The Church of england’s selection of “independent” reviewers in these cases is always interesting. Some thought Lord Carlile a strange choice to inquire into a claim of child sexual abuse, given that he had apparently failed to notice the activities of Cyril Smith MP despite sharing an office with him for many years…
Church News
George Bell was ‘fond’ of paeodophile bishop Peter Ball and sponsored him for ordination, an inquiry has heard.
As former bishop of Chichester, Bell is considered one of Anglicanism’s heroes. However, it emerged in 2015 the Church of England paid £16,800 to the woman, known as Carol, in a legal settlement after she accused Bell of sexually abusing her as a child.
Now it can be revealed Peter Ball, who was jailed for a string of sex offences against teenagers and young men in 2015, was close friends with Bell.
Bishop Ball sentenced to 32 months in prison but served only 16 months.
Ball was initially rejected in his attempt to become a priest in 1951 but Bell wrote to the selection panel in support of Ball’s application.
When Ball applied for ordination a second time it was Bell who sponsored him through the process.
In his witness statement to an inquiry investigating child sex abuse within the Church of England, Ball denied that Bell had ‘overruled’ the selection board allowing him to be ordained.
However he said that after his ordination Bell would visit his parish to take services, adding he was ‘aware that he was “fond” of me’.
In response to a question about Bell’s involvement in his ordination, Ball told the inquiry: ‘It is not right therefore to say that Bishop Bell “overruled” the selection board in order for me to be ordained.
Courtesy of Jimmy JamesBishop George Bell is an iconic figure for the Church of England and was bishop of Chichester from 1929 to 1958.
‘Although Bishop Bell had indicated in 1951 in a letter to the first Selection Board who did not recommend me for ministry that he would be “prepared to accept me for ordination” even though the Selection Board had not recommend me for training at that time, that is not how matters proceeded.’
He went on: ‘After theological college, it was Bishop Bell ultimately who did sponsored [sic] me for ordination, but with the approval of the Selection Board. Bishop Bell then placed me in the parish of Rottingdean where I undertook my first curacy.
‘He would visit my curacy on occasion to carry out confirmations and to take services.
‘We had a good working relationship; I was aware that he was “fond” of me. He was someone who I looked up to when I was a young curate starting out in the Church.’
Bell, who died in 1958, was revered by Anglicans before the abuse allegations against him emerged. However a report earlier this year heavily criticised the Church’s handling of the accusations and found it ‘rushed to judgement’ and failed to give proper consideration to Bell’s rights.
But the archbishop of Canterbury refused to back down and said a ‘significant cloud is left over his name’.
Ball went on to become bishop of Lewes in the diocese of Chichester and then bishop of Gloucester. He was accused of gross indecency against a 16-year-old in 1992 but escaped with a police caution after he received backing from a member of the Royal Family and a number of other establishment figures. He was told to step down from his role as a bishop. However he continued to minister in churches and schools until 2010 before he was eventually arrested.
At the age of 83 he was sentenced to 32 months for misconduct in public office and 15 months for indecent assaults in 2015. He was released after serving 16 months.
The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse has been investigation how the diocese of Chichester handled allegations of child sexual abuse as a case study for the wider Church of England.
In his concluding remarks today solicitor David Greenwood said the CofE was more ‘malign’ than the Catholic Church in its response to abuse and accused it of ‘a conscious effort to treat survivors badly’.
The archbishop of Canterbury in his evidence said he had ‘learnt to be ashamed again of the Church’ and warned child sexual abuse would ‘destroy the Church’ if not addressed.
Police close latest investigation into George Bell
Bishop Wallace Benn: There was clearly a paedophile ring, which I inherited.
Still discussing report by Baroness Butler Sloss
Church hit by 48 child abuse claims in one diocese, inquiry told
06 March 2018
The extent of the Church of England’s failure to identify, expose and punish child abusers within its ranks is set to be laid bare by a major inquiry, which heard of a “widespread culture of denial” yesterday.
Abusers were in some cases able to work unchallenged in the church for decades and evidence from witnesses will point to a catalogue of potential failures, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was told.
Bishop turned ‘blind eye’ to Bexhill vicar’s abuse, inquiry hears
06 March 2018
A damning image of ‘wilful blindness’ in historic cases of sexual abuse of children who were ‘terrified and silenced’ by clergy in Sussex has been set out at a public inquiry. Fiona Scolding QC, lead counsel to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said yesterday that abuse that left an ‘indelible scar’ on children was often ignored or forgiven.
In one segment, Miss Scolding described abuse by a Reverend Colin Pritchard, former vicar of St Barnabas’ Church in Bexhill and a church in Sedlescombe. She said: “There have been suggestions about the culture of abuse operated by Reverend Pritchard and that Bishop Peter Ball turned a blind eye to that abuse.” Pritchard was arrested in 1997 on suspicion of sexual offences, and again in 2007. Miss Scolding said: “There were no restrictions upon his ability to attend church or be involved in ministry with children from his arrest until July 2007.
Reverend Pritchard, who was vicar of St Barnabas in Bexhill, pleaded guilty in 2008 to seven counts of sexual assault on two boys and was jailed for five years. Pritchard – now known as Ifor Whittaker – was convicted last month of sex offences against a boy and jailed for 16 years. The crimes were when he worked in Sedlescombe, police said. Speaking on behalf of the Diocese of Chichester and Archbishops’ Council for the Church of England, Nigel Giffin QC said the Church’s response to abuse in the last few decades was ‘not nearly good enough’. The IICSA inquiry will look into how far institutions failed to protect children from sexual abuse within the Anglican Church. It focuses on abuse within the Diocese of Chichester, which covers all of Sussex, as a case study. Miss Scolding said: “As a society we have over the past 10 years had to examine some uncomfortable truths about our wilful blindness to such abuse.” Richard Scorer, speaking on behalf of many of the victims, said: “The Church of England claims to offer moral guidance to the country yet clerical sexual abuse cases powerfully undermine the claim. This leads to the cover-up of abuse. “The question is whether the Church can be trusted to put its own house in order.” In a statement, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said: “The failures that we have seen are deeply shaming and I personally find them a cause of horror and sadness. “That children have been abused within the communities of the church is indeed shameful.” The inquiry continues.
Archbishop of Canterbury to be quizzed in person at inquiry into Church of England’s handling of sex abuse allegations
Justin Welby will appear at Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA)
Former archbishop Rowan Williams will also be called to answer questions
They’ll be asked about the handling of abuse claims in the Diocese of Chichester
Welby will be pressed on the investigation involving the Reverend George Bell
Bell, who died in 1958, is alleged to have sexually abused a young girl in the 40s
The hearing will also look at the Lord Carlile Report, which criticised the Church for a ‘rush to judgement’ and failing to consider the rights of Bishop Bell
The hearing in London will start on March 5 and continue for three weeks
23 February 2018
The Archbishop of Canterbury is to be questioned in person over how the Anglican Church dealt with allegations of sexual assaults against children.
Justin Welby is due to give evidence as a witness at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in central London next month.
The most senior clergyman in the Church of England – and his predecessor Rowan Williams – will be quizzed on their handling of a number of high-profile abuse allegations in the Diocese of Chichester in Sussex.
Most notably he will be pressed on the investigation into assault claims surrounding the Reverend George Bell, former Bishop of Chichester.
Bell, who died in 1958, is alleged to have sexually abused a young girl, starting from when she was just five-years old, in the 1940s and 50s.
A complaint was initially made to the then Bishop of Chichester, Eric Kemp, in 1995 but it wasn’t until a second complaint was made to Welby’s office in 2013 that the matter was passed on to the police.
The subsequent investigation by Sussex Police found that there was sufficient evidence to have arrested Bell had he still been alive.
The diocese apologised and paid compensation to the victim, known only as Carol, in 2015.
The archbishop will be pressed on the investigation into assault claims surrounding the Reverend George Bell, former Bishop of Chichester. Bell, who died in 1958, is alleged to have sexually abused a young girl in the 1940s and 50s
While the inquiry will not examine the truth or substance of the allegations into Bishop Bell, it will analyse how the victim was treated and what improvements in safeguarding the Church has made since.
Crucially, the £100 million hearing will also look at the findings of the Lord Carlile Report, published in December, which criticised the Church for a ‘rush to judgement’ and of failing to give proper consideration to the rights of Bishop Bell.
At an IICSA preliminary hearing on January 30, it was announced that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Williams had provided witness statements.
The investigation into the Anglican Church has its first public hearing on March 5 which will last for three weeks.
Lambeth Palace say they will make a formal statement once the witness schedule has been finalised.
However, a spokesman for the Archbishops’ Council told MailOnline: ‘The Archbishop was one of the first to call for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and the Church of England is committed to working with IICSA in a transparent way.
‘He is aware that for the survivors who are brave enough to come forward to the Inquiry and give their testimony this will be a very difficult time which is why he is prepared to do the same.’
The inquiry, chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, is investigating the extent to which institutions in England and Wales failed to protect children from sexual abuse.
As part of its investigation into the Diocese of Chichester it will examine allegations of abuse by other priests, particularly Roy Cotton, Colin Pritchard and Gordon Rideout.
Rev Cotton, a parish priest in Brede, near Rye, Sussex had been convicted for an indecent assault on a child in 1954 but despite this was ordained in 1966.
He is thought to have had as many as 10 victims, which included two brothers from Eastbourne who won damages from the diocese after it recognised that the Church had failed to stop them being abused as choirboys in the 1970s and 80s.
Cotton died in September 2006 before he could be brought to justice.
Pritchard served as the vicar of St Barnabas, in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex until 2007 after being arrested over sex abuse claims
He pleaded guilty the following year to sexually abusing two boys in the 70s and 80s and was jailed for five years.
The offences took place while he was parish priest at St Andrew’s Church in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.
A subsequent report in 2011 into Cotton and Pritchard found that victims’ claims had not been treated seriously.
Meanwhile Canon Rideout was found guilty of 36 separate sex offences by a jury at Lewes Crown Court in 2013.
Crucially, the £100 million hearing will also look at the findings of the Lord Carlile Report, published in December, which criticised the Church for a ‘rush to judgement’ and of failing to give proper consideration to the rights of Bishop Bell (above, centre)
The attacks, which included attempted rape and indecent assaults on both boys and girls, some of whom were 13-years of age, took place between 1962 and 1973 in Sussex and Hampshire.
He later pleaded guilty in 2016 to one charge of indecent assault on a girl under the age of 16 at a children’s home in Reigate, Surrey which took place between July 29 1969 and July 21 1974.
The Chichester hearing will also consider the case of Peter Ball, formerly Bishop of Lewes and subsequently Bishop of Gloucester, and investigate whether there were inappropriate attempts by people of prominence to interfere in the criminal justice process after he was first accused of child sexual offences.
However a separate, more detailed hearing into Ball, who was friends with Prince Charles, will take place in July.
On the website, the inquiry states: ‘There have been a significant number of internal investigations of the diocese carried out both by child protection individuals and individuals within the church itself.
‘The Chichester hearing will examine those investigations, what they found and what has changed as a result.
‘The Chichester hearing will also examine what steps the Church of England as a whole has taken to improve its practice and to respond to the experiences discovered within the Diocese of Chichester.
‘Of importance to the focus to the hearing will be the accounts of disclosure of abuse by complainants from within the Diocese of Chichester: both whether they were believed, how they were treated, and what happened as a result of the complaint.
‘If they were unable to disclose their abuse at the time, why they were so unable and what steps they consider the church could and should have made to improve the processes in respect of safeguarding where they consider that the response given was not adequate.
‘The case study will investigate, amongst other things, the following: the culture of the church, by which the investigation team means its behaviours, values and beliefs, and if those behaviours, values and beliefs inhibited or continued to inhibit the investigation, exposure and prevention of child sexual abuse.’
IICSA today – Bishop John Hinds of Chichester admits how shocked he was when Bishop Wallace Benn asked for the blemished criminal record check of Revd Rideout to be overlooked, that many mistakes were made, and that the church should not be left to police itself.
Shocking things emerging from IICSA today – Meakins (social worker appointed By Chichester diocese to do a past cases review) says available info on the CRBs etc of clergy later convicted of abuse like Rideout and Peter Ball was missing from the files he was shown.
Richard Scorer@Richard_Scorer
Extraordinary evidence at @InquiryCSA this morning – Roger Meekings who did the Chichester diocese pasr cases review says the files on Peter Ball, Gordon Rideout (& others) were filleted so he didn’t see evidence about their abuse. Question now is who filleted them?
InquiryCSA (IICSA)
Meekings was a Professional Supervisor to Shirley Hosgood, former Child Protection Officer, Chichester Diocese.
Linda Woodhead@LindaWoodhead
Didn’t Shirley Hosgood and Bishop Hind say to the inquiry that only the bishop (or bishops) could access the blue files?
InquiryCSA (IICSA)
*Schedule amendment* Angela Sibson to give evidence tomorrow with read evidence from Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and Kate Wood to follow from Canon Ian Gibson.
Cassandra Cogno@CassandraCogno
Is Dame “we don’t want to give the press a bishop” Butler-Sloss not giving evidence in person?Not so long ago she was going to run this show
InquiryCSA (IICSA)
Nikita McNeill changes the line of questioning to the Past Cases Review
Counsel to the Inquiry Nikita McNeill ask Canon Ian Gibson about the blue files and the status of the files when Canon Ian Gibson took over the job and responsibility of them
Roger Meekings tell the Inquiry that in 2009-2011 the Diocese of Chichester was a very male orientated environment and a female safeguarding officer provided a challenge to male authority
Canon Ian Gibson: “There wasn’t a blue file for Peter Ball”
Nikita McNeill asks Canon Ian Gibson about the allegations against Canon Gordon Rideout and his blemished disclosure
Canon Gordon Rideout’s blemished CRB was a safeguarding issue and was raised at a senior staff meeting – Canon Ian Gibson tells InquiryCSA
Bishop Wallace asked Bishop John not to disclose blemished CRB information on Canon Gordon Rideout to the safeguarding advisor of the diocese as he is a friend and much respected person
Nikita McNeill asks Canon Ian Gibson about why he believes management experience is important for bishop
Counsel to the Inquiry Nikita McNeill hands over questioning of Canon Ian Gibson to the Chair and Panel.
Former Sussex priest jailed for sex abuse against boy
Feb 22 2018
Ifor Whittaker was previously known as Colin Pritchard
A “disgusting and despicable” ex-Anglican priest has been jailed for sexually abusing a boy and conspiring with another priest to abuse the child.
Ifor Whittaker, formerly Colin Pritchard, was convicted of abusing the boy, aged between 10 and 16 when the abuse happened in the 1980s and 1990s.
The 73-year-old also conspired with ex-clergyman Roy Cotton, who has since died, to commit sex acts.
Whittaker, of Rectory Road, Sutton, south London, was jailed for 16 years.
He was told he will serve a minimum of 10 years in prison. He is already a registered sex offender for life after a previous conviction.
Sentencing Whittaker, Judge Paul Tain described the priest’s behaviour as “disgraceful, disgusting and despicable”,
He said: “It was an obvious and clear case of grooming, where he carefully manipulated a vulnerable child.”
Whittaker had “attempted to bamboozle, cheat and mislead the jury”, the judge said.
He said the abuser had “plied the victim with alcohol” and “emotionally blackmailed the boy by saying ‘no one would believe you over a priest'”.
The boy had been invited by Whittaker to do gardening work at the church
Whittaker, a former rector of Sedlescombe, near Battle, was convicted of seven counts, which also included gross indecency and inciting the boy to commit gross indecency.
The offences took place between February 1987 and February 1993 in East Sussex, Hove Crown Court was told.
The jury was told Whittaker was a “predatory paedophile” and had organised and facilitated the abuse with Cotton, who worked as a priest in Brede, near Rye, in the 1990s.
He died in 2006 and was never prosecuted.
The victim, now in his 40s, told the court Cotton had been the main abuser and had “just passed me over like a toy to be borrowed by a friend”.
‘Quite forceful’
The court heard the abuse began after he was invited to do gardening work at the church by Whittaker in return for pocket money.
Whittaker and Cotton “had an agreement” and Cotton would often take the boy to and from Whittaker’s house, it was said.
There were also occasions at Cotton’s house when, after abuse had taken place, Whittaker would “suddenly immediately appear in the room as if he had been watching”, the jury heard.
Whittaker’s victim described him as “quite forceful, quite scary”.
The jury was told Whittaker had previously pleaded guilty to gross indecency and indecent assault in 2008 over offences which had take place in Wellingborough in Northamptonshire against teenage boys in the 1980s.
The diocese apologised “unreservedly” after Baroness Butler-Sloss’s report criticised both senior clergy and Sussex Police over how they dealt with historical claims of abuse by Cotton and the then Colin Pritchard.
Following Whittaker’s latest conviction, the Diocese of Chichester issued a statement saying: “We express our profound sorrow and regret to the victim in this case and our admiration for their courage and determination in coming forward.
“The abuse of children is both a travesty and a tragedy and a complete betrayal of the Christian faith.
“This case demonstrates once again why it is so important to listen to those reporting abuse.”
New investigation into late Bishop George Bell as CofE says it has received ‘fresh information’
31 Jan 2018
The Church of England today said that it had received ‘fresh information’ concerning the late Bishop George Bell, with Christian Today understanding that a new complainant has come forward following publicity about allegations against the bishop.
The Church of England was criticised in the independent Carlile report published in December for a ‘rush to judgment’ in its handling of separate allegations against Bishop Bell, the former Bishop of Chichester who died in 1958, made by a woman known as ‘Carol’. The report by Lord Carlile said that although the Church acted in good faith, its processes were deficient and it failed to give proper consideration to the rights of the accused.
In 2015, the Church of England issued a formal public apology and paid damages of £16,800 to ‘Carol’, plus legal costs.
The fresh information does not relate to Carol, Christian Today understands.
‘The Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team has received fresh information concerning Bishop George Bell,’ said a statement from the Church of England’s safeguarding team today. ‘Sussex Police have been informed and we will work collaboratively with them. This new information was received following the publication of the Carlile Review, and is now being considered through the Core Group and in accordance with Lord Carlile’s recommendations.
‘The Core Group is now in the process of commissioning an independent investigation in respect of these latest developments. As this is a confidential matter we will not be able to say any more about this until inquiries have concluded.’
Bishop Peter Hancock, the Church of England’s lead Safeguarding bishop said: ‘There are ongoing queries and comments around the Bishop Bell case and we would all like this matter to come to a conclusion.
‘However, in light of General Synod questions that need to be responded to and the reference to the case in the IICSA hearing yesterday, I would like to draw your attention to this [above] statement from the National Safeguarding Team. I would ask that we keep all those involved in our thoughts and prayers.
‘Due to the confidential nature of this new information I regret I cannot disclose any further detail until the investigations have been concluded. We are currently developing an action plan in response to Lord Carlile’s independent report which makes a number of considered points as to how to handle such cases in future and we have accepted the main thrust of the recommendations.’
A spokesperson for Sussex Police told Christian Today: ‘On Tuesday 30 January we received information from the Church of England concerning the late Bishop George Bell. The information will be assessed in order to establish what further enquiries need to be made.’
The Church of England’s handling of claims against Bishop Bell are likely to be discussed at the General Synod, which begins next week. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been criticised by historians and academics supportive of the late bishop for saying that a ‘significant cloud’ remained over his name.
Supporters of Bishop Bell have called on the Most Rev Justin Welby to pronounce the bishop as innocent.
But Mr Welby said he could not rescind a statement in which he said a cloud hung over Bishop Bell’s name.
Bishop Bell’s supporters have sent three open letters to the archbishop in recent days.
They were written by a group of historians, an international group of church leaders, and a selection of former choristers at Chichester cathedral.
But the archbishop said: “Our history over the last 70 years has revealed that the church covered up, ignored or denied the reality of abuse on major occasions.
“As a result, the church is rightly facing intense and concentrated scrutiny (focused in part on the Diocese of Chichester) through the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
“The Diocese of Chichester was given legal advice to make a settlement based on the civil standard of proof, the balance of probability.
