FORMER BISHOP SENTENCED FOR SEXUALLY ABUSING INDIGENOUS MINORS

PERTH, OCTOBER 7 /SRNA/ - Former Australian Catholic Bishop Christopher Saunders /76/ has been sentenced to six years and six months in prison for sexually abusing young Aboriginal men aged between 16 and 18, AP reported.

A jury in the District Court of Western Australia found him guilty on 13 of 19 counts of sexual abuse that took place between 2008 and 2019 in his Diocese of Broome, on the country's northwest coast.

Four charges involving a person under the age of 13 were dismissed on the first day of Saunders' trial.

Saunders is one of the highest-ranking Australian Catholic officials to have been convicted as part of the global sexual abuse scandal involving Catholic clergy that the Vatican has been confronting for years.

Prosecutors said Saunders lured young Indigenous men to a church-owned house with alcohol and cigarettes that he paid for with church funds.