A former Australian bishop, Christopher Saunders, has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison for sexually assaulting two young Indigenous men while he was serving as Catholic bishop of Broome.
An Australian court in Western Australia handed down the sentence on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, to the 76-year-old former Catholic bishop, who will not be eligible for parole until 2031 at the earliest.
Saunders was found guilty in August of one count of sexual penetration without consent and several counts of indecent assault. He has remained in custody since his conviction.
The offences occurred between 2010 and 2019, when Saunders was bishop of Broome, a remote diocese in north-western Australia.
The court heard that Saunders groomed his victims by inviting young Indigenous men and teenagers to a beach house or Catholic Church residence, where he provided them with alcohol and cigarettes and gave them money and mobile phones.
The assaults on the two men occurred when they were heavily intoxicated, according to evidence presented in court.
Saunders reportedly showed no reaction when the sentence was handed down.
He began working at mission stations in remote parts of Australia after his ordination as a priest in the 1970s before being appointed Bishop of Broome by Pope John Paul II in the 1990s.
His church duties were suspended in 2020 following allegations of sexual abuse, and Pope Francis accepted his resignation in 2021.
Saunders consistently denied the allegations before his conviction.
The President of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, apologised for the harm caused to Saunders’ victims.
“We apologise for the pain and suffering inflicted on the victims of Christopher Saunders,” the bishops’ conference said in a statement.
The case brings to an end a criminal prosecution involving one of Australia’s most senior Catholic clergymen, whose career had been closely associated with Catholic missionary work among Indigenous communities in remote parts of Western Australia.
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