Society to fund priest's appeal

London - The Society of Jesus is to pay the legal costs of a self-confessed paedophile to appeal against a conviction.

London - The Society of Jesus is to pay the legal costs of a self-confessed paedophile to appeal against a conviction.

But the society said the move did not mean it thought the Jesuit priest, Father James Chaning-Pearce (57), was innocent. The priest was jailed for five years in September for indecent assault on four of his pupils at Stonyhurst Roman Catholic college in Lancashire.

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