US bishop guilty of hit-and-run

O'Brien did not react to the decision

A US Roman Catholic bishop has been found guilty of leaving the scene of a fatal hit-and-run incident.

The conviction makes Thomas O'Brien the first Catholic bishop in US history to be convicted of a felony.

The bishop of Phoenix, Arizona, left his post shortly after his arrest last June, though no specific reason for his decision was given at the time.

He faces up to four years in jail over the incident, which caused the death of 43-year-old carpenter Jim Reed.

He was not charged with causing the crash, however, because the pedestrian was not obeying traffic rules.

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The 12-person jury took five days to reach a decision.

Correspondents say family members of both the victim and the accused wept when the verdict was read to the packed courtroom, but O'Brien himself did not react to the decision.

During the trial, he had argued that he did not see his victim and thought that a dog or a rock had hit his car.

Prosecutors said he must have realised he had hit a person.

The accident happened less than two weeks after the former bishop relinquished some of his authority in a deal to avoid being indicted for allegedly sheltering molesters among the clergy in a sex abuse case.