“It was not alleged that Bishop Bell was found to have abused on the criminal standard of proof, beyond reasonable doubt.
“The two standards should not be confused.”
The independent reviewer, Lord Carlisle QC, said the Church of England’s investigation into allegations against the bishop by a woman known as “Carol” were deficient.
The church apologised and compensated Carol after she claimed she had been assaulted by Bell as a young girl.
Lord Carlile said the church had “rushed to judgment”.
But Mr Welby provoked anger among the late bishop’s supporters when he said: “No human being is entirely good or bad. Bishop Bell was in many ways a hero. He is also accused of great wickedness.”
Priest banned from ministry to defend George Bell at Church of England’s headquarters
30 Jan 2018
A priest barred from ministry after being accused of abusing colleagues and making malicious allegations against his superiors is to speak at the Church of England’s headquarters in London on Thursday.
Jules Gomes was barred for 10 years from ministry for conduct unbecoming a priest.
Church House is the building used as the CofE’s main London base. The National Church Institutions (NCIs) which govern the Church’s daily running, do not own the building nor control its bookings and the CofE appeared to distance itself from the event.
A Church of England spokesperson said: ‘We are aware of an event due to take place at Church House Conference Centre Limited, in Westminster, on Feb 1 at which we understand Jules Gomes, a former Church of England parish priest prohibited from ministry for 10 years by a Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal, has been invited to speak.
‘The National Church Institutions are tenants at Church House. Church House Conference Centre Limited, who manage bookings from clients and operate the conference spaces, is an independent conference centre located at Church House.’
Gomes was banned from ministry for 10 years after a disciplinary tribunal found he is ‘prone to losing his temper and displaying anger and as a result those who have been the subject of such anger have been seriously upset and damaged’.
The chairman of the tribunal dealing with Gomes’ case, Geoffrey Tattersall QC, said he had an ‘over-inflated view of his own self-importance’, and dealt with people with ‘little or no compassion or pastoral concern’.
He abused and shouted at a voluntary church cleaner, causing her to feel ‘threatened by his behaviour’ and leave the church. He also repeatedly swore, using the word f***, at the churchwarden who also resigned stating the experience ‘hurt him deeply and that it took him some time to recover’.
Gomes also attacked his bishop on the Isle of Man in media interviews, making ‘several malicious and untrue allegations against the bishop and the archdeacon’, the panel concluded.
The bishop retired shortly afterwards.
Gomes, who is now pastor of St Augustine’s, an independent Anglican church on the Isle of Man, described his case as ‘Kafkaesque’ and a ‘witch-hunt’ against him.
Since being barred from ministry for conduct unbecoming of a priest, Gomes has written extensively on his own blog and for the Conservative Woman blog site. He refers to female bishops as ‘bishopesses’ and in one blog badged as ‘satirical’ he described a ‘gaggle of anorexic and bulimic teenage girls’ accompanying ‘Rachel Treweek, Bishopess of Gloucester’.
Elsewhere he described Sarah Mullally, the new Bishop of London, as ‘safe space Sarah, the box-ticking Bishopette of Londonistan’ who ‘doesn’t have the foggiest idea about the biblical gospel’.
Gomes told Christian Today: ‘It feels wonderful to return to an organisation that barred me from its altar and pulpit and I have not an ounce of regret, because it opened even wider doors of opportunity to enable me to flourish as a writer and journalist.’ He said he would ‘thank’ his accusers because ‘God brought immense good through it all.’
Gomes told Christian Today he would call on the Archbishop of Canterbury to apologise over the Bell case and demand a meeting between Bell’s niece and the current Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner. He also said he would call for references to Bishop Bell that had been removed or altered after the allegations against him emerged to be restored.
Bishop Bell was deeply revered in the Church of England and was one of the Church’s most respected 20th century leaders. However his reputation was destroyed in 2015 when the Church of England appeared to admit he was a paedophile by publicly apologising to an alleged victim, known only as Carol, and paid her more than £30,000 in damages and legal fees after a civil claim was launched.
A subsequent review of how the Church dealt with the accusations by Lord Carlile QC found it ‘rushed to judgment’ and made ‘serious errors’.
A dedicated group of supporters are hoping to clear Bell’s name. Thus far Welby has declined to apologise and insisted the Church’s principle of transparency when it comes to abuse cases was the right one.
Potty-mouthed vicar facing axe over X-rated rants to colleagues accuses Church of England of using ‘Sharia law’ to discipline him
Unrepentant reverend accused the church of acting in a manner more associated with strict followers of Islam
10th November 2016
The vicar was found to have shown an ‘unacceptable level of self-control’ over his anger, particularly towards the cleaner, who later quit her job.
Dr Gomes, who was ordained in northern India, is understood to have said f*** repeatedly in an argument with a warden.
He was also investigated for ‘malicious’ allegations of racism against Venerable Andrew Brown, the Archdeacon of Man, and Right Revd Robert Paterson, the Bishop of Sodor and Man, who both denied the claims.
Dr Gomes served the parish of Arbory and Castletown on the Isle of Man but resigned last December and claimed the complaints against him were ‘hearsay’ and ‘completely false’.
Dr Gomes, was ordained in northern India
Dr Gomes was ordained in 1998 before attending Cambridge University in England to study a PhD between 2000 and 2003.
He went on to serve as chaplain at Old Royal Navy College Chapel, Greenwich, and lectured at the London School of Theology before becoming a canon at Liverpool University between 2010-2012.
The Rev’d Dr Jules Gomes (BA, BD, MTh, PhD) is a journalist and academic. He writes the weekly “Rebel Priest” column for The Conservative Woman and is religious affairs correspondent for Virtue Online. Jules earned his doctorate from the University of Cambridge and taught at the United Theological College, London School of Theology, and Liverpool Hope University. He enjoys philosophy, literature, art, classical and jazz music, target shooting, and motorcycling. He lives with his wife and cat on the Isle of Man.
GOMES. The Revd Dr Jules Gomes, Priest-in-Charge of Arbory and of Castletown, now Vicar of Arbory and Castletown, remaining Canon of St German’s Cathedral, Peel (Sodor & Man).
Commissioning Jules Gomes as St Augustine’s Minister, Pentecost 2016
Current members of the leadership team
Sir Laurence New, former Lt Governor of the Isle of Man, is Chairman of the Management Team. Rosemary Derbyshire is the Secretary and Elaine Wilson is the Treasurer. The other members are Werner Alberts, David Cole, Lady Anna New, Rosalind Taisia, Elise Grobbelaar, Rekha Gomes and Revd. Dr. Jules Gomes
A Church of England bishop was a paedophile, it was revealed.
The shocking revelations about the late Bishop of Chichester George Bell came when the Church of England disclosed it had apologised and paid damages following a civil sex abuse claim against him.
The allegations against Bell date from the late 1940s and early 1950s and concern sexual offences against an individual who was at the time a young child.
The survivor first reported the abuse to the then Bishop of Chichester, Eric Kemp, in August 1995.
Bishop of Chichester: Eric Kemp and Queen Elizabeth
Eric Kemp moved in elevated London circles and was a good friend of Canon Anthony Caesar, sub dean of the Chapel Royal and the Queen’s domestic chaplain.
And convicted paedophile Bishop Peter Ball (good friends with the royal family, especially, Prince Charles) often accompanied Eric Kemp on his London trips.
Kemp appointed the flamboyant Ball as his assistant in the post of bishop of Lewes, he fitted in immediately.
Bishop Kemp responded to the correspondence offering pastoral support but did not refer the matter to the police or, so far as is known, investigate the matter further. It was not until contact with Lambeth Palace in 2013 that the survivor was put in touch with the safeguarding team at the Diocese of Chichester who referred the matter to the police and offered personal support and counselling to the survivor.
Lord Carey criticised by damning report which finds Church ‘colluded’ with disgraced bishop Peter Ball to cover up sex offences
Peter Ball was jailed in 2015 after he admitted sexually assaulting young men
Justin Welby has asked a former Archbishop of Canterbury to step down from his current role after a report found that he and other senior figures in the Church of England “colluded” with a disgraced paedophile bishop to prevent him facing criminal charges.
George Carey, currently an honorary Assistant Bishop in the diocese of Oxford, has been urged to “carefully consider his position” by Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury.
A damning report by former social worker Dame Moira Gibb, the result of an 18-month long enquiry, found that the Church of England had failed to protect the victims of Peter Ball, who abused 18 vulnerable men and boys over a 20-year period.
Ball, a former bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester, was jailed in October 2015 for indecent assault and misconduct in public office. He was released from prison earlier this year.
He had initially been investigated by police in 1993 after Neil Todd, a young man who had stayed with him, told Church figures there had been “sexual activity” between the two. Mr Todd killed himself in 2012.
That investigation ended when Ball accepted a caution for gross indecency and resigned as Bishop of Gloucester.
Former Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball arriving at the Old BaileyCredit: John Stillwell/PA
The report, published on Thursday, found that Lord Carey, then the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to Ball’s twin brother, Bishop Michael Ball, in 1993, after the caution, saying he believed Ball was “basically innocent”.
At that stage Lord Carey was already aware of six letters which had been sent to Lambeth Palace by members of the public, making further allegations about Ball’s behaviour.
These included parents who said their children had been sexually propositioned by Ball and a man who said he had been asked to masturbate in front of him at the age of 15.
The letters were never passed on to police.
Following the caution Ball retired to a rented cottage on the Prince of Wales’ Duchy of Cornwall estate and started to draw a pension. The report also criticises the “unusual degree of financial support from the Church” that he received in retirement, authorised by Lord Carey.
He was also allowed him to carry out services including baptisms and confirmations, as well as speaking at 17 public schools, some until as late as 2007, the report said, a decision in which Lord Carey “played the lead role”.
The former Archbishop also decided not to add him to the “Lambeth List”, which identifies clergyman about whom there are questions as to their suitability for ministry.
Justin Welby: report makes for “harrowing reading”Credit: Christopher Pledger
The report said Lord Carey “set the tone for the Church’s response to Ball’s crimes and gave the steer which allowed Ball’s assertions that the was innocent to gain credence”.
In a statement, Lord Carey said the report “makes deeply uncomfortable reading” and apologised to Ball’s victims.
He added: “I believed Peter Ball’s protestations and gave too little credence to the vulnerable young men and boys behind these allegations”.
In a statement the Rt Revd Dr Steven Croft, the Bishop of Oxford, said: “The Archbishop of Canterbury has written to Lord Carey and asked him to carefully consider his position as honorary Assistant Bishop.
“As I hold responsibility for granting him a licence to enable him to carry out his duties, Archbishop Justin has asked Lord Carey to talk to me and we have agreed to meet in the coming days for that conversation.
“In the meantime he has voluntarily agreed to step back from public ministry.”
Victims called for the former Archbishop to face criminal proceedings.
Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, who represents a number of Ball’s victims, said: “Given what’s in the report, there is now a clear case for the police and CPS to consider criminal charges against senior figures, including Lord Carey, for offences of misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice.
“This report bears out our clients’ complaint that the Church of England deliberately concealed evidence of Ball’s criminality, and they are appalled by the true extent of collusion in abuse.”
In a foreword to the report, Dame Moira Gibb said: “Ball’s priority was to protect and promote himself and he maligned the abused. The Church colluded with that rather than seeking to help those he had harmed, or assuring itself of the safety of others.”
Archbishop Justin Welby said the report, titled Abuses of Faith, made “harrowing reading”.
“The Church colluded and concealed rather than seeking to help those who were brave enough to come forward,” he said.
Church knew about allegations before Cornish preacher went on to abuse boys, investigation reveals
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling
25 MAY 2018
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009
A leading figure in the Church of England in Cornwall went on to commit child sex offences for several years after allegations about his behaviour with young boys were raised with the diocese and not acted upon, an official investigation has revealed.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released today, says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
After the first allegations of Dowling abusing boys at a North Cornwall school where he taught were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions – because of a lack of corroborative evidence – the then Bishop of Truro Maurice Key wrote: “I suppose the problem will now be to find him some other work”.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
The report’s author said the lack of action by the diocese allowed Dowling to gain credibility and authority.
“Because they didn’t take it any further it enabled Jeremy Dowling to reach a position where he made up his own rules, and his position within the church lent him credibility and authority,” said Dr Andy Thompson, an academic, magistrate and member of the Diocesan Council.
The Bishop of St Germans, Rt Revd Dr Chris Goldsmith, apologised for the lack of action and the suffering that resulted.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released on Friday (May 25), says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
One of the leaders who was named in the report was Michael Ball, 86, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997. The Right Reverend Ball told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations about Dowling but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
His identical twin, Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences dating back to the 1970s against 18 young men at his home in East Sussex.
His sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault. The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Last year the brothers decided they wanted to become Catholics so they could live in anonimity. Peter Ball asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol and both said they wanted to switch faith from the Church of England so they could “live and worship in anonymity” within the Catholic Church.
Former Bishop of Truro was Michael Ball, twin brother of convicted paedophile/friend of the royal family and Jimmy Savile – Bishop Peter Ball.
Jeremy Dowling
The Right Reverend Michael Ball – Bishop of Truro from 1990-97 – told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
BIG SOCIETY: Pictured above, with Prime Minister David Cameron and North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson, are Co-founder of Community Action Through Sport (CATS) and volunteer Denise Jane May, CATS trustee and volunteer Jeremy Dowling, CATS Project Development Manager Karen Hemmings, CATS Project Development Assistant Louise Anne Harris and CATS trustee and volunteer Sharon Caroline Marshall.
Ex Truro Diocese worker Jeremy Dowling sexually abused boys
5 June 2015
An ex-Diocese of Truro press officer has admitted sexually abusing boys over a period of more than 10 years.
Jeremy Dowling, 76, carried out the assaults on five children, aged between 12 and 15, from 1959 to 1971.
Truro Crown Court heard Dowling abused the boys at sporting events and in toilets while working as a teacher in Devon.
The Bishop of Truro described Dowling’s offences as “deeply shocking” and said his thoughts were with the victims.
Sentencing was adjourned until July 10 for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.
Dowling, of Church Path, Bude, retired from the Diocese of Truro in 2009 after 25 years of service.
‘Damaging impact’
He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault on boys aged 12 to 15 and two counts of indecency with a child.
The court heard one assault was carried out on a boy at a cricket match. Others took place in an attic, in storage rooms at a sporting pavilion and in outside toilets.
The Right Reverend Tim Thornton, Bishop of Truro, said many people would have known Dowling as a reader at St Michael’s Church and St Genny’s Church in Bude and as a member of the Diocesan and General Synods.
Bishop Thornton said: “Offences like this will have a damaging and lasting impact on people’s lives.
Former Cornwall preacher Jeremy Dowling ‘assaulted boy’
The assaults happened when Jeremy Dowling was a lay preacher at two churches in the Bude area of Cornwall, Truro Crown Court was told.
Mr Dowling met the boy when he was 10 through church activities and “took him under his wing”.
He has denied six counts of indecent assault on a child and two counts of gross indecency with a child.
The assaults happened in the 1970s before Mr Dowling became a press spokesman for the Diocese of Truro, the court heard.
‘Long time ago’
Jo Martin, prosecuting, said some of the assaults took place at Mr Dowling’s house after the boy had been invited for dinner and on one occasion he was taken to a church on the north coast.
She said Mr Dowling took him up a tower and showed him the view, then took him to a room and assaulted him.
The alleged victim did not tell anyone when he was a child but later, when he was married, told his wife about the assaults.
He said when his wife rang up Mr Dowling, accusing him of being a paedophile, Mr Dowling replied “that was a long time ago”.
He said he eventually went to the police after reading in news reports that Mr Dowling had admitted abusing five boys when he was a teacher at a private school in the 1960s.
Mr Dowling is currently serving a jail term for those offences.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
22 June 2017
Church of England colluded with bishop who abused boys, says Welby
Report about bishop Peter Ball, finding collusion over 20 years, is ‘harrowing reading’
Collusion: Secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy
Senior figures in the Church of England colluded for a period of 20 years with a disgraced former bishop who sexually abused boys and men, a damning independent report has found.
The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said the report on the church’s handling of former bishop Peter Ball made “harrowing reading”.
“The church colluded and concealed rather than seeking to help those who were brave enough to come forward. This is inexcusable and shocking behaviour,” he said.
“To the survivors who were brave enough to share their story and bring Peter Ball to justice, I once again offer an unreserved apology. There are no excuses whatsoever for what took place and the systemic abuse of trust perpetrated by Peter Ball over decades.”
Two former archbishops of Canterbury, George Carey and Rowan Williams, apologised to the victims of Peter Ball after being criticised for their failures in relation to him.
Ball, the former bishop of both Gloucester and Lewes, was jailed in October 2015 for the grooming, sexual exploitation and abuse of 18 vulnerable young men aged 17-25 who had sought spiritual guidance from him between 1977 and 1992. He was released from prison in February after serving 16 months.
His trial heard that after Ball was first accused in 1993, a string of senior establishment figures – including Carey, an unidentified member of the royal family, cabinet ministers and a high court judge – came forward in his support, writing letters to the police and Crown Prosecution Service.
Ball was cautioned by police. He resigned his post as bishop and retired to a rented cottage on the Prince of Wales’s Duchy of Cornwall estate butcontinued to officiate in 17 public schools until 2007. A fresh investigation was opened in 2012 which led to his conviction.
One of Ball’s victims, Neil Todd – the first to come forward with allegations of abuse – attempted suicide three times before killing himself in 2012.
Welby ordered an independent review of the church’s handling of the case, chaired by Dame Moira Gibb, former chief executive of Camden council.
The report said Ball’s case was dealt with at the highest levels within the church. He “was seen by the church as the man in trouble who the church needed to help”.
Ball was portrayed as a victim, and the review found “little evidence of compassion for Neil Todd even though from the outset it was clear that he was a vulnerable young man who had come to harm”.
It added: “The church appears to have been most interested in protecting itself.”
In the foreword to her report, An Abuse of Faith, published on Thursday, Gibb said the serious sexual wrongdoing of Ball “is shocking in itself but is compounded by the failure of the church to respond appropriately to his misconduct, again over a period of many years”.
“Ball’s priority was to protect and promote himself and he maligned the abused. The church colluded. The church colluded with that rather than seeking to help those he had harmed, or assuring itself of the safety of others.”
The report added, “progress has been slow and continuing, faster improvement is still required”.
Gibb made 11 recommendations in her report, including improving support to survivors of clerical abuse and taking steps to “demonstrate the individual and collective accountability of bishops”.
Peter Hancock, the C of E’s lead safeguarding bishop, who received the report on behalf of the church, said it had failed Ball’s survivors. “Having read the report I am appalled and disturbed by its contents … As a church we colluded, we failed to act and protect those who came forward for help. There are no excuses. We accept all the recommendations and are working to action them.”
Rowan Williams: ‘It is clear I did not give adequate priority to sorting out the concerns and allegations surrounding Peter Ball.’
He added: “For the survivors, it may feel this is all too late.”
According to the report, Ball intimated “on many occasions, to Lord Carey and others, that he enjoys the status of confidant of the Prince of Wales” and “sought to exploit his contact with members of the royal family in order to bolster his position”.
Bishop Ball with Prince Charles and Camilla. Ball gave the homily at the funeral of Camilla Parker Bowles’s father, Major Bruce Shand, in 2006
Moira Gibb is made a Dame CBE by the Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace back in 2012
However, Dame Moira Gibb’s report went on, it “found no evidence that the Prince of Wales or any other member of the royal family sought to intervene at any point in order to protect or promote Ball”.
Carey was criticised in the report, which said he “set the tone for the church’s response to Ball’s crimes and gave the steer which allowed Ball’s assertions that he was innocent to gain credence”.
In a statement responding to the report, Carey said it made “uncomfortable reading” and he accepted its criticisms of him. “I apologise to the victims of Peter Ball. I believed Peter Ball’s protestations and gave too little credence to the vulnerable young men and boys behind those allegations.”
Carey said he regretted not putting Ball’s name on the Lambeth List – names of people whose suitability for ministry is under question – after he was cautioned.
