This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The New South Wales police minister, Troy Grant, has apologised for comments criticising a magistrate over the sentencing of former Adelaide archbishop Philip Wilson.

Grant criticised magistrate Robert Stone’s decision in July to sentence Wilson to six months in custody for concealing child sexual abuse, describing it as “appalling” and “not a deterrent”.

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The comments sparked outrage from the legal community, with the former president of the NSW Law Society, Doug Humphreys, saying it was inappropriate for government ministers to make “unfounded criticism or incorrect assertions about judicial rulings” and calling for an apology.

Humphreys said politicians “play a fundamental role in upholding the key pillar of our democratic society – the rule of law”.

“This requires not only that governments and their officials be accountable under the law, but also that they respect, in accordance with the separation of powers, judicial process,” he said at the time.

Grant initially said he stood by the comments, but in a notice published in the Newcastle Herald and on the ABC last month, he apologised for the comments.

“I now accept that my remarks may have had the regrettable effect of casting doubt on the learned magistrate’s professional abilities and application of the law,” the notice read.

“I have apologised unreservedly to Magistrate Stone for any harm he has sustained and for the hurt and embarrassment suffered as a result of my statements.”

Wilson resigned as archbishop of Adelaide in July after becoming the most senior Catholic clergyman in the world to be convicted of concealing child sexual abuse.

He was sentenced to serve six months’ home detention in August but the sentence was quashed in December when the Newcastle district court judge Roy Ellis upheld Wilson’s appeal against the conviction.

In July though, Grant told Sydney radio station 2GB that he was “appalled” by the sentence, and claimed Stone had failed to apply amendments to sentencing laws.

“I’m absolutely appalled at this sentence of Wilson,” he said at the time.

“I had involvement, having been the officer during my police career that uncovered the paedophilia and cover-ups in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese back in 1995.

“This is no deterrent as a sentence, it’s appalling, the children deserve better, the victims deserve better, and the community do.”

He said Stone had failed to apply an amendment to sentencing laws which require judges to apply punishments according to contemporary community standards.

“That hasn’t been done in this case, and that’s why everyone is so disgusted,” he said.

Former archbishop Philip Wilson acquitted of covering up child sexual abuse Read more

In January last year, the Law Society of Australia was critical of comments made by the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, blaming the Victorian crime on the appointment of “civil libertarians” to the courts.

Dutton had claimed Victorians were “bemused” when they looked “at the jokes of sentences being handed down” due to “political correctness that’s taken hold”.

The president of the Law Council of Australia, Morry Bailes, said at the time that the attacks eroded public confidence in the courts.

“There is no place for political attacks on the judiciary undermining the independence of judges and magistrates,” he said.