BishopAccountability.org
Monks Set to Lose Catholic School

Press Association
November 9, 2011

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iz7UA-pLg_QHQBatuc5ghgfl2NqA?docId=B22729501320791026A00

Monks are expected to lose control of one of the country's leading Catholic schools in London as a report into a 40-year child abuse scandal is published.

Ealing Abbey is set to be stripped of its role running St Benedict's school as part of recommendations by leading QC Lord Carlile of Berriew.

The independent inquiry was launched following allegations against abbey members stretching back decades. According to campaigners, those affected may number in the hundreds.

St Benedict's abbot Martin Shipperlee commissioned the independent review before the Vatican announced it had ordered a separate inquiry into historic sex offences.

It is published a day after the High Court ruled that the Catholic Church can be held liable for the wrongdoings of its priests.

Lord Carlile's report, which the peer will unveil alongside the head of St Benedict's, Christopher Cleugh, was commissioned by the abbey to examine how to improve child protection.

A number of monks and teachers at Ealing Abbey and the neighbouring independent school in west London have been linked to alleged abuse from as far back as the 1960s.

In October 2009, a Catholic priest referred to as the "devil in a dog collar" was jailed for eight years over a string of sex attacks on boys at St Benedict's.

Father David Pearce was jailed at Isleworth Crown Court after pleading guilty to a series of indecent assaults and sexual attacks on five young boys, four under 14, over a period of 36 years.

Police have also revealed they were hunting Father Laurence Soper over allegations of child abuse dating back to when he taught at St Benedict's. Soper, who was abbot of Ealing Abbey from 1991 to 2000, failed to return to a police station for questioning.


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