UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Robert Booth
The Guardian, Tuesday 13 November 2012
The arrest of Bishop Peter Ball on suspicion of sexual offences against boys and men at addresses in East Sussex and elsewhere is the latest development in a wide-ranging and often contentious series of official inquiries into decades of alleged child protection failures in the diocese of Chichester on England’s south coast.
Sussex police said on Tuesday that Ball is suspected of committing offences during the late 1980s and early 90s, when he was Bishop of Lewes, with responsibility for most of the parishes of East Sussex.
But alleged crimes and indecent behaviour by some priests linked to the diocese involving children, young church members and trainees date back further than that. Over the last four years church officials in Chichester, as well as at Lambeth Palace, the office of the archbishop of Canterbury, and Sussex police have all been involved in trying to get a grip on abuse allegations in the area.
Ball is the highest-profile church figure yet to be arrested, but the attention the scandal is likely to receive is only set to rise. Between now and next April, three separate child abuse cases against priests in the diocese of Chichester will be heard at Lewes crown court.
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