UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail
By Tom Kelly for the Daily Mail
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey colluded with senior clergy to protect a paedophile bishop, a damning report revealed yesterday.
As a result, serial sex offender Peter Ball – who boasted of being a confidant of Prince Charles – escaped prosecution for more than 20 years.
An independent inquiry into the scandal found that the Church of England knew of a string of allegations against Ball, then bishop of Gloucester, but failed to alert the police. Current Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby urged Lord Carey to step down from his role as an assistant bishop after the report covering his time as head of the Church of England.
Some of Ball’s victims called for a criminal investigation into senior clergy after the report found that the Church was ‘more interested in protecting itself’ than helping those he had abused, and that at least nine bishops knew allegations had been made against him.
Ball, a former suffragan bishop of Lewes, was let off with caution for molesting a teenage novice monk in 1993. Although the Church knew of other allegations against him, it was not until 2015 that Ball was finally prosecuted and jailed.
He admitted abusing 18 teenagers and young men who had sought spiritual guidance from him between 1977 and 1992.
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