A Melbourne priest caught sunbaking in a public park next to a school has been convicted of wilful exposure.
The Rev Father Wieslaw Pawlowski claimed he was just following doctor's orders to get some sun.
Much of the evidence heard yesterday centered on whether the priest was nude or wearing a G-string and whether sunbaking naked in a public park was actually lewd and obscene.
Two pairs of underwear -- a pair of white briefs and a grey G-string -- were offered up as evidence as the priest fought to prove that he wasn't a perve, but a 40-year-old following his doctor's orders and getting sun on a skin condition.
Medical evidence tendered to the court said that sunbaking, physio and hydrotherapy were all part of treatment needed for widespread and severe burn scarring on the priest's back.
"The sun is good for my skin. I have to sunbake to stay healthy," said the Rev Father Pawlowski.
The Polish priest, who has lived in Australia since 2002, had moved from Sydney to Melbourne in 2006 but was on a three-month holiday in Sydney for his health.
He told the court that he sunbaked for 20 minutes up to three times a week, as ordered by his doctor.
When he was approached by police in the park about 10am on September 15 last year, he was lying on his back.
The court heard that the priest had seen the police and begun to put on a pair of white underpants. Father Pawlowski said he put white pants on over the top of the grey G-string he was already wearing.
Father Pawlowski said it was "nonsense" that he was lying naked with his penis exposed. "I never sunbake in the nude because it doesn't agree with me . . . it's against my principles."
Magistrate Janet Wahlquist found that Father Pawlowski was indeed naked in the park and that most people would find it obscene that a grown man was sunbaking naked in a park where children might play.
She fined him $400 she recorded a conviction.
