A 72-year-old British priest was arrested in Rome after allegedly molesting a woman on a train.

It is claimed that the clergyman fondled the 40-year-old Italian woman in a crowded carriage.

She tried to move away from him but he kept touching her.

The woman was so angered by his behaviour that as the metro train arrived at Termini station, one of the city’s main transport hubs, she followed the priest and then pointed him out to two police officers.

“There was a woman running up behind the man. We thought that maybe he had robbed her, that he had stolen her purse or her handbag,” a witness told Il Messagero newspaper.

The Catholic prelate initially resisted arrest and allegedly punched the officers in the face but was overpowered.

He reportedly told them: “I’m a priest and I’ve done nothing wrong. Leave me alone.”

He was charged with sexual violence, resisting arrest and violence towards a public official and spent the night in a police cell.

The priest was staying at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, a training institution for older priests that is named after the Venerable Bede, the early medieval monk and historian.