Under the leadership of Williams, the church began reviewing past cases, a move which ultimately led to the criminal case against Ball being reopened, the report said. However, he was criticised as being “lamentably slow” in making change.
In a statement, Williams said: “Having read the report and reflected on its details, it is clear I did not give adequate priority to sorting out the concerns and allegations surrounding Peter Ball at the earliest opportunity. I recognise such a delay is likely to have increased the pressure and distress experienced by the survivors of his abuse and I am sincerely sorry for this.”
A review by Dame Moira Gibb found he had failed to pass on information about abuse carried out by Bishop Peter Ball.
Ms Racine’s abuser, Michael Walsh, was convicted of five indecent assault charges and confessed to sexual relationships with a further eight children.
He was sent to prison in 1990.
He had been a teacher, a lay vicar at Chichester Cathedral and also ran a choir at a church in Chichester.
Child abuse ‘inevitable’
After his release in 1992, Walsh returned to the same church to be part of the choir.
Concerned for the safety of other girls, in July of that year Ms Racine wrote to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, requesting his help.
Speaking after Lord Carey’s resignation, Ms Racine, 54, said: “I was very concerned that my abuser had just come out of prison and it appeared that he’d just gone straight back into the parish church where he’d originally worked, and was again in a position of authority in the choir there where young children – specifically girls – sang.
“I was really worried that these girls were at a huge risk. I felt it was inevitable that children would be abused.”
Three months after writing her letter she was told Lord Carey had been unable to consider her concerns because he was “committed to a series of visits overseas, together with his summer break”.
‘Duty of forgiveness’
She was informed one month later that the “Archbishop had been assured that there was no question of Michael Walsh being reinstated in the choir,” but nine months after raising her concerns she received a letter from the Archbishop’s chief of staff confirming her abuser was back in the choir.
Lambeth Palace wrote to Ms Racine saying the parish authorities had taken “great care” in coming to their decision to allow Walsh’s return to his position “weighing carefully the risk of re-offending against… the Christian duty of forgiveness”.
Michael Walsh, seen here in the 1990s, was allowed to return to the same church choir after his release from prison
The letters revealed Lord Carey regretted the decision which allowed Alesha’s abuser back into churches and offered her his sympathies.
Ms Racine said: “I thought his response was deeply hurtful, in that it had taken me a lot of courage to write to him at all.
“Most of what he said was in defence of the Church and the people in it, rather than try to reach out to me as a victim.
“I do feel it was a complete failure on his part.”
A spokesman for the former Archbishop of Canterbury said the correspondence with Ms Racine had been conducted on Lord Carey’s behalf by his chief of staff.
He said: “Lord Carey has absolutely no memory of this chain of correspondence or these events. He cannot therefore comment.”
Lord Carlile resigned the party whip and will sit as a non-affiliated peer after long finding himself “at odds” with senior figures on security issues.
The former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman has clashed with colleagues in the past over his support for the so-called Snooper’s Charter.
Baroness Butler-Sloss, a former senior judge, was appointed in July 2014 to lead an inquiry into allegations of historical child abuse but stood down before the inquiry started.
Her late brother, Lord Havers, had been attorney general in Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980s – leading some MPs to question whether she was the right person to investigate allegations of paedophilia from that time.
The Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla, President of WOW – the Women of the World Festival, speaks with former Lord Justice of Appeal Baroness Butler-Sloss at a reception at Clarence House, London.
In October 2009,David Pearce, a monk of Ealing Abbey and former headmaster of the Junior School, was jailed for eight years, subsequently reduced to five years, for sexual abuse offences at the school in the period from 1972 – 1992 and for one further offence in 2007 after he had ceased to work in the school.
In March 2011Laurence Soper, the Abbot of Ealing Abbey during the 1990s, was arrested on child abuse charges relating to the period when he was a teacher at, and the bursar of, St Benedict’s School; it was reported in October 2011 that he had failed to answer bail and was being sought by the police.
In the light of these matters, and other alleged offences, the Abbot commissioned a report to be prepared byLord Carlile with a view to making recommendations on the School’s governance.
As a result of the changes made the Independent Schools Inspectorate said in its 2013 inspection report that the pastoral care at St Benedict’s was excellent.
In October 2011 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ordered its own enquiry into the same matters, to be conducted by Bishop John Arnold.
Former abbot to stand trial for abusing 10 schoolboys
10Aug2017
Ealing
A former Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing 10 schoolboys in the 1970s and 1980s will stand trial in October. Father Laurence Soper, 73, a former abbot of Ealing Abbey in west London, is charged with 18 sex offences including buggery and indecent assault on boys under 16. They are said to have occurred at St Benedict’s School in Ealing, where he taught first as a priest before being promoted to abbot.
Amassed nearly 400 horrific images of children as young as two on iPhone and on a hard drive found in his office at the £15,000-a-year St Benedict’s School.
As a young reporter, I was given letters that might have helped make a case against the MP for child abuse
The establishment, in the shape of his fellow MPs, men such as Labour’s Keith Vaz, Tory David Ashby and the then Lib Dem MP nowLord Carlile, closed ranks.
Carlile played a prominent part, describing Janner as a man of “integrity” and “determination”. Carlile should have known Janner fairly well.
They were both MPs, both QCs, both members of Friends of Israel, both patrons of UK lawyers for Israel.
They were both patrons of the Friends of Israel Educational Foundation. They were regulars on the same parliamentary committees dealing with legal affairs. They were both to leave the Commons at the same time and both to join the Lords only slightly apart.
Alex Carlile married his second wife, Alison Levitt, QC, in December 2007
DPP Saunders is closely advised by Alison Levitt QC, who happens to be the wife of Janner supporter, Lord Carlile
Most newspapers call on Alison Saunders to resign as DPP
The Sun and the Times agree that the head of the Crown Prosecution Service should go over the Lord Janner affair
The list of attendees to Manorial Society events makes for interesting reading. Enoch Powell, Montagu, Michael Petry...
The Manorial Society holds functions at the Carlton Club
Lord Montagu – Lord Montagu’s name appears alongside child sexual abuse as he was prosecuted in 1953 for having underage sex with a 14-year-old Boy Scout at his beach hut on the Solent
1950’s, H,R,H,Princess Margaret (second right) pictured at the Dorchester Hotel, London with her sister Princess Elizabeth, (Queen Elizabeth II) the Duke of Edinburgh. Prince Philip and Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, right
Hatton Garden Heist leader ‘found sick pics of Tory child abuser’. Brian Reader says that one box belonged to Quintin Hogg, the Lord Chancellor, then head of the judiciary and photos of Princess Margaret’s male friends frolicking naked.
Gregory Lauder-Frost exposed: The Tory fringe group leader with Nazi sympathies
Right-wing views and criminal past revealed of vice-president of the Traditional Britain Group
Jacob Rees-Mogg, centre with Gregory Lauder-Frost, right, at the Traditional Britain Group’s dinner
The right-winger whose association with Jacob Rees-Mogg caused the senior Conserative MP great embarrassment this week has added to concerns about his group’s relationship with the Tory party – by launching a personal attack on the mother of Stephen Lawrence as “anti-English” and a “nobody”, as more damaging revelations emerged about his past.
Gregory Lauder-Frost, the vice-president of the Traditional Britain Group, claimed the decision to award a peerage to the mother of the murdered teenager was an example of a modern fashion for “filling the House of Lords up with spivs”.
Mr Lauder-Frost and his organisation were a little-noticed Tory fringe group until the website Liberal Conspiracy revealed that Mr Rees-Mogg had been guest speaker at one of its dinners – and highlighted some of its questionable views.
Mr Lauder-Frost said of Mrs Lawrence: “We do not feel there is any merit in raising such a person to the peerage. She’s a complete nobody. She has been raised there for politically correct purposes. She’s just a campaigner about her son’s murder.
However, 62-year-old Mr Lauder-Frost is a veteran of the right-wing fringe of the Tory party with a political record that dates back to Margaret Thatcher’s time. This was interrupted in 1992 when he was imprisoned for two years after stealing £110,000 from a London health authority where he was employed as payroll operations manager. At the court hearing, where he pleaded guilty to eight specimen charges, his lawyer said he had taken the money to pay for a custody battle with the Polish ex-wife.
At the time he was chairman of the foreign affairs policy committee of the Monday Club.
A keen admirer of pre-war German culture, particularly its opera and films, he has frequently expressed the view that the UK should not have declared war on Germany in 1939, because the Nazis had no quarrel with this country.
“The Poles asked for it from 1919 onwards. It was Britain and France who made it a world war, not Hitler.”
A FORMER member of the right-wing Tory Monday Club Gregory Lauder-Frost, a relative of Sir Harry Lauder, was yesterday jailed for two years for stealing more than #111,000.
Sir Harry Lauder with Sir Winston Churchill at Lauder’s estate, Lauder Ha’, in Strathaven, South Lanarkshire (About 1946)
Sir Harry Lauder was described by Sir Winston Churchill as “Scotland’s greatest ever ambassador!”[2][3][4]
He was a favourite of King Edward VII
On 28 July 1987, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, The Rt. Hon. John McKay, CBE, hosted a luncheon at the Edinburgh City Chambers, to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the granting of the Freedom of the City to Sir Harry Lauder, attended by family representative Gregory Lauder-Frost,who, on 4 August 2001, formally opened the new Sir Harry Lauder Memorial Garden at Portobello Town Hall, and was the principal commentator throughout the Saltire/BBC2 TV (Scotland) documentary entitled ‘Something About Harry’ screened on 30 November 2005.
Sir Harry Lauder died at Lauder Ha’ on the 26th February 1950. At his funeral service the Lesson was read by the Duke of Hamilton, and all shops and businesses in Hamilton closed for the day. Sir Harry was unexpectedly interred not with his wife at Glenbranter, but with his mother, and brother George, in Bent Cemetery, Hamilton, after that town’s most memorable funeral ever. It was covered by Pathe News and wreaths were received from all over the world, including one from Queen Elizabeth (today’s Queen Mother) and another from Mr & Mrs Winston Churchill.
Far-right toff, Gregory Lauder-Frost, in race row stole from NHS
A toff condemned for claiming Stephen Lawrence’s mum Doreen should leave Britain was once jailed for stealing from the NHS.
Gregory Lauder-Frost criticised Doreen, who has been made a peer for campaigning to get justice for the racist murder of her son in 1993.
Lauder-Frost, 61, who lives near Duns, Berwickshire, and in London, was once jailed for two years for stealing more than PS111,000 from the NHS.
He was an accountant when he stole 136 cheques over a two-year period and paid them into his own accounts.
Ater his comments on the Traditional Britain Group website, it emerged Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg had been a speaker at a dinner for the far-right group.
Anti-fascist campaigner Gerry Gable, who warned Rees-Mogg not to attend, said: “He’s a racist and a thief who stole from the NHS.
“When the BNP membership list was leaked a few years ago his name was on it.
“He claimed to me that he was not a BNP member and that the list also contained the details who had written in with enquiries.
“They’ve got lots of money and you get the feeling they’ve been around for years. They’ve now got all these young groupies who are very nasty, have too much money and not enough education.”
Lauder-Frost, vice president of Traditional Britain Group, stood by his view that ethnic minority Britons should be encouraged to return to their “natural homelands”.
He said: “The pledge is pretty loose and I would suspect anyone who was not indigenous to Great Britain, who was of immigrant stock, would qualify.”
Asked to define “indigenous stock”, he said: “Well, people like you and I, I suppose.”
“I don’t think I’m a racist. I’ve never made a derogatory statement about somebody’s race.”
At a London court in 1992, Lauder-Frost admitted eight charges of theft. He said: “I am entitled to have this not mentioned in public. I don’t think it’s relevant any more.”
Left to right; Christoper Arkell & Lord Nicholas Hervey (standing) Gregory Lauder-Frost (speaking to Arkell), Countess Georgina Tolstoy, Count Nikolai Tolstoy (seated under picture), unknown man, Lord Sudeley and John P Bullen Stean (with glasses) at a dinner on 12 March 1990, at London’s United Oxford & Cambridge Club
Gregory Lauder-Frost & Clive Derby-Lewis in Brussels as WGI delegates to the World Anti-Communist League Conference, 21 July 1990.
Clive Derby-Lewis – The former right-wing politician, who tried to trigger a race war in the dying days of apartheid with the assassination of South African Communist Party (SACP) leader Chris Hani and who supplied the gun Janusz Walus used to kill SACP leader Chris Hani, was released on medical parole in June last year after obtaining a High Court order for his release.
Derby–Lewis was serving a life prison sentence.
link
Gregory Lauder-Frost, Vice-President of Traditional Britain Group, is an established expert on history, international relations, genealogy, and is a certified public accountant – well known in traditional Tory circles. He is the former Chairman of the Conservative Monday Club’s influential Foreign Affairs Committee and was also the Club’s Political Secretary. He was Publications Editor and Secretary-General of the international Monarchist League; Vice-President of the old Western Goals Institute and founder of the Traditional Britain Group in 2001
Young Members’ Group at a Club Conference at Chilham Castle, 1980: John R. Pinniger (YMG Chairman), Richard Turnbull, & Gregory Lauder–Frost.
1982 William Ross (centre), MP for Londonderry and chairman of the Conservative Monday Club’s Northern Ireland Policy Committee, with the committee’s vice-chairman Harvey Proctor (left), MP for Basildon, and political advisor John R Pinniger. They held a press conference at the House of Commons to launch a new policy paper.
Pinniger worked closely with the Conservative Member of Parliament Harvey Proctor, who was then Chairman of the Monday Club’s Immigration & Repatriation Committee.
He co-authored papers with Proctor including:
”Immigration, Repatriation, & the Commission for Racial Equality”, by Keith_Harvey_Proctor, M.P., John R. Pinniger, M.A., with a foreword by Sir Ronald Bell, Q.C., M.P., published by the Monday Club, 1981, (P/B).
John Pinniger was a “research assistant” to Harvey Proctor MP and to Sir Charles Irving MP and Pinniger worked at Harrod’s menswear shop in between his parliamentary duties.
Gregory Lauder-Frost – VP of Western Goals (UK) from October 1989. Chair of Monday Club Foreign Affairs Committee since 1989.
Gideon Sherman – Board of Directors of Western Goals (UK) February 1989. Worked on the anti-Charities report.
Lord Sudeley – Vice President, Monday Club Executive, he has chaired most of the Western Goals (UK) meetings at Westminster.
Appears to be involved (with Lauder-Frost) in Manorial Society, War and Peace Ball and Monarchist Society.
Western Goals
Western Goals (UK) was the British branch of the American Conservative organisation, the Western Goals Foundation.
During its career, Western Goals had links to and supported the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, acting as a conduit for Oliver North’s funding of them according to a report of the Tower Commission. Its British subsidiary had links with the World Anti-Communist League, the British Anti-Communist League, the American Conservative groups the Conservative Action Foundation (CAF), the Committee to Defend the Constitution (CDC) as well as CAUSA, a front organisation for the Moonies, which supplied funds to the CAF. It also had links to the pro-Apartheid South African Conservative party, and also supported the Neo-Nazi German Republican Party and the French Front National, as well as El Salvador’s ruling Arena Party. There was also contact with the BNP, the League of St. George and David Irving’s Focus Group.
Western Goals (UK) parent organisation, the Western Goals Foundation, was set up in America in 1979 by Larry McDonald, an extreme Right-wing Georgia congressman with support from General John Singlaub. It was chaired by Linda Guell with Carl ‘Spitz’ Channell as its president. Western Goals (UK) was launched six years later May 1985, when Linda Guell visited Britain. By this time Western Goals also had a branch in Germany, and had run a series of TV adverts supporting the Contras. Both McDonald and Singlaub were linked to the Conservative Action Group, and Singlaub also had ties to the World Anti-Communist League.
Western Goals (UK) first director was the Young Conservative, Paul Masson. It also had a parliamentary advisor board, whose membership included the Rev. Martin Smyth, Patrick Wall, Nicholas Winterton, Neil Hamilton, Bill Walker and Stefan Terlezki, a former MP. Patrick Wall was also president of the British Anti-Communist Council, which was at the time a branch of the World Anti-Communist League. Peter Dally, another leading figure of BACC, was also president at the launch of Western Goals (UK). Terlezki was also a leading member in the British section of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). In March 1986 the anti-Fascist magazine, Searchlight, reported that Paul Masson had become a member of the ABN’s International Youth Committee, and that a delegation had been sent to them by the Young Monday Club consisting of Masson, David Neil-Smith, A.V.R. Smith and Adrian Lee.
‘Spitz’ Channell and Tax Fraud
In late 1986 Western Goals (UK) split with its American parent. This was partly due to the scandal over the Tower Reports finding of its funding of the Contras. More importantly, ‘Spitz’ Channell had admitted tax fraud. Western Goals (UK) therefore separated from the Western Goals Foundation, which was effectively wound up and absorbed into the Larry McDonald Trust. The split was, however, a difference without distinction, as the supposedly independent Western Goals (UK) still retained links to the Larry McDonald Trust.
Attacks on ‘Left-wing’ Charities
In 1986 and 1987 Western Goals played a leading role, with other Right-wing organisations such as the anti-trade union Economic League, in attacking the charities Oxfam, Cafod and War on Want.They also produced a report attacking Christian Aid. In October the same year Western Goals (UK) also held a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference attacking the charities under the title ‘Alms for the Poor or Arms for Communism?’. In 1989 they sent a report on the above charities involved in Central America Week to the Charities’ Commission. The report was produced by Michael McCrone and Gideon Sherman, the childhood friend of the Right-wing blogger, ‘Guido Fawkes’.
Opposition to War Crimes Trials in Britain
In February 1989 Western Goals issued a press release criticising the proposal to allow war crimes’ trials in Britain. They condemned such trials as a ‘Communist disinformation ploy’. The statement was issued on notepaper listing the names of their vice-presidents, one of whom was the Unionist MP, the Rev. Martin Smyth. Smyth then resigned, as he had actively campaigned for the trial of Nazi war criminals.
Derby-Lewis and British Conservatives
When Derby-Lewis again visited Britain the following year, 1990, A.V.R. Smith arranged for him to attend WACL’s 22nd conference in Brussels as a Western Goals Institute delegate. Western Goals (UK) also claimed that he had met leading members of the Conservative party such as Lord Hailsham, the tennis player and Buster Motram, who had formerly supported the NF. They also claimed that he had addressed a meeting of the House of Lords Monday Club under Lord Sudely and a banquet of the South West Essex Monday Club, attended by Teresa Gorman, Teddy Taylor and Tim Janman. His speech at the banquet was praised for its ‘robust defence of European values and civilisation in Southern Africa’. He was also a guest at a ‘select’ dinner in Whitehall for Conservative MPs, Conservative candidates, councillors and party officials.
^^ The East India Club in London’s exclusive St James’s Square has attracted the great and the good for more than 160 years, including Prince Albert, Lord Mountbatten and Lord Randolph Churchill.
Members include 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, the uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh murdered by the IRA, Denis Thacther, the husband of Lady Thacther, and Lord Coe. (Coe served as chief of staff to William Hague)
How well does Lord Carlile aka Alex Falik know the Hagues (William Hague and Ffion Hague)and his old back yard North Wales ?
Vicount Ian Kerr CGC@IanKerr
Lord Alex Carlile aka Alex Falik. Athenaeum Club member. Maurice Oldfield also a member along with Roy Jenkins, who met Frank Beck.
Alex Falik, Cyril Smith.
Lord Carlile. £900 per day fees. Defended Stuart Hazell ‘Gratis’ Hazell pressed to plead guilty ?
TIA SHARP – PEDOPHILE RING
On 10 August 2012, 12-year-old girl Tia Sharp was found dead at a house in New Addington, in Greater London.
In August 2006, it was reported that more than a dozen children may have been raped and abused at a house in New Addington in Greater London.
The house, 107 Walton Green, was occupied by convicted paedophile Leslie Ford-Thrussell.
Police “believe the property was the base for a child abuse ring for 40 years.”
