UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sam Jones
The Guardian, Sunday 7 July 2013

Victims of sexual abuse by Church of England clergy have rejected an apology from the general synod and called for an independent public inquiry to ensure abusers are held to account and better safeguards put in place.

In York on Sunday evening, the general synod voted unanimously to endorse the apology already made by the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to victims of abuse, and to back moves intended to tighten its safeguarding procedures.

The synod was told the church had failed victims of abuse “big time” by refusing to listen to their stories and by moving offenders to different areas in the hope that the problem would go away.

Paul Butler, the bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, said the church had sinned through its failure to act just as much as the abusers had sinned…