UNITED KINGDOM
London Evening Standard

JOE MURPHY, POLITICAL EDITOR

Church leaders today piled unprecedented pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to order a full public inquiry into institutional child sex abuse in Britain.

The Bishop of Durham, the Right Rev Paul Butler, warned that without such an extensive investigation — with people giving evidence on oath — he feared the full truth would not emerge.

He said that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, had urged Home Secretary Theresa May a month ago to launch a public inquiry following a string of shocking claims of abuse. The Right Rev Butler, chairman of the CoE’s churches national safeguarding committee, said religious leaders believed there was a “real problem around institutional abuse”.

“A full public inquiry is required because under those terms people have to take oaths and therefore swear to tell…