The Sun reported that Ford-Thrussell ran a paedophile ring from the semi-detached property with two other men, said to be Stephen Dedman and a man who cannot be named.
Stacey Dedman, 19, revealed four years of abuse in the house; Stacey was seven when the abuse first started.
She has said: “I really believe there are bodies in the garden.”
On 10 August, ‘the Police discovered Tia’s dead body in the loft of the grandmother’s house, after they had searched the loft for the fourth time.’[4][12]
The police arrested Stuart Hazell, a former boyfriend of Tia’s mother.
In May 2013, Hazell changed his plea from not guilty to guilty and he was sent to jail.
“Tia Sharp was ritually murdered on or about the 8th August 2012, the final night of Lammas.”
“Stuart’s legal representative has been announced, Lord Alex Carlile of Berriew, CBE, QC will be defending him. This guy normally charges £900 a day, but will be defending Stuart on legal aid.”
PHAB
With Lord Snowdon as Patron, Ed Stewart as President and Rolf Harris and Sir Cliff Richard as Vice Presidents, Phab has provided support and services for its members since 1957
Speaker John Bercow called for ‘assisted repatriation’ of immigrants
John Bercow, the new Speaker of the House of Commons, called for a programme of “assisted repatriation” of immigrants during his time as a member of a far-right political group, it has emerged.
Gregory Lauder-Frost, a leading light in the Monday Club’s Young Members’ Group at the time, said: “When he stood, unsuccessfully, for election to the Club’s national executive he did so on a platform of supporting the repatriation of non-white immigrants, and made a speech to that effect which was well received.
“But he wasn’t very popular in the Monday Club. He just rubbed people up the wrong way because he was extremely pushy and rather pleased with himself.”
Another former member said: “He was a great admirer of Enoch Powell. He used to read Powell’s speeches and regurgitate them word for word, because he has this amazing memory. I always thought at the time that he sounded a bit like Enoch Powell, as if he modelled his voice on him when he made speeches.”
Another self-serving regular at the Manorial Society: Conservative MP Keith Best
1993
KEITH BEST, the former Tory MP who resigned after being convicted of dishonestly trying to buy shares in British Telecom, has been given a pounds 35,000-a-year job funded by the Home Office.
Mr Best will start work as director of the new Immigrants Appeals Advisory Service
Mr Best’s appointment comes amid increasing concern about the politicisation of government jobs. Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, recently rejected a shortlist for the new post of Prison Service Ombudsman because he considered the three widely respected candidates to be ‘too left-wing’.
Since then, Keith Best has become director of the charity Prisoners Abroad
After his election to Parliament Best was driving when his car was involved in an accident resulting in the death of his personal assistant; the incident affected his reputation, even though he was cleared of responsibility.[1]
Lord Alex Carlile shared a small office with paedophile Cyril Smith
Carlile went on to be a stunningly illiberal “Independent” Reviewer of anti-terror legislation, where he demonstrated his independence by agreeing to absolutely everything the security services told him. 42 day detention with no charge? No problem. In fact there was no period of detention without charge posited so extreme that Carlile did not support it. Secret courts hearing intelligence evidence the defence were not allowed to see? Fine by Carlile. Control orders? Great. He is a fantastic bastion, protecting the public, is Carlile.
Even better, of course, at protecting his associates.
David Steel, (who promoted both Clement Freud and Cyril Smith for knighthood) former leader of the Liberal Party. How much did he know about Big Cyril and CSA at his home at Dolphin Square?
Sir David Steel sought the advice of Alex Carlile QC
THE FORGERY of a letter, purporting to come from Sir David Steel and shown to a defence lawyer during a bail hearing last year, was ‘a thoroughly misguided April Fool joke’, the Attorney General told the former Liberal Party leader in October.
In October 1991, Sir David Steel passed on to the authorities a complaint that had been made to him by Nazmu Virani, an acquaintance who was chairman and chief executive of Control Securities, after the SFO had carried out a raid on his company ‘with damaging attendant publicity’.
Protracted SFO inquiries into the case resulted in the closure of a hotel in Sir David Steel’s Scottish Bordersconstituency and difficulties for a company that employed 5,000 people.
Sir David Steel said: ‘At the end of March 1992, leisure and property group Control Securitiesplc was about to be relisted by the Stock Exchange when on the very same day, Mr Virani was arrested early in the morning and charged that evening with one offence of conspiracy to defraud.’
Bail was opposed by the SFO and was refused. However, when he was released a week later, after the SFO had withdrawn its objection to bail, Mr Virani complained to Sir David Steel about the ‘bogus’ grounds for the initial opposition to bail – and the fact that David Freeman, his solicitor, had been shown a letter by a senior SFO official shortly before the first bail hearing.
That letter, on House of Commons notepaper, was purportedly signed by Sir David and said that he would be attending the hearing.
Others also found reason for complaints against Mr Vaz. Paul Gosling, a former Leicester city councillor, accused him of attempting to obscure payments received from Nazmu Virani, the only person convicted of wrongdoing after the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).
The accusations that have followed Mr Vaz for years have finally come to a head. The MP has always denied any allegation of wrongdoing and insists that he will be cleared but, if witnesses verify a single allegation, the pressure on him to resign could become too much to resist.
Carlile was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to national security.[6]
Lib Dem peer Lord Carlile attacks investigation into claims of sexual harassment by party’s former chief executive
At least 10 women…Lib Dem female members who accused Rennard of sexual harassment have criticised their party for not taking disciplinary action against the former chief executive and allowing him to return to his job of helping to write Clegg’s 2015 election manifesto.
Lord Rennard’s friend and legal adviser, Lord Carlile claimed Rennard would not be apologising since he had done nothing wrong, adding he would be resuming his position on the Lib Dem federal policy committee.
Why in the Barry Bennell case of 98 did the CPS prosecuting office now LORD Carlile allow Bennell to plead guilty to just 23 specimen charges. Around just 50% of the Charges! Even though he was already a convicted Paedophile? As such serve just 6 years of 9 !!!
Lord Carlisle rejected any suggestion his public support for the intelligence agencies may have been influenced by his business relationship with one of the UK’s ex-spy chiefs.
…a successful campaign (Tory sleaze) to discredit the Major administration & replace it with a US poodle ‘New Labour’ gov’t. Aided in parliament by Lord Carlile who set up SC Strategy Ltd in late 2012 with John Scarlett, former head of MI6.
At the time Carlile was also an Exaro contributor.
Former reviewer of anti-terror laws co-owns firm with ex-MI6 chief
Lord Carlile, who often defends work of intelligence services, has earned £400,000 from consultancy formed with Sir John Scarlett in 2012
SC Strategy Ltd, the company that Carlile established with Sir John Scarlett, who ran MI6 from 2004 to 2009…
Relatively little is known about SC Strategy, which Carlile and Scarlett formed in late 2012. The company – owned jointly by the two men – has no website or phone number and Companies House only lists a correspondence address for the company at a high-end City accountancy firm.
Clout in Whitehall- Cabinet Office records show that on 10 April 2013 and 6 June 2014, the company had a private meeting with the cabinet secretary “Sir Cover-Up” – Sir Jeremy Heywood – widely viewed as the most influential player in David Cameron’s No 10 – and treated him to breakfast.
Scarlett is also a director and senior adviser at News Corp’s holding company for the Times and Sunday Times newspapers, and has written for the Times as an occasional columnist.
‘Devastated and Saddened, Shaking from Limb to Limb’ Ex-MP’s Wife Speaks Out
The wife of Liberal Democrat peer Lord Carlile of Berriew has spoken of her devastation at discovering her husband’s relationship with a barrister 15 years his junior. Lady Carlile, who lives in Welshpool, said the former MP for Montgomeryshire had admitted a five-month affair with 43-year-old barrister Alison Levitt while they were still together.
Alison Levitt and Alex Carlile
Lord Carlile, who is in charge of reviewing anti-terror laws, has now moved Ms Levitt into the flat near his London chambers that he once shared with Frances, his wife of 37 years.
Lady Carlile said her 58-year-old husband, an eminent QC, had told her he was ‘bored’ with her and revealed that he had had another affair years earlier when their children were very young.
‘He said he’s done it because he was bored with me. And he admitted he’s had another affair when the children were very young. He said it lasted for several years but that it had meant nothing.
‘He couldn’t understand why I was so upset and why I felt it made a mockery of the trust between us.’
As a QC he successfully defended butler Paul Burrell when he was accused of stealing millions of pounds of goods from the estate of the late Princess of Wales. He lists his recreations as politics, theatre, food and Association Football and is a member of the Athenaeum Club – Jimmy Savile was also a member
He is the Independent reviewer of National Security policy in Northern Ireland.
Lord Carlile is the Chairman of the Lloyd’s of London Enforcement Board and is a non-executive director of Wynnstay Group plc. He is also the President of The Security Institute, a Fellow of King’s College London, and a Fellow of the Industry and Parliament Trust.
Lord Carlile is a member of the boards of numerous charities including the Royal Medical Foundation of Epsom College and The White Ensign Association. He was a co-founder of the Welsh charity Rekindle. He is chairman of the not-for-profit company Design for Homes and is a founding director of SC Strategy Ltd, a strategy and public policy consultancy.
Outside Parliament, Alex Carlile was a Lay Member of the General Medical Council from 1989 to 1999.
He is a Non-Executive Director of Wynnstay Group plc, and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.
He writes articles, if asked, broadcasts, and is involved in several charities from NACRO to the White Ensign Association. He has a special interest in mental health.
Jonathan Aitken is an ex-prisoner, ex-Cabinet Minister and ex-MP. In his political career he was an MP for 23 years. During his ministerial appointments he served as Minister for State for Defence and in the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
In 1999 Jonathan pleaded guilty to charges of perjury and served seven months of an 18 month prison sentence.
In 2001 the Purdews of Champneys (friends of Sir Jimmy Savile and Keith Vaz) briefly acquired Inglewood health hydro from agents of Saudi prince Mohammed bin Fahd. Inglewood had been the scene of allegations, published in the Guardian six years earlier, that then defence minister Jonathan Aitken, a director of the spa, had tried to arrange girls for a Saudi prince and his entourage.
The report led to the notorious libel action brought by Aitken ultimately culminating in his being sentenced to jail for perjury.
Former Tory MP Jonathan Aitken, once a director of Champneys Inglewood. He was accused by former employees of acting as a ‘pimp’ by requesting call girls, once for a sheikh and once for a group of Arabs.
And though Aitken met his future wife Lolicia at Inglewood, he also cheated on her with bondage prostitute Paula Strudwick, telling her to collect the right sort of birch branches from the woods outside the estate for sadomasochistic sex games. You’d have thought someone would have twigged what was going on.
Michael Howard is a member of the highly secretive organization ‘Le Cercle'[15], which has deep ties to many intelligence agencies and has a long history of links to many of those involved with organized child abuse, along with shadowy covert acts such as media propaganda, arms dealing and on the ground military action, generally funded by offshore shell companies.
Michael Howard is a long time friend of Jonathan Aitken, global arms dealer and one time head of Le Cercle.
Jonathan Aitken, Tim Renton (wrote a letter of support for paedophile Bishop Peter Ball), Leon Brittan, Sir Peter Morrison, Sir George Young, Alan Clark…
Jonathan Aitken, a close friend of Sir Peter Morrison’s
Sir Jimmy Savile was known to have had dinner with Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, Chief of the UK Defence Staff at the time of 9 11, and was known to have had close relationships with the leaders of Israel.
When official lists of those entertained to dinner were released under the Freedom of Information Act, it emerged that Savile had dinner with Dame Judi Dench and Admiral Sir Michael Boyce (Chief of the Defence Staff), which is quite a combination.
Similarities between Action for Children and the crime reduction charity Nacro might not be obvious, but Jacob Tas, who last month moved from the former to become chief executive of the latter, says they have more in common than one might think.
CV: Jacob Tas 2014: Chief executive, Nacro 2011: Interim chief executive, executive director of operations and
deputy chief executive, Action for Children 2007: Director for England, the Prince’s Trust 1990: Director of operations, Royal P&O Nedlloyd
*Action for Children*
Government IT expert is caught with child porn stash… but why did Downing Street keep it secret for six months?
2 August 2014
Not Patrick Rock – Sebastian Crump
Worked for the Cabinet Office – he received promotion at Cabinet Office while he was being investigated
He has spent a decade working in technology and communications for Government offices, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Central Office of Information
He was arrested in January – Patrick Rock was arrested in February
Crump landed a government job after working as a children’s charity website manager, *Action for Children*, which helps support vulnerable and neglected children, between 1998 and 1999.
Mayor appoints Chair of new Ethics Panel for policing in London
10 October 2013
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has today announced that he has appointed Lord Carlile of Berriew, QC, the former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, as chair of a new Ethics Panel.
Government anti-terror adviser = Lord Carlile of Berriew defended Leon Brittan’s reputation
He married his second wife, Alison Levitt, QC, in December 2007. She is the Principal Legal Advisor to the Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales.
Lord Carlile to head Boris’s Met Police Ethics Panel
Lord Carlile is a member of the Athenaeum Club, along with Virginia Bottomley. Sir Jimmy Savile was a member too.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey visiting Sir Peter Bottomley’s local Sunday school group
Sir Peter Bottomley MP. a Warden at St Margaret’s Church by Westminster Abbey and a member of Parliament’s Ecclesiastical Committee, which examines measures put forward by the Church of England’s General Synod before they become law
Nick Brown, the government Chief Whip is not known as Gordon’s enforcer for his delicate approach to politics. Nick Brown has survived a rent-boy scandal – because he claimed he did not pay for sex – he just gave the rent boy financial gifts. Wonder how Exaro get the inside track on child abuse and information? * puzzled face*
Lord Carlile was called to report on historic cases of abuse at Downside
Downside school sought advice, then chose not to report paedophile
3 November 2013
Lord Carlile, the Liberal Democrat peer and QC, who was called to report on historic cases of abuse at Downside, concluded that a “more modern form of governance would have rendered it more likely that abuse would have been suspected, detected, rejected and the future secured”.
Downside, one of Britain’s oldest Catholic boarding schools, is run by lay staff and Benedictine monks from Downside Abbey in Somerset. Between the late 1960s and the early 2000s, six monks either sexually assaulted children or viewed images of child abuse.
One victim was Rob Hastings, who was groomed and abused for 18 months by his geography teacher, Richard White, known as Father Nicholas. Last year, White was jailed for five years. Rob was removed from the school by his parents but the police were never called. Officers only found out that Mr Hastings was abused while they were trawling through Downside’s old records, investigating another complaint.
At White’s trial, Mr Hastings discovered that another boy had been abused before him. White confessed that the school had kept this secret and allowed him to continue teaching. The school had written to its lawyers asking if it had a legal obligation to report the teacher to police, and was told it did not.
Mr Hastings believes the abuse he suffered could have been prevented. “This letter came out which shocked me absolutely to my core… I was in floods of tears. I was so upset, so angry. That the school had gone and got legal advice on whether they needed to report a paedophile… I personally could have been saved.”
The current head of Downside, Dom Leo Maidlow Davis, said: “Neither I nor the school would today follow the steps taken more than 20 years ago. Such a matter would be reported … to the police and other relevant authorities as appropriate.”
Child abuse inquiry set to drop investigation into Ealing Abbey monks
May 30 2017
Lawyers will propose next week that no evidence be called about decades of abuse of pupils at Ealing Abbey and its adjoining independent school, St Benedict’sTimes Newspapers Ltd
An investigation into one of the worst scandals to afflict the Catholic Church in Britain is set to be dropped from the public inquiry into child abuse.
Next week lawyers for Alexis Jay, chairwoman of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), will propose that no evidence be called about decades of abuse of pupils at Ealing Abbey and its adjoining independent school, St Benedict’s.
Victims were furious and accused Professor Jay of backtracking on her previous promise not to reduce the scope of the inquiry. They said the move undermined the credibility of the inquiry, which has lost three chairwomen, cost more than £20 million and shown little tangible progress since it was set up by Theresa May in 2014.
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Bishop Wallace Benn: There was clearly a paedophile ring, which I inherited.
Still discussing report by Baroness Butler Sloss
As chaplain of Eastbourne Hospital Hubert was under the Chichester Diocese of the Church of England. This diocese had some of the worst reports of child sex abuse from the 1960s until the early 1990’s. Many priests were outed as sex offenders who had for many years abused children under the nose of their own congregation.
Why would the woman who called @InquiryCSA into being wish to delete all mention of her own father?
… the woman who wants us all to be fully transparent purges the Internet to hide mention of her father?
WHAT IS THERESA MAY TRYING TO HIDE ABOUT HER FATHER?
Theresa May’s Father, Reverend Hubert Brasier, was born on 20th August 1917 at 61 Clonmore Street, Wandsworth, London.
On the surface, Hubert had a pretty normal and average life. Growing up and living through World War 2 obviously came with its difficulties, from what we do know about Hubert, he led a normal life and there doesn’t appear to be any controversy linked to his name. The most obvious and key point is that he was the father of the 2nd Female, British Prime minister, Theresa May.
Due to this fact, it goes without saying that people will want to look up the history of Theresa May, in particular, her upbringing and parents. What is odd, is that Hubert Braiser did have a Wikipedia page detailing his life, his achievements and his background. When Theresa May became prime minister, the Wikipedia page was edited and eventually taken down.
This has obviously raised some eyebrows, it’s clear to see that Mrs May is trying to hide or conceal something about her Father’s past. While the Wikipedia page for her father no longer exists and now points directly to her own Wikipedia Page, anyone can view the old wiki page for Hubert Braiser by using the internet archive ‘Way Back Machine’. Using this tool you can see Hubert Braiser’s old Wikipedia Page here.
For reference, the old Wikipedia page for Hubert Braiser was as follows:
Hubert Brasier (20 August 1917 – October 1981) was a clergyman of the Church of England, and father of Theresa May, 54th and 2nd female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.Brasier was born in Wandsworth, London to Tom Brasier, a clerk and former sergeant in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, and Amy Margaret, née Patterson. In 1940, he graduated from the University of Leeds and trained at the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield. His wife was Zaidee Mary (née Barnes; 1928–1982), whom he married at St Giles’ Church, Reading in 1955.
Brasier was made a deacon in 1942 and ordained at Southwark Cathedral in 1943. He was curate of St Andrew’s Catford from 1942, then of St Luke’s Reigate from 1948. In 1953, he became chaplain of All Saints’ Hospital in Eastbourne, where May was born. He became vicar of Enstone (with Heythrop from 1964) in 1959 and finally of St Mary the Virgin, Wheatley, to the east of Oxford, from 1970. As Vicar of Wheatley, May wrote a short guide to the parish church.
Brasier died in 1981 following a car accident on the A40
Some key points to take away is that Hubert Braiser worked for the Community of the Resurrection Seminary School in Mirfield, West Yorkshire This school would become well known and associated with the systematic sexual abuse of children by the Italian Verona brothers, who were rampant sex offenders in the 1960’s and 1970’s
In 1953, Hubert became the Chaplain All Saints at Eastbourne Hospital in Sussex. It was here that he crossed paths with the notorious serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams. Dr Adams was the Harold Shipman of his day, he had his elderly patients put him in their wills and would then ‘bump them off’ by giving them an injection and then state of their death certificates that they died of natural causes.
Over 165 deaths have been associated with Dr John Bodkin Adams, his murderous rampage did not go un-noticed, many nurses did speak out and report the doctor to their superiors; however, due to the NHS being newly founded and in its infancy, officials thought that a scandal like this could cause the collapse of the NHS, as such Dr Adams was able to avoid justice for some time.
Dr Bodkin Adams just couldn’t stop himself, he carried on murdering his patients and was protected by Lord Gwynne who was believed to be his secret gay lover and was a very well connected politician.
Hubert is linked to Bodkin as he worked in the same hospital and would have given ‘last rights’ to many of Bodkin’s patients. Some have even speculated that Bodkin may have confessed his crimes to Hubert, as when he was quizzed about stealing from old women he said: ” ‘I have made my peace with God over that’.
