UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph
A former Archbishop of York has denied covering up allegations that a senior Church of England clergyman sexually abused choirboys.
The Very Rev Robert Waddington, a former Dean of Manchester Cathedral, who died from cancer in 2007, is said to have groomed and abused a chorister in Manchester in the 1980s, The Times reported.
He is also said to have targeted a pupil at a boarding school in Queensland, Australia, of which he was the headmaster in the 1960s.
Lord Hope of Thornes, who was Archbishop of York from 1995 to 2005, was informed of the two claims in 1999 and 2003, the newspaper said. He spoke to Mr Waddington about the allegations and then banned him from taking church services but he did not pass on the claims to the police, it added.
Lord Hope wrote to the North Queensland Diocese in 1999 and said Mr Waddington was “deeply sorry for anything he may have done to offend” and that the clergyman offered “an unreserved apology”.
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