A Roman Catholic priest is to appear at court over charges relating to indecent images of children.
Paul Clarke, 71, now of Redclyffe Road, Urmston, Manchester, but formerly of Watchbell Road in Rye, is due to appear on bail at Brighton Magistrates' Court on Thursday, October 15.
Clarke faces five charges. One alleges his possession of an indecent image of a child and another alleges his possession of prohibited images while three allege his making a total of 3,100 indecent images of children.
All the charges involve images allegedly taken from the internet. There is no evidence of contact offending and none of the images are of local children.
The charges, authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service, follow an intelligence-led investigation by the Paedophile On-Line Investigation Team of Sussex Police.
Officers had executed a search warrant at Clarke's Rye address, the residential presbytery attached to St Anthony's Church, on November 13 last year, and seized computers and related material.
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