In 1957 Dr John Bodkin Adams was charged and prosecuted for his crimes, he was acquitted of murder, which many have claimed was a clear and obvious cover-up. In the end Bodkin was convicted of 8 counts of forging a prescription, 4 counts of making false statements on cremation forms, and 3 offences under the Dangerous Drugs Act.
He was struck off and not allowed to practice medicine, however, in 1961, once the dust was settled, the NHS reinstated the doctor and allowed him to carry on practising medicine.
As chaplain of Eastbourne Hospital Hubert was under the Chichester Diocese of the Church of England. This diocese had some of the worst reports of child sex abuse from the 1960s until the early 1990’s. Many priests were outed as sex offenders who had for many years abused children under the nose of their own congregation.
On the surface it appears there isn’t much to see when it comes to Hubert Braiser, maybe there isn’t much to see; however, it does raise suspicion when Mr Braiser was so close to a prolific serial killer and associated to a diocese caught up in a child sex abuse scandal. It is no doubt that many of Mr Braisers associates and colleagues would have been directly involved or had a part to play in the scandal and its cover-up.
It’s also clear that Theresa May does not want the general public looking into her father’s background. There has been a clear attempt to erase Hubert Braiser’s historical portfolio from the internet.
Since Theresa May has put together the inquiry to investigate child sexual abuse, especially abuse at the hands of priests, it has raised some eyebrows that she is attempting to conceal her father’s background.
The inquiry that was set up was a farce in itself, May appointed Baroness Butler-Sloss to oversee the inquiry, 6 days later she was forced to step down from the position; as it came to light that her brother was Attorney General at the time a lot of the abuse was alleged to have taken place. As a replacement, Theresa May appointed Fiona Woolf to chair the inquiry, however, Mrs Woolf had to stand down when it became apparent that she used to live very close to Leon Brittan, an MP who was accused of sexually abusing young boys.
It appears that Mrs May is either incompetent or is clearly trying to sabotage the whole inquiry. If it is the latter, that draws several questions and concerns as to why she is attempting to erase her father’s history from the internet.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Donald Coggan with the three new bishops – two of them formerly Anglican monks – consecrated at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. They are, from left, the Rt Rev Anselm Genders, Bishop of Burmuda and formerly Bursar of the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, Dr Coggan, The Rt Rev Peter Ball, Suffragan Bishop of Lewes in the diocese of Chichester, and the Rt Rev Peter Nott, Suffragan Bishop of Taunton and formerly Rector of Baconsfield in Buckinghamshire.
Some key points to take away is that Hubert Braiser (Theresa May’s father) worked for the Community of the Resurrection Seminary School in Mirfield, West Yorkshire This school would become well known and associated with the systematic sexual abuse of children by the Italian Verona brothers, who were rampant sex offenders in the 1960’s and 1970’s
Why would Theresa May be petrified of anyone researching her beloved father Hubert Brasier
#1
#2 Well, her father was very closely associated with the Diocese of Chichester which spawned many paedophiles.
#3 I cannot imagine that Hubert Brasier, father of Theresa May, would NOT have known of the evil deeds of Shipman-like Bodkin Adams!
#4 Did Brasier take confessions from Bodkin Adams and did he help cover up his deeds for political reasons?
#5 Once again, Theresa’s father is closely associated with another institution involved in child abuse.
Makes you wonder why this woman’s first choice for IICSA chair was Sloshed Butler (Elizabeth Butler Sloss), Known to be protective of church
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
It wasn’t coincidence that Theresa May chose the Sloshed Butler for her dirty work!
The brave Dickens was not dissuaded by Paedo Havers of Butler-Sloss fame.
Sir Michael Havers, brother of Baroness Butler-Sloss
Sir Michael Havers was appointed as Attorney General by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and was made Baron Havers in 1987. He intervened three times between 1981 and 1983 to stop the investigation and exposure of Establishment paedophiles, and to prevent the publication of stories which showed that Establishment figures were members of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
It seems at the very least deeply inappropriate to have someone heading a ‘historic’ child abuse inquiry whose own brother played such a major role in the protection of Establishment paedophiles throughout the 1980s.
Mr Johnson, who was abused by a number of clergymen when he was a choirboy in the Church of England Diocese of Chichester and kept a detailed record of the meeting. He said he “felt pressured to agree to exclude information about the bishop from the report”.
Butler-Sloss’s brother was a practicising paedo. Woolf was friends with a child rapist.
When Theresa May appointed Butler-Sloss, sister of paedo AttGen who defended Peter Hayman, she was laughing at YOU!
Theresa May, the gift that keeps on giving: Butler-Sloss Fiona Woolfe Lowell Goddard Ben Emmerson
Home Office is FINED by the Treasury after May and Rudd broke rules with big pay packages for child sex abuse inquiry chief and panel
Home Office accounts reveal May and Rudd both broke government rules with pay for child sex abuse inquiry
Treasury has fined department £366,000 for not seeking authorisation for six-figure packages
Breaches related to Professor Alexis Jay’s appointment in August 2016 and pay rates set for panel in 2015-16
14 July 2017
Theresa May and Amber Rudd both broke government rules by handing big pay packages to senior figures on the child sex abuse inquiry.
The Home Office has been fined more than £366,000 by the Treasury after the chair and panel for the probe were handed six-figure packages without authorisation.
Theresa May set up the inquiry in 2014 in response to allegations of child sex abuse at institutions ranging from the BBC to children’s homes, but it has been beset by trouble from the start.
Mrs May was responsible for breaking the rules when as Home Secretary she set the daily rates for panel members at a generous £565 a day.
And Mrs Rudd breached them again in August last year when she appointed Professor Alexis Jay on a £220,000 package.
Under austerity restrictions introduced by the coalition, any salaries at a level above £142,500 have to be signed off by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
As a result the Treasury imposed an ‘exemplary’ fine of more than £366,000 to make clear its displeasure.
After two abortive attempts to appoint chairs, Mrs May drafted in Dame Lowell Goddard in February 2015 – but the New Zealand judge resigned 18 months later after a disastrous tenure and contested allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
The scale of Dame Lowell’s pay and benefits had caused fury, and she was reportedly given an £80,000 pay-off when she quit last August.
The Home Office’s latest accounts indicated that the fine related to Mrs May’s failure to follow rules when she appointed the judge to the key post.
However, the department later clarified the document was wrong and in fact the breaches related to the pay of the panel and Prof Jay.
Former shadow chancellor Chris Leslie told MailOnline the pay packages were a ‘debacle’ and ‘flew in the face of the most basic checks of the Treasury’s rules’.
Theresa May’s government won’t compensate children who were raped. It says they ‘consented’ to the abuse
July 18th, 2017
Children as young as 12 who are survivors of rape and sexual assault are being refused compensation by the government. The grounds for its denial? That the children consented to their abuse.
It’s your own fault
A group of five charities submitted a Freedom of Information request (FOI) to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA). And it revealed CICA has refused to compensate over 700 children who had been raped or sexually assaulted. Even when the perpetrators of the crimes had been jailed. And the group of charities says that in some cases, CICA told survivors it was because they consented to their rape or sexual assault.
The Guardianreports that Barnardo’s, Victim Support, Liberty, Rape Crisis and the National Working Group (NWG) – have written to Justice Secretary David Lidington, demanding he reviews CICA guidelines.
Victim blaming
When giving evidence to the government’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (CSA Inquiry), Barnardo’s said [pdf p2] the CICA policy:
…differentiates between consent ‘in fact’ and consent as stated by the law… In the case of the young person that applied for compensation, [it] was denied because CICA stated that ‘In [the claimant’s] case it appears she willingly entered into a sexual relationship with [the] alleged offender’… We are very worried that CICA’s policy goes against consideration of consent in law…
Additionally, CICA’s view on consent appears to lack understanding about sexually abusive and exploitative relationships. In such relationships, the victim may appear to ‘consent’… yet in such situations the abuser will have carefully groomed and manipulated the young person into believing that their relationship and abuse is normal. This grooming process is often so carefully carried out that the young person is unaware they are a victim. This does not mean that the young person is not in fact a victim…
We are also concerned that CICA’s apparent lack of understanding on the issue of sexual abuse and exploitation can cause distress to young people who have been the victims of these crimes.
In one example, a gang of older men were jailed for 30 years after being convicted of raping and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Her case was taken up by Victim Support; she was denied compensation by CICA on the grounds that ‘she had not been the victim of non-consensual sexual acts’.
She was devastated and left with the feeling that she was somehow responsible for the abuse she had suffered, the charity said.
Disgusting
The Canary contacted CICA for comment but it failed to respond.
The attitude of CICA, and the government more broadly, is staggering. If it is not traumatic enough that children have to go through the unimaginable torture of rape and sexual abuse, to then have the government body that’s supposed to defend you saying, at best, ‘Well – it’s your own fault, really’, is a national outrage. The Conservative government must heed these charities’ demands and change the rules by which CICA is governed. Quickly.
that same Theresa May who appointed Butler Sloss because of the great cover up job she did in #Cleveland
The Tory government set up a judicial enquiry under Lord Justice (Elizabeth) Butler Sloss. The enquiry sat for a year, heard evidence from parents, social services, police, doctors, nurses and – without any apparent unease – from a champion of paedophile rights, Ralph Underwager. It cost £5 million.
But there was one very odd aspect to the enquiry. Its remit from Whitehall prohibited it from asking – let alone answering – the most important question of all: how many of the 121 children at the centre of the crisis had been abused ?
The evidence in the documents clearly answered the question Butler-Sloss had been forced to duck: had these children been abused ?
The papers showed that the children had long histories of involvement with social services and painstakingly documented injuries. In many cases a convicted paedophile was living in their houses, and many had made very convincing disclosures of sexual activity with adults.
In the end, and with Yorkshire TV’s backing, we decided they were too important to throw away.
Just what was Cleveland really about ? For me it was clear: it was about the plight of children – some just toddlers – who were abused and – briefly – rescued; then re-abused by a child protection system which could not bear the pressure from politicians and press. The truth of what happened to those children was too difficult to hear. Which is why we called the film Cleveland: Unspeakable Truths.
The Serial Killer, The Traveller’s Daughter, and the Cover Ups
Theresa May’s Father, Reverend Hubert Brasier,was born on 20th August 1917 at 61 Clonmore Street, Wandsworth, London. Like many people a century ago, his was a home birth. Hubert’s father, Tom Brasier, was a military man. He had served as a sergeant in the King’s Royal Rifles, but was a clerk by the time Hubert was born. Hubert’s mother’s maiden name was Amy Margaret Patterson and they had married 8 years prior in Hampshire. Amy and Tom’s first son, James David Brasier, had died within a year of his birth in 1911 in Uttaranchal, India, where Tom Brasier had been deployed whilst in service. Two years later, in 1919, Hubert was joined by his younger sister and only other sibling Jean Robina Brasier.
By 1938, Hubert Brasier was 21 years old and attending Leeds University. On the 27th April 1939, preempting World War 2, Neville Chamberlain’s cabinet introduced limited conscription. Single men between the ages of 20 to 22 were now eligible to be called up for compulsory military service. A month later the ‘Military Training Act’ was passed in the UK Houses of Parliament. On the 3rd of September 1939 WW2 began and the ‘Military Training Act’ became the ‘National Service (Armed Forces) Act’ which increased liability of call up to men aged 18 to 40.
Hubert Brasier (front row, third from left) at Community of the Resurrection college in 1940.
In the year 1940 Hubert Brasier, then 23, had a decision to make. As a man of his age in the early years of WW2 he was probably heading to fight the Nazi Wehrmacht, or heading to defend British colonial outposts. Hubert Brasierfelt his only path was that of the Anglican-Catholic Church, and hejoined the priests at the Community of the Resurrection Seminary School in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. In years to come the Community of the Resurrection would become known for the systematic sexual abuse of children at the seminary by the Italian Verona brothers, who were rampant sex offenders in the 1960’s and 1970’s. However the seminary in Mirfield in the early 1940’s was just about to start welcoming its first refugee children. In December 1941 mass bombing of Sheffield and other northern industrial towns meant many children were evacuated to the countryside. The residents of Mirfield were some of the first to support the war effort and receive evacuee.
The Community of the Resurrection had only been founded at the later part of the 1800’s. The people of Mirfield took some time getting used to having the single young men of the seminary walking around the village. One Mirfield resident recalled them being referred to as ‘The Petticoat Men of t’Resurrection’. In the early 1900’s the residents of Mirfield grew suspicious of the men of god and this climaxed to a protest outside the Black Bull in Mirfield proper. Father Frere, a talented musician who was popular with the locals, stood on a chair and used his preaching talents to good effect. The community of Mirfield and the Community of the Resurrection were a tight knit unit by the 1940’s. When the northern industrial hub of England began to be targeted by the Luftwaffe nightly, many children from all over England were evacuated to communities such as Mirfield. Hubert Brasier would only stay in Mirfield for the beginning of his training.
In 1942 he was designated to a new church, in London, and after a year of hands on priestly experience he would be ordained. Hubert’s first placement was at The Church of St Andrew on Sandhurst Road in Catford, Southwark. The bombings were numerous in Catford, and the community was very close, soon to be brought closer by tragedy. On the 20th January 1943 a bomb landed directly on the local Sandhurst Primary School, 38 Children were killed alongside 6 teachers. To be a man of God in this devastated community would have meant sharing a lot of suffering and loss. The parents of many of the lost children agreed for them to be buried in a mass grave at Hither Green Cemetary, and for a terraced memorial to be laid in their honour.
Theresa May’s father was still a bachelor priest at this point in history. During the war life, the whole of London could be savage. The bombing brought death daily to Lewisham and the number of funerals were overwhelming for all of the local religious institutions. When war ceased Hubert continued to serve the Anglican-Catholic community of Catford until 1948 where he was relocated to a Reigate in Surrey and the very small, steeple-free church of St Luke, in the Southpark area. In contrast to The Church of St Andrew in Catford, St Luke’s was almost retirement. Obviously the stress and strain of the war experience had affected the still single Hubert, and the transfer made for good respite. In 1952 Hubert had reached the age of 35, and as in Mirfield at the turn of the century, celibacy provided more questions than it answered. Communities were already rife with gossip and speculation about the private lives of others. It can be presumed that the Anglican-Catholic churches history of child abuse is older than just the last 60 years, and it would usually be easier for a priest to be married.
The Serial Killer
The following year, in 1953, Hubert became the Chaplain All Saints at Eastbourne Hospital in Sussex. Over the next 6 years he would work alongside the famous serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams. For those who are unaware of Dr John Bodkin Adams, he was believed to be the Harold Shipman of his age. He would usually prey upon his more elderly patients, convincing them to put him in their wills, of which over 130 complied. They were soon given an injection by Bodkin Adams, and would conveniently pass away of ‘natural causes’ soon after. On review more than 165 of the deaths that Dr Bodkin Adams oversaw were seen as suspicious. The suspicion was not a well kept secret amongst staff at Eastbourne Hospital, most of the nurses had voiced their concerns to their superiors. They were believed to have been ignored on purpose, as the newly founded NHS was considered to be under political threat and a scandal that could see a general practitioner sentenced to death was to be avoided at all cost. The problem was Dr Bodkin Adams just couldn’t stop himself. He was being protected by Lord Gwynne who was believed to be his secret gay lover, and was an extremely well connected politician.
Hubert Brasier would have given last rights to many of those killed by Adams, he may have even taken confession from Bodkin Adams himself, who when asked by the press if he was guilty of stealing from old women said ‘I have made my peace with God over that’. Eastbourne Hospital is where it is believed that Theresa May’s mother Zaidee Mary Barnes met Hubert Brasier for the first time. Hubert was 11 years her senior and Zaidee had already been diagnosed with MS, and was a regular visitor to Eastbourne Hospital. Whether or not in the 1950’s society it was considered appropriate for a celibate hospital chaplain to marry a patient, that is what happened in 1955. Zaidee and Hubert were married in Reading in front of Zaidee’s father Reginald James Barnes whose profession is recorded in the wedding certificate as a ‘Traveller’. On October 1st 1956 Theresa Brasier was born in Eastbourne hospital. The following year Dr John Bodkin Adams would be acquitted of murder in a trail that was an obvious cover up, however he was convicted on 8 counts of forging a prescription, 4 counts of making false statements on cremation forms, and 3 offences under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1951. He would be temporarily struck of the NHS, only to be reinstated in 1961 when the proverbial dust had settled.
As chaplain of Eastbourne Hospital Hubert was under the Chichester Diocese of the Church of England.
During the 1960’s til the 1990’s this diocese has some of the worst examples of child sexual abuse committed by priests. The numbers and the scope of the phenomenon is truly astounding.
Hubert Brasier, Theresa May’s father joined the priests at the Community of the Resurrection Seminary School in Mirfield, West Yorkshire.In years to come the Community of the Resurrection would become known for the systematic sexual abuse of children at the seminary by the Italian Verona brothers, who were rampant sex offenders in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Gisburne House was in Watford @Observer_Owl used by Islington council to send children out of borough – several abusers amongst staff
Importantly @guyadams reported Gisburne House cater Michael Taylor revealed as PIE member in his 2000 trial & conviction
The Paedophile Information Exchange PIE was allegedly given £70,000 by the Home Office between 1977 and 1980 – the equivalent today of about £400,000.
A former Home Office worker revealed that Jim Callaghan’s Labour government and Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative administration, which took over in 1979, may have provided funding for PIE.
The whistleblower said senior civil servant Clifford Hindley, who was head of the Home Office’s voluntary services unit, signed off a three year grant for £35,000 in 1980.
So this is where it comes full circle back to Peter Righton – also an Anglican Franciscan for a while – & the @c_of_e monastic movement(s)
so favoured by Bishop Peter Ball he simply had to set up his own entire movement, just like Father Trevor Huddlestone’s alma mater the college & community of the Resurrection, Mirfield
Peter Righton’s time in retreat as an Anglican Franciscan is also central to the involvement of the Southbank Trio & Albany Trust
Alun:
Do you remember when May appointed the (Elizabeth Butler-Sloss) to chair IICSA? Well, she protected the Church just like Carey did. Kids didn’t count!
JJ Nortyperson@JJNortyperson
she’s still protecting the church, while I am waiting to die because @JustinWelby destroyed me as part of his fake safeguarding campaign
a vicar? “I think my ideal job would be working as
the director of a charity in London, specialising in
street and hostel work. It was the sort of thing I did before ordination.”
..Cadet… became a deacon in 1999, became a priest in 2007, Seahawk Culdros positition since 2012, before that he served with 30 Commando (IX) Royal Marines
Williams resign? Welby didn’t notice abuse at a camp. In another case revd James Francis arrested for procurement. He is Mr A in Gibb report
11 Aug 2017
FRANCIS. The Revd James Francis, Royal Navy Chaplain, now Royal Naval Chaplain of the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre, Amport House (Royal Naval Chaplaincy Service).
In October 2012, the church held ceremonies marking the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War, attended by Princess Anne. [5] As of 2015 the current chaplain is Revd. James Francis, RN.
HMS Kent returned to her namesake county and home port of Dover to mark the 101st anniversary of the Battle of the Falklands.
Royal Navy Chaplain Reverend James Francis commenced the Ship’s four day visit with a Church service on the Flight Deck to commemorate the 8 personnel from HMS Kent who gave their lives at the Battle of the Falkands on 8 December 1914.
In a bracing wind, and with Dover Castle as the backdrop, the Ship’s Company remembered the battle and honoured those who took part with a minutes silence.
The Lord Warden, Admiral of the Fleet and Constable The Lord Boyce GCB, OBE, DL, a former First Sea Lord and Chief of Defence staff, attended lunch on board in his capacity as Lord Warden of the Cinque ports, hosted by Commanding Officer Commander Dan Thomas Royal Navy and was greeted by a Ceremonial Guard and Rule Britannia over the main broadcast.
He was accompanied by other dignitaries, such as the Mayor of Dover, Mayor of Hythe and Speaker of the Cinque Ports, Head of the Dover Harbour Board, the Registrar of Cinque Ports, the Receiver General of Canterbury Cathedral and the Master of the Mercers Livery Company, an important and longstanding affiliate of HMS Kent.
