The Roman Catholic Church has given a paedophile priest the use of a flat it owns, free of charge, following his release from prison.

Father Michael Hill, former chaplain to Gatwick Airport, was released 14 months ago after serving three years of a five-year sentence for sex assaults on nine boys who he befriended through his work in the Church.

BBC Radio 4's Today programme tracked him down to a flat in the south of England, where he is living at the Church's expense.

It is not clear where Hill is living or whether the flat is in Sussex or Surrey, which are both covered by the diocese.

The programme did not name the town where Hill is living, but said that his £100,000 flat was in a quiet cul-de-sac, three minutes' walk from a primary school.

A spokesman for the Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton said the Church had arranged Hill's accommodation at the request of probation authorities.

Hill was recently the centre of controversy when it emerged that the head of the Catholics in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, when he was Bishop of Arundel and Brighton in the 1980s, had allowed him to continue working despite being warned he was a danger to young people.

The scandal led to an internal inquiry chaired by Lord Nolan and the establishment of new rules to stamp out sex abuse in the Church.

The present Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, Kieran Conry, told Today that the Church still had a responsibility towards Hill.

"It must accept a certain moral responsibility for Michael Hill at present. We don't want to simply wash our hands and say it is none of our business now," he said.

"He has got to be properly supervised and this, we thought, would be the best way to cooperate with that supervision.

"It is a difficult dilemma to be in, because we do appreciate that victims and families of victims would see that we would appear to be providing something to an offender."