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Fake priest ‘tries to get to Schumacher’ in hospital

A person dressed as a priest, reportedly a journalist, tried to approach Michael Schumacher, who is in a coma and critical after a ski accident in France, his manager said on Tuesday.

Fake priest 'tries to get to Schumacher' in hospital
Journalists pack the press conference at the hospital where Michael Schumacher is being treated. Photo: Philippe Desmazes/AFP

"There have been several interesting incidents here at the hospital," Sabine Kehm told reporters in the Alpine city of Grenoble, where the Formula One legend is being treated following his off-piste accident on Sunday.

"There apparently was a person dressed-up as a priest, who tried to get near Michael. I am asking everyone to let the doctors work and leave the family spend peaceful time with Michael."

Responding to a question as to whether the priest was a journalist, she said: "It's what I was told… We have clearly noted that people are trying to get beyond the press room here in the clinic. It's revolting, in my opinion."

Schumacher has been a coma since Sunday, when he was helicoptered to hospital after slamming his head on a rock while skiing off-piste in the upmarket resort of Meribel with his son.

Doctors said Tuesday that after a second operation to remove bleeding from his brain, he showed slight improvement but remained in a critical and fragile state.

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CHURCH

Spain’s Supreme Court confirms jail for pedophile priest

Spain's Supreme Court has confirmed a jail sentence of more than 17 years for a priest who sexually abused two boys, one of whose parents consented.

Spain's Supreme Court confirms jail for pedophile priest
Photo: belchonock/Depositphotos

The news comes as a trickle of accusations of sexual abuse against priests in schools and seminaries over the past few years has started to erode the wall of silence surrounding abuse in Catholic Spain.   

In its verdict made public Wedneday, the Supreme Court confirmed a November 2017 sentence against Jose Donoso Fernandez, a former priest in the southwestern village of Mengabril, whom a provincial court sent to prison for 17 years and seven months.

It also confirmed a jail term of four years for the parents of one of the underage boys for committing sexual abuse “via omission, as they knew about and consented to the priest's sexual relations with their son.”   

The court said Donoso housed the Romanian couple and their children in 2013 and 2014 in the priest's parish house.   

“The family depended almost completely on the defendant Jose Donoso Fernandez, who took care of nearly all their expenses, food, clothes, the stay and schooling, and the bureaucratic paperwork they had to do,” the court said.   

The other victim was a 12-year-old altar boy.

READ ALSO: Spanish victims of Catholic priests speak out over sex abuse

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