US cleric charged with hit-and-run

O'Brien is accused of "leaving the scene of a fatal collision"

A Roman Catholic bishop in the United States has been charged with leaving the scene of a fatal car accident.

Bishop Thomas O'Brien, the church's spiritual leader in Phoenix, Arizona, was freed on bail on Tuesday, a day after his arrest.

The bishop had recently done a deal with the legal authorities to avoid being prosecuted in a sex abuse case.

A car similar to his was the first of two vehicles to hit 43-year-old Jim Reed, who was killed as he crossed a road in Phoenix on Saturday.

Police arrested the bishop after a partial registration number provided by a witness led detectives to his address.

Earlier this month, Bishop O'Brien relinquished some of his authority in an unprecedented agreement with prosecutors to protect him from criminal charges for shielding priests accused of child abuse.

But the bishop has denied deliberately trying to cover up cases of sex abuse, which began emerging last year as allegations of years of priestly abuse in the US Catholic Church started mounting.

His Buick was found to be damaged and the windscreen shattered

The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says his arrest has been greeted with dismay by American Catholics, who had hoped to put the scandals that have dogged their church behind them.

"Bishop O'Brien was booked on one count of leaving the scene of a fatal collision, a class four felony," the Phoenix Police Department said in a statement.

Bishop O'Brien was not being charged with causing the crash because Mr Reed was jaywalking, police spokesman Sgt Randy Force said.

"If the bishop had remained at the scene, in all likelihood he would not have been charged with any crime," he said.

Dented car

The bishop acknowledged in an interview he had been driving the car in the area of the accident while on his way home from giving a mass, police said.

He told police he thought he had hit a dog or a cat or that someone had thrown a rock at his vehicle.

When inspected, the front end of the bishop's Buick was found to be damaged and the windscreen shattered on the passenger side of the car, police said.

After being arrested, the bishop was briefly taken ill and transferred to hospital.

He was released on $45,000 bail.