A CBBC team, accompanied by two children who would like to be chefs in the future, filmed in the Ship’s Galley all day during preparations for two VIP events; one is keen to join the Royal Navy when she is old enough.
Kent’s Chefs thoroughly enjoyed having the children help out in the Galley and the children benefited from talking to the Ship’s two 18 year old chefs who recently left HMS Raleigh. HMS Kent is looking forward to seeing the episode of ‘All About the Workplace’ air later this year!
...the strange status of Westminster Abbey that governs its most famous function, as a national shrine to house great state events. The abbey rejoices in the title “royal peculiar,” which means it is neither a parish church nor a cathedral, and answerable only to the sovereign. Its clergy are appointed by the crown (through 10 Downing Street) and have uncommon access to the power brokers in British society.
St Peter’s Choir, Streatham at Llandaff Cathedral in 1984
Stephen Lloyd front row left. John Brierley front row right.
Also in the picture, from left: Fred Vere, Simon Gay, David Trendell, Adam Smith, Christopher Daly, Andrew Smith, Michael Stoddart, Peter Edwards, Stephen Turner, Jonathan Edwards
A review by Dame Moira Gibb found he had failed to pass on information about abuse carried out by Bishop Peter Ball.
Ms Racine’s abuser, Michael Walsh, was convicted of five indecent assault charges and confessed to sexual relationships with a further eight children.
He was sent to prison in 1990.
He had been a teacher, a lay vicar at Chichester Cathedral and also ran a choir at a church in Chichester.
Child abuse ‘inevitable’
After his release in 1992, Walsh returned to the same church to be part of the choir.
Concerned for the safety of other girls, in July of that year Ms Racine wrote to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, requesting his help.
Speaking after Lord Carey’s resignation, Ms Racine, 54, said: “I was very concerned that my abuser had just come out of prison and it appeared that he’d just gone straight back into the parish church where he’d originally worked, and was again in a position of authority in the choir there where young children – specifically girls – sang.
“I was really worried that these girls were at a huge risk. I felt it was inevitable that children would be abused.”
Three months after writing her letter she was told Lord Carey had been unable to consider her concerns because he was “committed to a series of visits overseas, together with his summer break”.
‘Duty of forgiveness’
She was informed one month later that the “Archbishop had been assured that there was no question of Michael Walsh being reinstated in the choir,” but nine months after raising her concerns she received a letter from the Archbishop’s chief of staff confirming her abuser was back in the choir.
Lambeth Palace wrote to Ms Racine saying the parish authorities had taken “great care” in coming to their decision to allow Walsh’s return to his position “weighing carefully the risk of re-offending against… the Christian duty of forgiveness”.
Michael Walsh, seen here in the 1990s, was allowed to return to the same church choir after his release from prison
The letters revealed Lord Carey regretted the decision which allowed Alesha’s abuser back into churches and offered her his sympathies.
Ms Racine said: “I thought his response was deeply hurtful, in that it had taken me a lot of courage to write to him at all.
“Most of what he said was in defence of the Church and the people in it, rather than try to reach out to me as a victim.
“I do feel it was a complete failure on his part.”
A spokesman for the former Archbishop of Canterbury said the correspondence with Ms Racine had been conducted on Lord Carey’s behalf by his chief of staff.
He said: “Lord Carey has absolutely no memory of this chain of correspondence or these events. He cannot therefore comment.”
Church of England colluded with bishop who abused boys, says Welby
Report about bishop Peter Ball, finding collusion over 20 years, is ‘harrowing reading’
Collusion: Secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy
Senior figures in the Church of England colluded for a period of 20 years with a disgraced former bishop who sexually abused boys and men, a damning independent report has found.
The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said the report on the church’s handling of former bishop Peter Ball made “harrowing reading”.
“The church colluded and concealed rather than seeking to help those who were brave enough to come forward. This is inexcusable and shocking behaviour,” he said.
“To the survivors who were brave enough to share their story and bring Peter Ball to justice, I once again offer an unreserved apology. There are no excuses whatsoever for what took place and the systemic abuse of trust perpetrated by Peter Ball over decades.”
Two former archbishops of Canterbury, George Carey and Rowan Williams, apologised to the victims of Peter Ball after being criticised for their failures in relation to him.
Ball, the former bishop of both Gloucester and Lewes, was jailed in October 2015 for the grooming, sexual exploitation and abuse of 18 vulnerable young men aged 17-25 who had sought spiritual guidance from him between 1977 and 1992. He was released from prison in February after serving 16 months.
His trial heard that after Ball was first accused in 1993, a string of senior establishment figures – including Carey, an unidentified member of the royal family, cabinet ministers and a high court judge – came forward in his support, writing letters to the police and Crown Prosecution Service.
Ball was cautioned by police. He resigned his post as bishop and retired to a rented cottage on the Prince of Wales’s Duchy of Cornwall estate butcontinued to officiate in 17 public schools until 2007. A fresh investigation was opened in 2012 which led to his conviction.
One of Ball’s victims, Neil Todd – the first to come forward with allegations of abuse – attempted suicide three times before killing himself in 2012.
Welby ordered an independent review of the church’s handling of the case, chaired by Dame Moira Gibb, former chief executive of Camden council.
The report said Ball’s case was dealt with at the highest levels within the church. He “was seen by the church as the man in trouble who the church needed to help”.
Ball was portrayed as a victim, and the review found “little evidence of compassion for Neil Todd even though from the outset it was clear that he was a vulnerable young man who had come to harm”.
It added: “The church appears to have been most interested in protecting itself.”
In the foreword to her report, An Abuse of Faith, published on Thursday, Gibb said the serious sexual wrongdoing of Ball “is shocking in itself but is compounded by the failure of the church to respond appropriately to his misconduct, again over a period of many years”.
“Ball’s priority was to protect and promote himself and he maligned the abused. The church colluded. The church colluded with that rather than seeking to help those he had harmed, or assuring itself of the safety of others.”
The report added, “progress has been slow and continuing, faster improvement is still required”.
Gibb made 11 recommendations in her report, including improving support to survivors of clerical abuse and taking steps to “demonstrate the individual and collective accountability of bishops”.
Peter Hancock, the C of E’s lead safeguarding bishop, who received the report on behalf of the church, said it had failed Ball’s survivors. “Having read the report I am appalled and disturbed by its contents … As a church we colluded, we failed to act and protect those who came forward for help. There are no excuses. We accept all the recommendations and are working to action them.”
Rowan Williams: ‘It is clear I did not give adequate priority to sorting out the concerns and allegations surrounding Peter Ball.’
He added: “For the survivors, it may feel this is all too late.”
According to the report, Ball intimated “on many occasions, to Lord Carey and others, that he enjoys the status of confidant of the Prince of Wales” and “sought to exploit his contact with members of the royal family in order to bolster his position”.
Bishop Ball with Prince Charles and Camilla. Ball gave the homily at the funeral of Camilla Parker Bowles’s father, Major Bruce Shand, in 2006
Moira Gibb is made a Dame CBE by the Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace back in 2012
However, Dame Moira Gibb’s report went on, it “found no evidence that the Prince of Wales or any other member of the royal family sought to intervene at any point in order to protect or promote Ball”.
Carey was criticised in the report, which said he “set the tone for the church’s response to Ball’s crimes and gave the steer which allowed Ball’s assertions that he was innocent to gain credence”.
In a statement responding to the report, Carey said it made “uncomfortable reading” and he accepted its criticisms of him. “I apologise to the victims of Peter Ball. I believed Peter Ball’s protestations and gave too little credence to the vulnerable young men and boys behind those allegations.”
Carey said he regretted not putting Ball’s name on the Lambeth List – names of people whose suitability for ministry is under question – after he was cautioned.
Under the leadership of Williams, the church began reviewing past cases, a move which ultimately led to the criminal case against Ball being reopened, the report said. However, he was criticised as being “lamentably slow” in making change.
In a statement, Williams said: “Having read the report and reflected on its details, it is clear I did not give adequate priority to sorting out the concerns and allegations surrounding Peter Ball at the earliest opportunity. I recognise such a delay is likely to have increased the pressure and distress experienced by the survivors of his abuse and I am sincerely sorry for this.”
In no way would I wish to influence the decision about Bishop Ball. No? But you did so pull the other one next time!
Tory MP Tim Rathbone
Alun:
Rathbone was not only David Cameron’s godfather; he was also a relative. David Cameron is related to Queenie. Is that the secret to the support to Ball?
Establishment figures who helped disgraced bishop avoid prosecution for sex abuse revealed
Lord Chief Justice Anthony Lloyd helped Bishop Ball with character ref
Alongside Bishop Ball, Harvey Proctor and Bea Carthew, Enoch Powell also corresponded with Nicholas Soames, Proctor’s most ardent defender.
Former Lord Justice Anthony Lloyd and David Cameron’s late godfather Tory MP Tim Rathbone among figures who wrote in support of former Bishop of Gloucester, Peter Ball, one said he was a “saint”
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
Northleach = Ball = Harding = Jennings (lifelong Ball friend) = Prince Charles Coincidence?
for Ball was an honorable man. They are all honourable men. Including yourself Mr Carey!
Bishop Ball was given special treatment because he was mates with Prince Charles!
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
With a little help from his friend: Ball promised to go abroad but went to stay on Charles’ estate.
Goddard inquiry: Outrage as bishop Peter Ball jailed for sex offences given public funding for legal team
30 July 2016
A lawyer close to the inquiry said: “I was really surprised Ball was given funding. The issue is about how he was allowed to get away with it by the Church not about his offending. He has already been investigated and pleaded guilty.”
Moira Gibb Report on the Church of England and convicted paedophile Bishop Ball:
Chris Stacey@chrisstacey1
He’s one of the gatekeepers I’ve seen campaigning in Lords to clear name of another Bishop Bell from 1950s. Children don’t feature at all
We cannot allow the Bishop Ball story to be put to bed! Ball’s links to paedophiles and royalty with links to paedos warrants scrutiny!
Not passing on information re. Bishop Ball was a criminal act on the part of ‘Lord’ Carey. What are the consequences?
How did ‘Lord’ Carey, a man who actively protected an evil paedophile bishop, make it to the top of CoE? Or have I answered my own question?
Bishop Peter Ball, convicted, to Enoch Powell, fascist and alleged satanist and child abuser:
Oh, just remind me again who were Enoch’s two aides and buddies! Ah, yes. Proctor and Denby!
Peter Ball sending the love of God to Enoch and Pam! What a mistake!
Further evidence of close relationship between godly convict Bishop Ball and ‘Rivers of Blood’ Enoch:
Interesting that Enoch Powell corresponded both with Ball and Montagu who were both let off the hook by Skelhorn.
Can you see what it is yet?
Rev Peter Ball was one of many to correspond with Enoch. Others included Atkinson friend Tonypandy, another alleged abuser.
In 1993 the CPS agreed to issue Ball with a caution, rather than prosecute, after the personal intervention of then-Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.
MI5 knew of cover-up over Cyril Smith child abuse, inquiry hears
9 Oct 2017
MI5 knew the country’s chief prosecutor had covered up a sex abuse inquiry into Cyril Smith but did nothing because it was not its job to expose paedophiles, an inquiry has heard.
Files released by the intelligence agency show it was aware that the Director of Public prosecutions (DPP) had lied to a newspaper over its decision not to prosecute Smith. But it decided not to make the information public because its duty was to ‘defend the realm’ rather than to expose a prominent politicians accused of being a paedophile.
The disclosure came during the first day of hearings into how Smith, the former Liberal MP, was able to abuse boys at Cambridge House hostel and Knowl View residential school in Rochdale. Smith died in 2010, having never faced prosecution.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) last night released an MI5 briefing note which showed how Sir Thomas Hetherington, the then DPP, had lied to a local newspaper about the existence of a 1970 police inquiry into allegations of gross indecency made against Smith.
Had the DPP admitted Smith had been under investigation, it would have led to a new inquiry and Smith being put on trial in his lifetime.
Hetherington had called a legal adviser in the intelligence agency to inform him of the press interest from David Bartlett, a journalist with the Rochdale Alternative Press. The briefing note states: “After consultations, the DPP’s press representative had untruthfully told Bartlett that they had no record of this case. In fact their file closely accorded with the details given by Bartlett.”
The MI5 file from 1979
The memo, from the MI5 legal adviser and written in April 1979, goes on to suggest that the South African intelligence agency had been “trying to obtain compromising information about political figures” and that Smith was one of them.
The police investigation into Smith had been closed nine years earlier in 1970 by Hetherington’s predecessor Sir Norman Skelhorn who decided it was unlikely to lead to a prosecution.
Skelhorn’s decision was made despite a senior detective warning that the “sordid” accusations against Smith “stood up”.
Brian Altman QC, IICSA’s lead counsel, told the inquiry: “The documents show that the Security Service’s legal adviser was informed of the false representations to the press from the DPP’s office.
“Based upon their review of the information they hold, the Security Service considers they took active steps to ensure that those involved in investigating allegations of child sexual abuse against Smith were made aware of all information of relevance to their inquiries.
Elders of Cape Town church expel alleged abuser John Smyth
09 June 2017
JOHN SMYTH, the Evangelical Christian camp leader accused of savagely beating young men during the 1970s and ’80s in his garden shed (News, 13 April), has been formally expelled from his church in South Africa, where he now lives.
In a lengthy statement, the elders of Church-on-Main, Cape Town, where Mr Smyth and his wife, Anne, have worshipped since 2013, announced that the Smyths would be “excommunicated, with all its scriptural implications”, because of Mr Smyth’s refusal to engage with the church leadership about the allegations.
The statement explains that the church was aware that some had criticised Mr Smyth’s holiday-camp ministry in Zimbabwe when he first joined Church-on-Main, four years ago, but had been assured that this was nothing more than jealousy at the ministry’s success.
Last September, however, the church elders found out that Mr Smyth was regularly meeting young men from Church-on-Main at a sports club, playing squash before showering together and then questioning them about “pornography, masturbation, and other sexual matters”.
They then discovered that Mr Smyth’s Zimbabwe camps had been involved in a court case. The elders’ statement said, however, that whenever they attempted to discuss the matter with Mr Smyth, he became defensive, and attacked the elders’ leadership of the church.
After the allegations first surfaced in the UK in February (News, 10 February), the elders said that they had urged Mr Smyth to return to the UK to work with the police, and told him not to attend Church-on-Main meetings or contact any other church members.
Because he has refused to engage with the leaders, or follow their advice, he has now been excommunicated from the church, the statement says.”
Our counsel has always been for John to present himself to the UK authorities for whatever consequences he could face, admitting, if necessary, to any accusation that holds substance, and to apologise, asking for forgiveness and mercy,” it says.”
If our having had John as a leader of a discipleship group, or his role in any form of ministry has led to hurt or risk to anyone, or to bringing the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ into disrepute in any way; for this we apologise.”
Channel 4 News, which first broke the story in February, has broadcast new details that appear to suggest that the Archbishop of Canterbury continued to be involved with Iwerne Trust camps at the same time as Mr Smyth.
Archbishop Welby was a dormitory officer at the holiday camps in the late 1970s, when Mr Smyth was one of the leaders. A statement from Lambeth Palace, issued after the Channel 4 programme, said that the Archbishop had worked with Mr Smyth, but that no one had discussed the allegations with him.”
I was completely unaware of any abuse,” the Archbishop told LBC radio in February. “I never heard anything at all, at any point. I never had the slightest suspicion that there was anything going on.”
Last week, Channel 4 News reported that the Archbishop’s name appeared on a speaker roster for an Iwerne Trust camp in 1979, as did Mr Smyth’s, and he remained on the camps’ mailing list, despite then living in France.
Archbishop Welby denied that these documents implied that he was connected to Mr Smyth. “I left to work and live in Paris in 1978 — as I understand it, a year before the abuse was to begin — and did not return to work in the UK until 1983,” he said in a statement this week.”
As I have previously stated, I was not one of the inner circle of people surrounding John Smyth, or in the leadership of the camps. A talk on reading the Bible, which I did as a one-off in 1979, does not make anyone a member of an ‘inner circle’.”
A spokeswoman for the Archbishop declined to comment on Mr Smyth’s expulsion from Church-on-Main.
IICSA today – Bishop John Hinds of Chichester admits how shocked he was when Bishop Wallace Benn asked for the blemished criminal record check of Revd Rideout to be overlooked, that many mistakes were made, and that the church should not be left to police itself.
Shocking things emerging from IICSA today – Meekings (social worker appointed By Chichester diocese to do a past cases review) says available info on the CRBs etc of clergy later convicted of abuse like Rideout and Peter Ball was missing from the files he was shown.
Richard Scorer@Richard_Scorer
Extraordinary evidence at @InquiryCSA this morning – Roger Meekings who did the Chichester diocese pasr cases review says the files on Peter Ball, Gordon Rideout (& others) were filleted so he didn’t see evidence about their abuse. Question now is who filleted them?
InquiryCSA (IICSA)
Meekings was a Professional Supervisor to Shirley Hosgood, former Child Protection Officer, Chichester Diocese.
Linda Woodhead@LindaWoodhead
Didn’t Shirley Hosgood and Bishop Hind say to the inquiry that only the bishop (or bishops) could access the blue files?
InquiryCSA (IICSA)
*Schedule amendment* Angela Sibson to give evidence tomorrow with read evidence from Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and Kate Wood to follow from Canon Ian Gibson.
Cassandra Cogno@CassandraCogno
Is Dame “we don’t want to give the press a bishop” Butler-Sloss not giving evidence in person?Not so long ago she was going to run this show
InquiryCSA (IICSA)
Nikita McNeill changes the line of questioning to the Past Cases Review
Counsel to the Inquiry Nikita McNeill ask Canon Ian Gibson about the blue files and the status of the files when Canon Ian Gibson took over the job and responsibility of them
Roger Meekings tell the Inquiry that in 2009-2011 the Diocese of Chichester was a very male orientated environment and a female safeguarding officer provided a challenge to male authority
Canon Ian Gibson: “There wasn’t a blue file for Peter Ball”
Nikita McNeill asks Canon Ian Gibson about the allegations against Canon Gordon Rideout and his blemished disclosure
Canon Gordon Rideout’s blemished CRB was a safeguarding issue and was raised at a senior staff meeting – Canon Ian Gibson tells InquiryCSA
Bishop Wallace asked Bishop John not to disclose blemished CRB information on Canon Gordon Rideout to the safeguarding advisor of the diocese as he is a friend and much respected person
Nikita McNeill asks Canon Ian Gibson about why he believes management experience is important for bishop
Counsel to the Inquiry Nikita McNeill hands over questioning of Canon Ian Gibson to the Chair and Panel.
methinks Welby doth ‘protest too much’
Canon Gordon Rideout who was the Vicar of All Saints in Eastbourne was jailed for ten years for 36 separate offences on 16 children between 1962 and 1973. Peter Ball, former Bishop of Lewes was convicted of abuse in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Former priest Keith Wilke Denford of Burgess Hill and organist Michael Mytton were convicted of historic sexual abuse. Vickery House, a former Brighton priest was also convicted along with the former Vicar of Brede, Roy Cotton. Former Vicar of St Barnabas in Bexhill was charged and convicted of historic allegations amongst many others. But Father Hubert Brasier was about to be offered a fantastic opportunity that would take him from the Chichester Diocese.
In 1959, Theresa May’s father, Hubert Brasier was installed as the 1st Vicar of Enstone with Heythrop, deep in the Diocese of Oxford. This cannot be understated, it was quite an achievement.Only 4 miles from Chipping Norton this was a sought after location and Hubert would have been the envy of many men of the Anglican-Catholic cloth. Hubert is approaching his mid forties and it may be time to permanently settle for the sake, and sanity of his family. He lives the quiet life in Enstone for 11 years with only records of baptisms, funerals, and weddings to note his existence. In 1970 Hubert is moved to be Vicar of Wheatley in Oxfordshire as Zaidee’s condition was worsening and he was no spring chicken anymore.
