UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

Paul Peachey Crime Correspondent @peachey_paul 1

An investigation into a paedophile priest may have been delayed for more than 20 years partly because a former Archbishop of Canterbury failed to pass a complaint to police, an inquiry has heard.

The disgraced former Bishop of Gloucester, Peter Ball, was jailed for 32 months last year but one victim had written to George Carey in 1992 alerting him to the abuse, solicitor Richard Scorer, told a public inquiry into child sex abuse.

Prosecutors had considered charging Ball with some offences in 1993 but the cleric avoided a trial by accepting a caution for the abuse of one young man and resigned his post as Bishop of Gloucester.

After Ball was convicted last year, Lord Carey denied presiding over a cover-up in the 1990s but said he regretted failing to deal properly with Ball’s victims. It emerged that Lord…