Former Australian bishop sent to prison for abusing two young men

A former Catholic bishop in Australia, Christopher Saunders, has been given a prison sentence for sexually abusing two young Aboriginal men. A court on Wednesday ordered him to serve six and a half years, with parole possible from February 2031.

In August, Saunders, who is 76, was found guilty of one count of rape and 12 counts of indecent assault. He stepped down as Bishop of Broome in 2020, when allegations were first made against him. He is among the most senior Catholic figures in the world to have faced sex abuse charges.

What the court heard

The trial in Western Australia was told that Saunders systematically groomed both men, inviting them to gatherings where shirts were removed and supplying them with alcohol. Church funds and church-owned properties were often used for this. Between 2010 and 2019 he kissed and molested the men and, on one occasion, forced one of them to perform oral sex.

Several child sex abuse charges were dropped before the trial, and the jury acquitted Saunders of alleged offences against a third young man. In a victim impact statement given to the court, that man said it was hard to talk about what had happened, adding: "I was a toy that he was using."

Career and investigation

Saunders was ordained in 1976 and spent most of his career in the remote Kimberley region in the north-west of the country. He became Bishop of Broome in 1996. The diocese covers roughly 770,000 sq km (297,000 sq miles), about the size of Turkey, and includes some of Australia's most remote areas.

The allegations first emerged in 2020, but the police investigation at that time ended without charge. After the Pope ordered a historic inquiry, police opened a new investigation. Only a handful of "Vos Estis Lux Mundi" inquiries, Latin for "You Are the Light of the World", have been carried out worldwide. They are commissioned by the pontiff and were introduced in 2019 to tackle sexual abuse and hold bishops and other senior Church officials to account.