A Roman Catholic priest suspected of child abuse was allowed to live in a retirement bungalow less than half a mile away from a primary school, the Argus can reveal.

Father Michael Hill, who was jailed for five years in 1997 for ten child sex offences committed over 19 years, was allowed to stay in the bungalow in Western Road, Sompting, by church authorities six months before he was sent to prison.

The semi-detached home is close to Templars County Infants School, in White Styles Road, although there is no suggestion he had any contact with pupils.

The former Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, was facing calls for his resignation as the new Archbishop of Westminster this week amid claims he knew of the threat posed by Fr Hill.

The archbishop has denied claims he ignored warnings about the priest in the early Eighties.

Fr Hill was removed from his Heathfield parish and checked into a Stroud therapy centre for priests but left after three months.

Doctors who treated Fr Hill wrote to the bishop in 1983 saying: "It may well be that he has benefited from his stay here and gained some insights into his paedophilia for he insists that it is under his control.

"However ... he tends to think that it is simply the law of the Church which prevents him from acting out his fantasies.

"I'd very much like to believe that he has got some control of his impulses as the result of insight, but I am slow to give your lordship that assurance."

Archbishop Murphy O'

Connor said this week: "It is true to say that if the strict procedures for child protection that are now in place ... had been in operation in 1985, then Fr Hill's situation would have been handled differently.

"I maintain that, with the facts then known to me, the decisions made at that time in his regard were not irresponsible."

Sheila Spiller, who was Fr Hill's next door neighbour in Western Road, has now written to the archbishop demanding to know why she was not told about suspicions over the priest's past. She said: "The Catholic Church doesn't seem to want to admit anything has happened.

"There are schools nearby and he lived here for quite a while and all that time we knew nothing about him.

"The first time I saw him he was with a boy with learning difficulties and the Father came up to me and said he would be my new neighbour and he said the boy was his friend."

A spokesman for the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton said Fr Hill lived in the house for six months after working at Gatwick.

"I am not in a position to comment on its proximity to a school, but he had not been charged with anything when he moved there."

A spokeswoman for the school refused to comment.

The house was left to the Arundel and Brighton diocese by Winifred Elmer who died, aged 86, in 1995.

Solicitor Graham Scott, who was an executor of the will, said it was left to the diocese on condition it was used "expressly for accommodation of priests"