On October 12, 1981, Hubert was killed in a car accident on his way to a service at a local church in nearby Forest Hill. His Morris Marina edged out of a central reservation and in front of an oncoming Range Rover driven by a chartered surveyor named Desmond Hampton. Hubert Brasier died of head and spinal injuries sustained in the crash soon after, Zaidee would pass away months later. The Oxfordshire Coroner Nicholas Gardiner recorded a verdict of accidental death.
The Cover Ups
So there is the life of Hubert Brasier, it doesn’t seem like there’s is much to see. Yet just after Theresa May took over at No.10 her campaign team started to request the deletion of web addresses linked to Hubert Brasier. If you were to go to Wikipedia and type in Hubert Brasier there will be no results. I first realised that he had once had a Wiki entry when I found a version of it in French, and then one in Spanish. Any researcher has the wonderfully named ‘Wayback Machine’ to help them nowadays. You can go to the archive and find pages that have been deleted, only if you can work out the original web address. In this case you can copy and paste the Wikipedia page address and add Hubert_Brasier to the end. You will see Hubert’s Wiki page in all its former glory from a snapshot archived on 17th July 2016. For some reason the people around May, or May herself, do not want you looking into the history of Hubert Brasier. After researching Hubert’s life I came across many pages that had been removed, links to nowhere, and a few conspiracy theories too. On investigation of Hubert’s Wiki entry there is nothing damning present. It’s not a large entry, it covers only the basics, so why would you want it removed? The only important information it seems to contain is Hubert’s placements within the Church of England, and that he’s Theresa May’s father.
On 8th July 2014, Theresa May as Home Secretary, oversaw the appointment of Baroness Butler-Sloss to the inquiry set up to investigate child sexual abuse by prominent politicians and clergy in the previous decades. Within 6 days of the announcement of Baroness Butler-Sloss as chair, she was forced to stand down for obvious conflicts of interest. Theresa May had selected somebody whose brother was Attorney General during some of the periods being investigated. Later the same year May chose the then Lord Mayor of London, Fiona Woolf, to chair the inquiry. Fiona Woolf had to stand down when it became apparent that she had lived near Leon Brittan, who had also been accused of alleged sexual abuse. She recalled sending him and his wife a dinner invite at around the time of the accusations. It was almost as if Theresa May was sabotaging the inquiry with no regard for the victims who still required answers.
On 4th February 2015, May announced that Dame Lowell Goddard, a New Zealand High Court judge, would be taking over as chair. But a month after Theresa May became Prime Minister, in August 2016, the new Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced the resignation of Dame Lowell Goddard. Soon after her resignation it was announced that one of the existing panel members, Professor Alexis Jay, became the chair. But now the inquiry has faced serious and obvious questions about its credibility.
To get things so badly wrong must be almost impossible. Theresa May never seemed to meet any of her immigration targets as Home Secretary, and it is truly hard to name her recorded achievements whilst she has been in office. But the inquiry into child sexual abuse seems to be something Theresa May does not want to face. My thoughts are that the investigation will focus on Tory MP’s who frequented the infamous Elm Guest House, but also the Diocese of Chichester, once the ecumenical home of her Father Hubert Brasier. So what is it that you fear Mrs May? The truth about your colleagues, or is it something much closer to home? Maybe May is terrified of people connecting her with the name Brasier?
I have done my best to build an accurate jigsaw from all the pieces I could locate, but it may need a different set of eyes to see the real picture.
What a coincidence this chap (Desmond Hampton) should have been driving the car that killed Hubert Brasier, May’s father!
Desmond was highly respected for his advisory work with many of the old institutional and charity landowners including the Church Commissioners for England, the Crown Estate Commissioners, many educational and medical charities most notably the Kings Fund and Guys and St Thomas’s Hospital and also the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster where he provided the independent valuations of their estates for many years.
John Bodkin Adams was a British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between 1946 and 1956, more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances. Of these, 132 left him money or items in their wills.
Dr John Bodkin Adams the smooth-talking widow-friendly suspected serial killer linked to 163 deaths
HE was the attentive doctor who relied on grateful late patients to bequeath cash and even a Rolls, but when yet another wealthy widow died suddenly, the detectives came knocking.
The strange case of Dr John Bodkin Adams
He is known as the serial killer who got away with it.
The case of Dr John Bodkin Adams was a worldwide sensation in 1950s. The portly general practitioner lived and worked in the south coast English seaside town Eastbourne and he had a reputation for being a particularly attentive doctor, especially to elderly wealthy widows.
As a young man from Ulster, Ireland, Adams answered an ad to join a firm of Christian GPs in Eastbourne, England, in 1922. He did not come with the best of skills having just scraped through his medical degree. But Adams was a deeply religious man and many believe it was this façade of respectability and devoutness that allowed him to go unchecked for almost 30 years, ‘relieving’ wealthy widows of their pain and their money.
He had also graduated from riding a scooter around town to a chauffeured limousine. In fact, Adams had a practice of referring his wealthy widow clients to London consultants, even accompanying them to the city in his Rolls Royce.
Adams received money from over 300 wills and was left property, jewels, silverware and the luxury cars he so loved. The sums were significant for the time. In 1936 he was left £7000 by one Eastbourne widow. The relatives contested the will but Adams won in court and pocketed the money, which would be equivalent to more that $250,000 today.
Dr Bodkin Adams, a 57-year-old Ulster-born bachelor, was president of the Eastbourne Y.M.C.A. He taught Sunday school.
And he was the Chief Constable’s personal physician …
Detective Bert Hannam …solved the murder of two teenage girls in Richmond in 1953. On 31 May, Barbara Songhurst, 16 and Christine Reed, 18 who had been raped and stabbed.
Victims of paedophile priests at Catholic seminary in Yorkshire speak of horrendous 1960s abuse as British police plead with Italian forces to extradite the last living cleric for questioning
Men at Mirfield Junior Infirmary were sexually abused in the 1960s
Two paedophile priests fled the country and died before facing police
One alleged abuser remains in Italy but is ‘too ill to travel’ to the UK
Here their victims recount the horrendous abuse 40 years later
7 February 2015
Gerry McLaughlin (pictured front centre, with his arms folded) was just 11 when he went to Mirfrield Junior Seminary where he was abused by Fr John Pinkman (right)
Yes to all this being interesting. I have the reference from Crockford, I believe, &a the removed wiki page confirms his placement.
Canon Gordon Rideout was the vicar of All Saints Church in Eastbourne for 25 years.
Clergyman Canon Gordon Rideout was chaplain at Moira House School, Eastbourne, until 2003, and chairman of governors at Bishop Bell C of E School in Eastbourne until November 2011.
Clergyman Canon Gordon Rideout was a serial sex offender who preyed on young children across the south of England.
In 2013, Rideout, 74, was jailed for 10 years at Lewes Crown Court after being convicted of two attempted rapes and 34 indecent assaults on 16 boys and girls
In the 1970s Canon Gordon Rideout was taken to a military court on child sex-abuse charges.
At that time Rideout was chaplain on a military base.
In the spring of 1956, Lady Dorothy Macmillan’s brother, the Duke of Devonshire ‘dropped dead’ in front of his doctor, Dr. John Bodkin Adams .
Dr Adams was arrested in connection with the deaths of a number of his patients.
Former Attorney General Hartley Shawcross. His first wife, Alberta Shyvers, took her own life in 1943. sussexexpress.
During the Adams committal hearing in January 1957, Hartley Shawcross was seen dining with Adams’s suspected lover, Sir Roland Gwynne (Mayor of Eastbourne from 1929 to 1931), and the Lord Chief Justice, Rayner Goddard, at a hotel in Lewes, near Eastbourne.
There is suspicion of a cover-up.
Dr Adams was acquitted.
Lady Dorothy Macmillan, wife of former UK prime minister Harold Macmillan. Lady Dorothy was the daughter of the 9th Duke of Devonshire
Reportedly, Harold Macmillan, the UK’s Conservative Party Prime Minister from 1957-1963, was expelled from the top private school called Eton for ‘homosexual perversion’.
Dorothy had many affairs, including one with the bisexual Lord Boothby.
UK Government asset Lord Goodman , a powerful British Jew, protected people like Tom Driberg MP, Sir Anthony Blunt and Lord Boothby “who were regularly seen at parties with rent boys and arrested at public toilets.”
The police acquired a memorandum belonging to a Daily Mail journalist, concerning stories of homosexuality between “a police officer, a magistrate, and a doctor”.
The doctor was said to be Adams.
The ‘magistrate’ was Sir Roland Gwynne, Mayor of Eastbourne from 1929 to 1931 and brother of Rupert Gwynne, MP for Eastbourne from 1910 to 1924. The ‘police officer’ was the Deputy Chief Constable of Eastbourne, Alexander Seekings.
160 of Bodkin Adams’s patients had died mysteriously, 132 of them writing the doctor into their wills.
Harold Macmillan
“Harold Macmillan, and the then Attorney General, Reginald Manningham-Buller, were both related to one of Dr Adams’ likely victims….
“A homosexual relationship existed between Adams and a powerful local politician, who had protected him for over thirty years.”
Wheatley villagers remember Mrs May teaching Sunday school classes and regularly attending religious services in her father’s church. While a student at Oxford university, she even found time to attend the annual meeting of the parochial church council chaired by her father.
Theresa May was a good speaker at the Union and an active member of another student debating group, the Edmund Burke Society, which in her last year she chaired, presiding over proceedings
…her boyfriend and future husband — two years her junior — who attracted attention as a potential rising political star. Philip May was the toast of the debating chamber, a friend of Benazir Bhutto, the future Prime Minister of Pakistan who was to be assassinated in 2007.
It was Benazir who introduced Philip to Theresa at a Conservative association disco — he the centre of much attention, she the barely-noticed ex-grammar schoolgirl and vicar’s daughter.
Over the past week, Theresa May’s tenure and competence as Home Secretary has come under increased scrutiny, particularly in regards to the issue of police cuts and national security.
However, in the week that Britons go to the polls, we consider another aspect of her past record which calls into question her competency, or perhaps lack of.
Investigation into historic child abuse claims In February 2013, then Home Office permanent secretary, Mark Sedwill, commissioned an investigation into a collection of documents relating to historic child abuse cases dating from 1979–1999.
Sedwill quickly discovered that 114 potentially relevant files were missing, presumed lost or destroyed.
Among these documents there is believed to have been a dossier which was passed to Lord Brittan by the late Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens.
Whilst Home Secretary, Theresa May tasked NSPCC head, Peter Wanless, to review the Sedwill investigation, and look into the Home Office failings.
Theresa May has since admitted that there “might have been” a cover-up at the Home Office in the 1980s concerning allegations that politicians were involved in child sex abuse. However, she stated that an official review found that the claim was “not proven”.
Nevertheless, The Wanless report concluded that “shambolic” record keeping at the Home Office meant a definite answer could not be given either way. Though the files remained missing, it claimed that no one person could be directly connected to the allegations.
Former child protection manager Peter McKelvie claimed that at least 20 prominent people in Westminster had abused children. There was the suggestion that they used children’s homes as a “supply line” but this is yet to be substantiated.
Ex-child protection officer Peter McKelvie who resigned as an adviser to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
Mr McKelvie discovered potential links between paedophiles and the government when he was assisting police in investigating convicted paedophile and founding member of twisted organisation PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange), Peter Righton.
According to McKelvie, amongst evidence seized from Righton’s home in 1992 there was a haul of documents pointing to a “very well organised paedophile network”, dating as far back as the 1950s and 1960s.
Several police operations into child sex abuse are still ongoing, including Operation Fairbank and Operation Fernbridge—a probe into up to 40 MPs involved or complicit in child abuse—and others investigating particular children’s homes and authorities.
Allegations of child murders and sinister orgies in the Dolphin Square flats complex in Westminster have also surfaced during the course of these investigations.
A paedophile ring is said to have been run by a “powerful elite” including not only MPs, but also ministers and an even larger number of people aware of its existence; people that could have stopped it, yet did nothing.
Jackie Malton, the former detective chief inspector with the Metropolitan Police, said: “There is clear evidence that something was happening […] Either the police disbelieved it, or they covered it up one way or another.”
Vishambar Mehrotra, a retired magistrate, believes his son was murdered 33 years ago and fell prey to one of these rings. The skull and several rib bones of Vishal, 8, were discovered in 1982 by pigeon shooters in remote marshland at Durford Abbey Farm, at Rogate, close to the Hampshire-West Sussex border.
Just why police and prosecutors failed to tackle these claims, many of which emerged years ago, remains an enduring question.
In July 2014, Clive Driscoll, a former senior Metropolitan police officer, claimed he was moved from his post after revealing plans to investigate politicians over claims of child abuse alleged to have taken place in children’s homes in the ’80s.
In an internal meeting in 1998, he revealed the names of suspects he intended to investigate. Soon after, he was taken off the case. He told the BBC his inquiry was “all too uncomfortable to a lot of people”.
Investigative journalist Don Hale also referenced an incident in which former Employment Secretary Barbara Castle handed him a dossier containing sexual abuse allegations in the 1980s. He claimed that his home was later raided by Special Branch, the file confiscated, and threats of imprisonment followed.
At this stage, it may be worth bearing in mind the words of Conservative Whip, Tim Fortescue, when discussing ‘Dirt books’ in 1995: “It might be a scandal involving small boys… they’d come and ask if we could help”.
The current whereabouts of the dossier remains unknown. The Independent Police Complaints Commission have since launched an inquiry into 14 different claims of police and establishment cover-ups. One deals with dropped criminal allegations against a politician during a child abuse investigation in south London, another into the suspected Dolphin Square ring and the dissolution of the case due to officers being “too near prominent people”.
For two Home Secretaries to have ‘lost’ material of such a serious and consequential nature is, of course, alarming. However, when one of those Home Secretaries goes on to become our Prime Minister, any chance of ever winning justice for children, like 8 year-old Vishal Mehrotra, tragically appears more distant than ever.
Dr John B Harman’s sister married to Lord Longford – friend of paedophile Jimmy Savile and child murderer Myra Hindley
Lord Frank Longford (who sent flowers when Beck died and befriended child killer Myra Hindley) is uncle by marriage to Harriet Harman
Sir Simon Hornby, (older brother of paedophile Charles Hornby) had seven years previously married the Queen Mother’s racehorse trainer’s daughter, Sharon Cazalet, in a star studded wedding. The Queen Mother, Princess Margaret, Noel Coward, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are all on film walking into a tiny village church in Shipbourne in Kent for the occasion.[ii] At the Cazalet family home Fairlawnes in Kent, the Queen Mother had often been a guest, as well as the historian Elizabeth Longford (nee Harman) and her husband, Labour Peer, Lord Frank Longford
2001 Obituary of Rosamund Hornby Holland-Martin by Countess Mountbatten of Burma:
She was hugely active in the NSPCC’s centenary appeal in 1984, especially when, along with Princess Margaret, the society’s president
She was born Rosamund Hornby into a family with a strong history in the NSPCC. Her father, Charles Harry St John Hornby, was a member of the central executive committee (now the board of trustees)
In 1951, she married Deric Holland-Martin – he later became Admiral Sir Deric and she Lady Holland-Martin
Sir Deric was the fourth son of Robert Martin Holland-Martin.
Robin Holland-Martin is the grandson of Robert Martin Holland-Martin.
Harriet Harman (PIE-Linked) of NCCL – her father Dr John Harman
was adamant (Bodkin) Adams’ treatment, though unusual, was not reckless.)
Martin Walkerdine@mwalkerdine
DPP get report on Paedophile Information Exchange says Scotland Yard on 24 August 1983
PIE – Harman
In August 1983, a Scottish headmaster, Charles Oxley, handed over a dossier about PIE to Scotland Yard after infiltrating the group, the Glasgow Herald wrote. He said the group had about 1,000 members.
But the NCCL continued to defend having PIE as a member.
As late as September 1983, an NCCL officer was quoted in the Daily Mail saying the group was campaigning to lower the age of consent to 14. “An offiliate [sic] group like the Paedophile Information Exchange would agree with our policy. That does not mean it’s a mutual thing and we have to agree with theirs.”
How much did Harman and her husband the MP Jack Dromey knew about the group during their time working at the National Council for Civil Liberties, now Liberty, in the late 1970s. PIE was affiliated to the NCCL from the late 1970s to early 1980s.
NCCL officer Nettie Pollard, who worked in the organisation until the late Nineties, ‘wrote a letter inviting the Paedophile Information Exchange to affiliate in 1975’.
NCCL Harriet Harman and Peter Tatchell
NCCL officer Nettie Pollard, who worked in the organisation until the late Nineties, ‘wrote a letter inviting the Paedophile Information Exchange to affiliate in 1975’.
Theresa May’s father and Harriet Harman’s father were both orbiting Dr Bodkin Adams before & during his trial!
Theresa May’s dad worked as chaplain at Dr Bodkin Adams hospital? and Harriet Harman’s dad was defence witness for Dr Adams!?
Harriet Harman’s father was Dr John Bishop Harmon
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
I think the two Gwynne brothers are the key to Bodkin Adams
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Roland Vaughan Gwynne, DSO, DL, JPwas Mayor of Eastbourne, Sussex, from 1928 to 1931. He was also a patient, close friend, and probable lover of the suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams.
In Eastbourne it is healthy
And the residents are wealthy
It’s a miracle that anybody dies;
Yet this pearl of English lidos
Is a slaughter house of widows –
If their bank rolls are above the normal size.
If they’re lucky in addition
In their choice of a physician
And remember him when making out their wills
And bequeath their Rolls Royces
Then they soon hear angel voices
And are quickly freed from all their earthly ills.
If they’re nervous or afraid of
What a heroine is made of
Their mentality will soon be reconditioned
So they needn’t feel neglected
They will shortly be infected
With the heroin in which they are deficient.
As we witnessed the deceased borne
From the stately homes of Eastbourne
We are calm, for it may safely be assumed
That each lady that we bury
In the local cemetery
Will re-surface – when the body is exhumed.
It’s the mortuary chapel
If they touch an Adam’s apple
After parting with a Bentley as a fee
So to liquidate your odd kin
By the needle of the bodkin
Send them down to sunny Eastbourne by the sea.
Lord Justice Fulford was revealed to have been a founder of a ‘defence committee’ for the Paedophile Information Exchange while it was openly calling for the age of consent to be cut to just four.
He discussed holding courtroom protests at meetings with PIE chairman Tom O’Carroll – who was jailed for two years in 1981 for conspiracy to corrupt public morals – and wrote articles claiming O’Carroll’s trial was an ‘act of oppression’ because the child sex campaigners only wanted to ‘make friends’.
The Prime Minister has approved the appointment of Lord Justice Fulford as the first Investigatory Powers Commissioner.
The Prime Minister has approved the appointment of Lord Justice Fulford as the first Investigatory Powers Commissioner for a 3-year term. Lord Justice Fulford will take up appointment with immediate effect.
Prime Minister Theresa May said:
I’m pleased to announce the appointment of Lord Justice Fulford as the first Investigatory Powers Commissioner. He brings a wealth of experience in the judiciary and expertise in matters of law which will be crucial to his vital role scrutinising the use of investigatory powers, as part of a world-leading oversight regime.
Biographical notes
The Rt Hon Sir Adrian Fulford qualified as a barrister in 1978 and took Silk in 1994. He was appointed a Recorder of the Crown Court in 1995. He was appointed a High Court Judge of the Queen’s Bench Division on 21 November 2002. He was elected to serve as 1 of the 18 judges of the International Criminal Court in 2003 for a term of 9 years, and was assigned to the Trial Division. He was sworn into office on 11 March 2003. He was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal on 10 May 2013.
With effect from 1 January 2015, Sir Adrian was the Deputy Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales. From 1 January 2016 he became the Senior Presiding Judge. He is currently the Judge in Charge of IT and leads for the judiciary on HM Courts & Tribunals Service reform.
Whilst holding the appointment as the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, Sir Adrian will remain a Judge of the Court of Appeal.
