UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today
Published 12 July 2014 | Ruth Gledhill
Baroness Butler-Sloss, the retired judge heading the UK government’s inquiry into child sex abuse, came under increasing pressure today after a report emerged that she kept allegations about a Church of England bishop out of an important review into paedophile priests in one diocese.
The Times on its front page reports today that Lady Butler-Sloss told a victim of alleged abuse that she did not want the claims about the bishop to be in the public domain because she “cared about the Church” and “the press would love a bishop.”
The report is by one of the country’s top crime journalists, Sean O’Neill, who has consistently led the field with accurate reports of his investigations into child abuse.
According to The Times, the revelations have prompted fresh calls for the peer to step down as chair of the new inquiry.
The newspaper reports that her comments were made in 2011, during a meeting at the House of Lords with Phil Johnson, a survivor of assaults by clergymen when he was a choirboy in the Chichester diocese. Mr Johnson, who is now a member of a national safeguarding panel for the Church of England, kept a detailed record of the meeting. The Times reports that he felt “pressured” into agreeing to withhold the allegations from the review.
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