UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by Madeleine Davies

Posted: 27 Nov 2015

THE sexual abuse of children in the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches are to be investigated in the first phase of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, its chairwoman, Justice Lowell Goddard, confirmed on Friday.

Twelve investigations will begin immediately, Justice Goddard said, as she launched the Public Hearings Project. Also in the first tranche of institutions to be investigated are Lambeth, Nottinghamshire, and Rochdale councils. She will also look at “allegations of child sexual abuse linked to Westminster”, and the reparations available to victims and survivors of abuse.

Most, if not all of the investigations, will culminate in public hearings, she said. Further investigations will be announced as the Inquiry, expected to last five years, develops.

Justice Goddard welcomed the invitation from the Archbishop of Canterbury to investigate the Church of England as a matter of…