Catholic cleric Christopher Saunders preyed on Aboriginal youth for over a decade in a remote diocese
A former Australian Catholic bishop has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison for sexually abusing two young indigenous men over the course of a decade.
76-year-old ex-bishop Christopher Saunders is one of the most senior Australian clerics to be convicted in a series of scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church for decades. In August, Saunders was found guilty on 13 out of 19 sexual abuse charges pertaining to two accusers he victimized between 2008 and 2019.
Saunders narrowly dodged a harsher punishment, with all the charges related to his alleged sexual relations with minors flopped in court. Four charges related to the alleged abuse of a child younger than 13 were dropped on the first day of his trial, while he was acquitted of six further charges involving a 16-year-old child.
All the crimes were perpetrated by Saunders when he led the remote Broome Diocese between 1996 and 2021, when he resigned from the position over allegations of sexual misconduct. While the territory of the diocese covers an area larger than France, it has a population of only some 50,000, predominantly indigenous people.
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