UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times
by Madeleine Davies
Posted: 10 May 2013
A FORMER Archbishop of York, Lord Hope of Thornes, failed to report allegations of child abuse to the police or independent child protection agencies, an investigation has suggested.
A joint investigation by The Times and The Australian newspaper in Sydney reports that Lord Hope was told of accusations against the Very Revd Robert Waddington (right), a former Dean of Manchester Cathedral, in 1999 and in 2003. He removed the Dean’s permission to officiate in 2005 but did not report the allegations to the police or child protection authorities. Dean Waddington, who was Dean of Manchester from 1984 to his retirement in 1993, died in 2007.
Allegations of abuse were first made in England in 2003 by the family of a former chorister at Manchester Cathedral, Eli Ward. The Right Revd Nigel McCulloch, who was Bishop of Manchester from 2002 until his retirement this year, was made aware of the allegations by the diocesan child protection adviser, but a diocesan child protection report claimed that “little could be done” unless the victim himself came forward.
On Friday, Bishop McCulloch said he had been “shocked and saddened” to learn of the allegations. He had asked his chaplain to contact the child protection officer for the diocese “in order that the correct procedures following such allegations could be properly followed”.
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