evidence in court was inconsistent with his statement to police.
Ultimately, Ellis wasn’t satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the conversation between Creigh and Bishop Wilson took place at all.
The factors influencing his decision were:
The bishop’s long term memory was prefered over that of the victim’s long term memory. Further, there’s no allowance for a sexual assault victim’s understandable confusion about details nearly 40 years after the event.
The court also considered Wilson’s adherence to “the duty to report” under the Catholic Church’s Towards Healing program.
Evidence was given that another priest, Father Glen Walsh, had become aware of Fletcher’s abuse of children in 2004. In a statement to police, Walsh stated he sought advice from Father Wilson who instructed Walsh to encourage the victim to speak to authorities.
Ellis believed it was “inconceivable that Philip Wilson would give this correct and appropriate advice to Father Walsh … when he Philip Wilson was knowingly refusing to follow the same advice in relation to another boy who made a complaint against James Fletcher to him”.
Walsh died shortly before Bishop Wilson’s trial began.
In overturning the conviction, the judge added the usual caveat:
“… when [Wilson] appears before this court he is simply an individual who has the same legal rights as every other person in our community. It is not for me to punish the Catholic Church for its institutional moral deficits or to punish Philip Wilson for the sins of James Fletcher.”