UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Press Association
Tuesday 6 October 2015
Victims of the former bishop Peter Ball are suing the Church of England for hundreds of thousands of pounds after he admitted abusing his position to groom young aspiring priests for sex.
The ex-bishop of Lewes and Gloucester will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on Wednesday for misconduct in a public office between 1977 and 1992 and two counts of sexual assault on young men in their late teens.
In all, the charges relate to 18 victims, excluding two counts of indecent assault on a boy of 12 or 13 and a 15-year-old youth, which were denied and will lie on file.
Ball, 83, abused the young men who had come to his home in Litlington, East Sussex, for religious instruction, before he was moved to Gloucester in 1992.
Twenty-two years after allegations were first made against him, Ball was brought to account in court, despite repeated attempts to get the case thrown out.
David Greenwood, who represents four of the victims, said that since Bell’s guilty plea, legal action had been lodged against the diocese of Chichester.
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