A disgraced Mid Wales vicar’s future in the church will be decided by a private tribunal at the end of this month.
The Reverend Richard Hart, 59, the former vicar of Beguildy, was jailed in September for three and a half years for possessing more than 56,832 indecent images of children. Forty-four of the images were category five, the most serious on the scale.
He also admitted 12 charges of making indecent photographs of children between 1999 and 2007, and four of taking such images in July 1991.
Hart has been refused permission to appeal against his prison sentence, which he claimed was too harsh, by the Court of Appeal in London.
Following his conviction at Cardiff Crown Court, Hart was referred to the Church in Wales Disciplinary Tribunal which will meet at the end of the month.
The private hearing will take place in Cardiff but the result will be released publicly.
Hart, who will not appear infront of the tribunal, will face the charge of conduct giving just cause for scandal or offence. In the meantime, he remains suspended from all clerical duties.
The Disciplinary Tribunal of the Church in Wales is made up of a panel of five elected people, which includes a legally qualified chairman, a minimum of two clerics, and lay people.
It has wide powers which may include a recommendation to the Bishop that clerics be dismissed from their posts in the Church in Wales and also that they be deposed from Holy Orders.
Since Hart was suspended from his clerical duties in January last year, the Church in Wales has appointed counsellors and provided pastoral care in the community.
Local clergy have been maintaining the pastoral care and pattern of worship in the parish of Beguildy and Heyope and Llangunllo and Bleddfa, and this will continue pending the outcome of the Disciplinary Tribunal.
In the meantime, the Church in Wales has said, in time a new vicar will be appointed and the position is already being advertised internally.
Anna Morrell, spokeswoman for the Church in Wales, said it would take some time to make a new appointment because they needed to make sure the right person was chosen for what will be a difficult task of rebuilding trust and faith in the community.
Ms Morrell said it will also take some time because a lot of work was needed to be done at the vicarage.
She said whenever a new curate moved into a vicarage, work was carried out on the property, but, particularly in this case because of what had happened at the vicarage, more work would be undertaken including redecoration and the replacement of the slate roof.
Meanwhile, one little girl who featured in several of Hart’s category five pictures has been identified in America. Police found she had already been taken into care.
Hart had been the priest-in-charge of the eight churches of Beguildy, Heyope, Llangunllo, Bleddfa, Llanbister, Llanbadarn Fynydd, Llandewi and Llananno since 2001.
The churches under Hart’s care were St Cynllo’s Llangunllo; St Cynllo’s at Llanbister; St David’s at Heyope; St Mary Magdalene’s in Bleddfa; St Padarn’s in Llanbadarn Fynydd; St Anno’s in Llananno and St Michael’s in Beguildy.
Mr Hart was also chairman of governors at Beguildy voluntary controlled Church in Wales School and was involved in running church-led youth clubs.