Church of England Pays ?35,000 to Man Abused by Expert on Canon Law

By Harriet Sherwood
The Guardian
December 4, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/04/church-of-england-pays-35000-abuse-expert-canon-law-garth-moore

St Mary Abchurch, City of London, where the Rev Garth Moore was vicar. Photograph: Alamy

The Church of England has paid ?35,000 in compensation and apologised to a survivor of clerical sexual abuse in the latest in a string of cases involving senior church figures.

The diocese of London has also agreed to an independent review of how the church handled the allegations of abuse, which date back to the 1980s.

The settlement was made days after Judge Lowell Goddard’s independent inquiry into child sex abuse announced that the church would be among its first investigations.

The survivor, who has remained anonymous, named his abuser as Garth Moore, an authority on ecclesiastical law and chancellor of the dioceses of Southwark, Durham and Gloucester. Moore died in 1990.

The survivor was 16 at the time of the abuse and an occasional server at St Mary Abchurch in the City of London, where Moore was vicar.

A Church of England spokeswoman said: “We offer an unreserved apology. Abuse is a devastating betrayal of trust that should never be allowed to happen, particularly in the church.

“We can confirm that we have reached a settlement with the survivor and the abuse reported is a matter of deep shame and regret. In reaching this settlement we acknowledge his courage and tenacity in reporting the abuse and ensuring action from the church.

“We have launched an independently led review of lessons learnt from this case, and when completed it will be shared with the survivor, and the findings published. We continue to be committed to making the church a safer place for all, while acknowledging that, for survivors, the effects of abuse are lifelong.”

The survivor has said he was invited to meet Moore as he was dying but he refused, knowing that he could not forgive his abuser. “I know that he tried to ask for forgiveness in his last 48 hours. I could not go,” he told the Church Times. “I had enough memory of what he did.”

He said he had to go to “astonishing lengths” to have his allegations taken seriously, including writing 18 letters to the archbishop of Canterbury “before finally getting a reply from a correspondence secretary assuring him that the archbishop would hold him in his prayers… Critical questions were blanked and ignored, despite being raised dozens of times. At times it felt like something out of Kafka.”

In October, the church apologised for sexual abuse committed by one of its most respected figures of the last century, bishop George Bell. It followed the jailing of another former bishop, Peter Ball, for sexually abusing young boys.

The church has welcomed its inclusion in the Goddard inquiry.