Background
Section 227 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 provides for the Prime Minister to appoint the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (IPC). The role of the IPC is to authorise and oversee the use of Investigatory Powers by public authorities.
Sir Adrian will now begin work on establishing his office, and will take on the statutory functions of the IPC in due course.
Judge Fulford presided over Roger Laing 2015 Oct 2 Court of Appeal [7] No aspersions are being made about whether the right decision was made in this particular case of child abuse.
However the appeal brought to mind that Judge Fulford was accused in 2014 by the Mail of backing the Paedophile Information Exchange PIE and being in groups that supported it. High Court judge and the child sex ring: Adviser to Queen was founder of paedophile support group to keep offenders out of jail[8]
He has apologised for some of his links but says he has no memories of others, states the Guardian, Judge apologises for involvement with NCCL group linked to PIE [9]
The Mail on Sunday states “But he said he had “no memory” of being a founder member of the Conspiracy Against Public Morals, which the Mail continues was set up to defend PIE leaders facing criminal charges.”
An official investigation by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office took place by Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore. It concluded on 18 June 2014, that the allegations against Fulford were “without substance” and he “was not and had never been a supporter of PIE or its aims”. Following his exoneration, Fulford resumed sitting as a judge on the full range of appeals [10]
Unfortunately the Ministry of Justice and the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office have not been transparent about the investigation.
They issued a dismissive press statement [11a] and below, stating that Fulford was exonerated after after two “lengthy” interviews with “searching questions” put to him by fellow Justice, Justice Lord Kerr, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to which Adrian Fulford reponded!
How much easier if their names were given as well..
Just for information the Lord Chief Justice was Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who is John Thomas, Baron Thomas of Cwmgiedd [18] and without the titles just plain John Thomas. The Lord Chancellor was just plain Chris Grayling [19]. Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore turns out to be Brian Kerr, Baron Kerr of Tonaghmore or just plain Brian Kerr [20]
The Ministry of Justice has refused to publish a copy of the report on grounds of confidentiality and personal information [11b]. They even took the statement down from their website after a year as revealed by this FOI request[11]
Whilst the Mail group is often gossip from the gutter, the MOJ statement, undated and unsigned is breathtaking in its arrogance. It does not even address the issue of group that Adrian Fulford is supposed to have founded – “Conspiracy against Public Morals” which supported PIE.
It is not denied that Fulford (Adrian) was there at the third meeting on 11 Sept 1979 nor even that he founded the group. In October 1979 the Mail says Fulford wrote a full-page article in gay rights magazine Broadsheet, in which he was described as ‘the founder’ of the PIE support group.
Among those also attending the 11 Sept meeting were Sandy Marks and Tim Brown.
Sandy Marks and Tim Brown were both members of the radical Fallen Angels collective who according to Charlotte Russell, the pre-eminent researcher in this field, “the Fallen Angels took it upon themselves to call the Gay Movement to account, their final three sentences underlined concluding their case” [16]
“The question is whether gay complicity in the oppression of children and pedophiles is to persist”
“The ILGA must acknowledge adult-child relations as crucial to the development of a coherent sexual politics.”
“We demand the right to form alternative relations with kids – on their terms, and to affirm the erotic in those relations.”
Tim Brown wrote “Show me an adult who is not a paedophile…Sex with children is wonderful… Children are wonderful they should not be subjected to any kind of guilt trip or legal shit about their bodies and their sexuality. It is theirs and nobody else’s.” Tim Brown, London N19 [16]
Sandy Marks chaired the Islington social services committee during the children’s homes scandal of the 1990s, attended a conference with a radical pro-paedophile activist group called Fallen Angels in 1980.
Her other paedophilic links are explored in this article Islington kids’ homes scandal: Shame of ex-mayor Sandy Marks’ pro-paedophile past [17]
These articles by Ms Russell confirm the agenda of the Fallen Angels and much else
CONSPIRACY AGAINST PUBLIC MORALS: PAEDOPHILIA & PUBLIC MORALS (OCTOBER 1980) [13]
IGA Conference April 1980: The Fallen Angels take PIE’s fight to Barcelona[14]
Little Angels? A letter to Socialist Challenge from Fallen Angel Tim Brown (October 1979) [15]
Fallen Angels: Paedophilia – Summary Submission to the ILGA Conference, Barcelona 1980 [16]
Islington kids’ homes scandal: Shame of ex-mayor Sandy Marks’ pro-paedophile past [17]
“.. Islington had become a focal point for the politicisation of paedophilia,” said Ms Russell.
Although Adrian Fulford is reported as saying that Tom O’Carrolls presence ‘left me feeling extremely uncomfortable’, he does not mention that the Fallen Angels made him feel at all queasy.
Sandy Marks has said various things about the time, one of which is she cannot remember events of this time due to illness. Islington Council have said they are shocked and that there will be an investigation by a “top lawyer”. It is not clear who the “top” lawyer is, or how “top” they will be, whether the investigation has begun or when the Report will be published.
It is essential that Adrian Fulford must give evidence to this inquiry. He clearly would have first hand evidence, from the inside, of what happened at the time. Perhaps he could be “top witness”.
Clearly if someone of his position does not give evidence, then the Islington investigation cannot be remotely to be said to be a thorough investigation. It would be negligent not to.
It would also be very interesting as to what Sandy Marks might have to say about Adrian Fulford..
As long as the MOJ is secretive and dismissive, and justice is not seen to be done then there naturally will be suspicions. The public obviously do not know the detail of what was considered, but would be right to demand further information. Is it right that Judges investigate themselves and then publish the report? These Judges could even be friends.
Ministry of Justice and Child Protection Policy
Also worrying is that the Ministry of Justice does not have any child protection policy [11c]
Can you email me the Child Protection Policy of the Ministry of Justice?”
The MoJ adheres to the requirements of the Children’s Acts 1989 and 2004. To establish whether the information was held I conducted a thorough search, and made enquires within Judicial Office as well as Civil and Family Justice Policy areas. It may help if I clarify that the information being requested is not held by MoJ because there is no legal or business requirement for MoJ to do so. There is no MoJ wide Child Protection Policy each business area would consider the need for a specific policy given the context of the work which that area carries out. The work of the MoJ is vast and diverse and as such one policy would not necessarily encompass the entirety of its business sufficiently and different areas of the MoJ have policies designed to address their unique needs.
Judges and Blackmail
If a Judge was a paedophile supporter it would be quite within the bounds of possibility, in fact the very MO of the “security” services that the judge was blackmailed by the deep state, the secret services. He could be put into positions of power to do the bidding of those very services. Indeed the secret services are often accused of running the child abuse networks for this very purpose.
Lord Justice Fulford, is now a Lord Justice of Appeal and as of 1 January 2016, is the Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales. He was also appointed as the Investigatory Powers Commissioner for a 3-year term on 3 March 2017[10]
Fulford’s job is to “authorise and oversee the use of snooping powers by public authorities” [12].
Some people may still be worried that he is “authorising and overseeing” authorities who could have control over him by blackmail.
Some may be worried that as Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales, Sir Adrian Fulford has not been publicly exonerated of being free of any sinister influence over him in the public positions he holds.
Is it right that a Judicial Report about the links to paedophile and child abusing groups, of a man who is Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales, is kept secret?
Shame on the murky Judicial Conduct Investigations Office and MOJ.
The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office – a body that is supposed to investigate complaints into the judiciary.
Is that not extra reason for justice to be seen to be done?
Is that not extra reason to be transparent?
Is it the same old story that power breeds arrogance?
Is it the illusion of justice that is being propagandised to the people?
Are the judiciary being blackmailed by the deep state?
How do we know that the following is not the true scenario?
Brian had a couple of chats with his friend Adrian, perhaps at the urinals down at the club. Adrian replied. Brian told John and Chris who were in the bar, that there was nothing to it. Squeaky clean old boy, squeaky clean. It was all dressed up as legit, titles added, committee names, hyperbole, as per, so on and so forth. Jobs a good un.
John, Chris, Brian and Adrian all know Andy. Its in the interest of national security, after all.
Apparently so is raping children….
If its not, then the Report of the Inquiry into Sir Adrian Fulford must be published.
Hers (Cynthia Payne’s) was a high-class establishment. The clients at her afternoon “parties” – as the police found when, just before Christmas in 1978, they kicked her nice front door down—vicars, barristers, bankers, an MP and “a peer of the realm”.
Isn’t it an interesting juxtaposition that this house is just around the corner from the Bishop of Southwark’s.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Donald Coggan with the three new bishops – two of them formerly Anglican monks – consecrated at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. They are, from left, the Rt Rev Anselm Genders, Bishop of Burmuda and formerly Bursar of the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, Dr Coggan, The Rt Rev Peter Ball, Suffragan Bishop of Lewes in the diocese of Chichester, and the Rt Rev Peter Nott, Suffragan Bishop of Taunton and formerly Rector of Baconsfield in Buckinghamshire.
Convicted paedophile Bishop Peter Ball was
Chaplain at Ardingly 1990-94
Convicted paedophile Bishop Peter Ball
was also investigated as part of a ring.
The newly releaseddocuments also suggest Ball associated with other known sex offenders in the clergy and was investigated in 2008 for being part of suspected pedophile ring.
The documents show Ball covered for and helped priests accused of sex abuse.
Current Archbishop Justin Welby launched an independent review into the Church of England’s response to the allegations.
A spokesperson for Lord Carey declined to comment.
Theresa May is doing deals with the DUP to ensure Conservative rule. Nothing to see here though.
There is no national interest in this dishonest DUP deal – we’re now all forking out to prop up Theresa May
Stephen Crabb referred to the deal as ‘the cost of doing business’ – something which usually refers to the paying of bribes in overseas markets, appropriately enough
The Democratic Unionist party (DUP) is the largest political party in the devolved Northern Ireland assembly (where it shared power with the Irish republican party Sinn Féin until the start of this year) and with 10 MPs in the 2017 UK general election, its best-ever Westminster performance, the fifth-largest party in the House of Commons.
Founded by Ian Paisley, it is led by Arlene Foster and its support of the Conservatives in parliament will allow Theresa May to form a government.
Kincora: Ian Paisley’s dead pastor friend linked to sexual abuse of children
July 21 2010
A firebrand preacher who was a good friend of Rev Ian Paisley has been linked to the abuse of children at Kincora.
Pastor Willie Mullantook his own life in December 1980, less than a year after police started an investigation into the paedophile ring operating at the east Belfast care home for boys.
Mullan, who was never charged, had close links to William McGrath — the sinister Orange Order leader who used his role as housemaster at Kincora to sexually assault dozens of boys.
He was also friendly with Joss Cardwell, an Ulster Unionist councillor who preyed on kids at the home and who died by suicide in 1983 after being questioned by the RUC.
“There were strong rumours at the time about Willie Mullan’s involvement in Kincora, particularly as he
killed himself not long after the police investigation began,” said a religious source.
“He would have been |friendly with William McGrath and Joss Cardwell, and this added to some people’s belief that he may have been abusing boys there.”
Rev Paisley had previously described Pastor Mullan, who used to visit him during his time in Crumlin Road prison, as “a very old friend and dearly beloved brother of Christ”.
Paisley was a prisoner of the Kincora cover-up which he never exposed because he was probably being blackmailed by Loyalist William McGrath, the Housefather at Kincora. McGrath knew Paisley had been involved in bombings in the late 1960s
6 September, 2019
Israeli ambassador claimed former DUP leader Paisley contacted him ‘to obtain arms’, declassified files reveal
29 December, 2017
UPDATE
The imminent revelation by BBC NI’s Spotlight programme that Ian Paisley financed the infamous UVF Silent Valley bombing of 1969 will come as no surprise to Village readers. While the BBC disclosure provides another piece of the jigsaw and is of enormous historical value, it doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of Paisley’s deeply disturbing partnership with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and – equally important – the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV).
In December 2017 Village published an article entitled “Blackmailed” which outlined Paisley’s links to the UVF/UPV bomb campaign of 1969 and showed how, as a result of it, he was compromised in his dealing with another of the conspirators, William McGrath, the notorious and brutal child rapist who was “Housefather” at Kincora Boys’ home in the 1970s.
Paisley was nearly ten years younger than McGrath. He first met the sexually insatiable and lecherous pervert McGrath when he – Paisley – was 22 or 23 in 1949 through his involvement in the Unionist Association in the Shore Road area of Belfast. Paisley had moved into the locality to study at a bible college.
McGrath perceived the Catholic Church as the instrument of the Antichrist and was determined to expunge it from the four corners of island of Ireland so that the Protestant community – which he believed was descended from the Tribe of Dan of Caanan, one of the Lost Tribes of Israel – could prevail. He perceived himself as a soldier in what he called the ‘battles of the Lord’. His self-anointed duty was to prevent the Pope ‘enslaving the people of God’, not just in NI but throughout Britain. Paisley came to share these bizarre views and took a step closer to his involvement with McGrath and others in the infamous 1969 bomb campaign. It is an indisputable fact that McGrath, Paisley and others such as John McKeague (another paedophile who was involved in the Kincora scandal) and Gusty Spence of the UVF instigated the violence that lit the sectarian firestorm that became the Troubles. The fact that Paisley financed the Silent Valley bombing demonstrates just how central he was to the entire affair.
Paisley used to visit McGrath at Kincora long after 1973 when he had been told by Valerie Shaw that McGrath was a paedophile. One of the former residents at Kincora, James Miller, who was at Kincora between 1976 and 1978, told the Hart Inquiry on 8 June, 2016, about these visits. Miller thought it “just seemed strange that he was so friendly with Mr McGrath, you know”. [Day 210 page 75.] Yet, after the eruption of the Kincora scandal in 1980, Paisley would pretend to have difficulty even remembering who McGrath was.
Readers interested in learning more about Paisley’s links to the UVF and UPV can read “Blackmailed” (see below) which first appeared in December 2017. Further details about Paisley’s support for McGrath after he was arrested by the RUC for the rape of children at Kincora can be read by visiting ‘Kincora Survivor‘ also on this website. It shows how Paisley bullied a former Kincora resident lest he might give evidence at McGrath’s trial about “Englishmen” who had abused Kincora boys. See:https://villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2017/11/kincora-survivor/
A question for historians now is to establish what role William McGrath played in {i} the formation of Ian Paisley’s bigoted, violent and hate-filled religious and political beliefs; {ii} what was the true nature of the Paisley-McGrath personal relationship; {iii} to what extent did Paisley wield his power and influence to cover-up McGrath’s brutal rape of children at Kincora and elsewhere; {iv} did McGrath implicitly or explicitly blackmail Paisley over the latter’s involvement in the UVF/UPV bomb campaign of 1969 {v} since McGrath worked for MI5 and MI6, what did those intelligence services know about Paisley’s financing of the UVF and why was neither man arrested?
The source of the BBC’s forthcoming revelation about Paisley is David Hancock, a former British army officer. Hancock served as a major in NI from 1968 to 1970. He told the BBC that an RUC District Inspector in Kilkeel, Co Down, advised him that Paisley had supplied money for the bombings. Hancock is to be applauded for bringing this scandal to light. But why did the RUC not act on the information, then or later? Were MI5, MI6 and RUC Special Branch (who were all involved in running the Kincora operation ) afraid that if they acted on this information, McGrath would be exposed? McGrath, of course, was convicted in 1981. So why did no one at the Cabinet Office, NIO, MI5, MI6 or RUC – then led by Sir John Hermon – insist that the police act on the information after his conviction? Was it because McGrath had kept his mouth shut about their collective involvement and they wanted to ensure his silence by letting sleeping dogs lie?
Is there now any good reason why the PSNI should not declassify the file it inherited from the RUC on Paisley and the Silent Valley bombing? Will Andrew Parker, the incumbent Director-General of MI5 who likes to pontificate on ethics, release his organisation’s file on the Silent Valley bombing?
THE Israeli ambassador to the UK claimed former DUP leader Ian Paisley contacted him “to obtain arms”, declassified state papers released reveal.
The claim, which prompted surprise from the Irish government, is contained among hundreds of previously confidential files published in Dublin and Belfast today.
The documents, dating back to the late 1980s and early 1990s, also reveal that:
The claim that Mr Paisley had asked the Israeli ambassador about arms is included in files released by the National Archives of Ireland.
In June 1985, Noel Dorr – Ireland’s ambassador in London – wrote a letter to his boss in Dublin on the conversation he had at a recent function.
“I expressed surprise at this since I thought it unlikely that Paisley would leave himself open on something like this,” Mr Dorr wrote.
The Israeli ambassador, Yahuda Avner, said Mr Paisley was talking about “border protection”.
“I said I presumed that the emphasis was on surveillance equipment rather than on arms but the ambassador did not elaborate further on the detail of the request,” Mr Dorr said.
“I would assume that what happened is that Paisley may have written to the ambassador to seek a meeting in regard to ‘border protection’. The ambassador possibly interpreted this general phrase as referring to weapons rather than technology.”
The ambassador told Mr Paisley that “these things” could only be dealt with between governments.
Haughey believed Jimmy Savile would be a good mediator for Thatcher dealings
A letter in the National Archives reveals details of a meeting between the pair at the Central Remedial Clinic in the 1980s.
Dec 28th 2013
CHARLES HAUGHEY BELIEVED BBC presenter Jimmy Savile would make a good mediator for meetings between the British and Irish governments.
Following a meeting in 1980 at the Central Remedial Clinic, founder Lady Valerie Goulding, wrote to the Taoiseach to thank him for seeing Savile, one of the charity’s most important patrons.
The document, released under the 30 Year Rule today, repeats a suggestion by the Fianna Fáil leader that the Top of the Pops front man “could be a good mediator as he really is very well in with Mrs. Thatcher and members of the Opposition as well”.
Haughey and Savile sat down for tea at the CRC on 26 May 1980. The DJ became a regular visitor at Abbeville when he visited Dublin to organise sponsored walks as part of his charity work for the CRC.
Jimmy Savile guest of An Taoiseach…Photographed at an Taoiseach’s Office, Government Buildings…1980-05-26.26th May 1980.26-05-80.05-26-80..From left:..An Taoiseach Charles Haughey TD..Lady Valerie Goulding of the Central Remedial Clinic..Jimmy Savile.
It was another two decades before allegations of paedophilia emerged publicly about Savile. The CRC has issued statements to stress that he never had private access to patients during his visits to the treatment centre for those with disabilities.
Since ITV aired a documentary last year, police in London have launched Operation Yewtree to investigate allegations of sex abuse within the BBC. The probe is split into three strands – allegations involving Savile, those involving Savile and others and those involving others.
More than 600 people have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against Savile alone, making him one of the most prolific sex offenders the UK has ever seen.
Larger version here. (Image: Sinéad O’Carroll/TheJournal.ie)
The CRC has been at the centre of its own controversy this year as it became embroiled in the salary top-ups scandal.
Under Section 38 of the Health Act 2004, which includes both health agencies and voluntary hospitals, bodies may not supplement approved rates of remuneration with either Exchequer funding or non-government sources of funding.
The Sunday People revealed how Jimmy Savile once told one of their journalists that he could fix anyone with just one phone call – to the IRA terrorists.
Savile said: “All I have to do is call my friends in the IRA. They’ll have someone waking up in hospital the next morning eating their breakfast through a f***ing straw.
“I know the IRA, men from the IRA, and you don’t need to ask these guys twice.
“I’m serious. Don’t f***ing think I’m not serious. I can get them done – just with a phone call. That’s all it takes, young man.”
The DUP have strong historical links with Loyalist paramilitary groups.
When Enoch Powell was expelled from the Tory party after his fascist turn, he moved to Northern Ireland. There, his campaign manager was a young man named Jeffrey Donaldson, who says on his website:
“I worked alongside two of the greatest names in Unionism in the 20th century. Between 1982 and 1984 I worked as Enoch Powell’s constituency agent, successfully spearheading Mr. Powell’s election campaigns of 1983 and 1986 when the South Down seat was retained despite the fact the constituency contained a natural ‘nationalist’ majority.”
Their most famous politician was Ian Paisley, one of the founders of the party, who entered the Good Friday Agreement with their long standing rivals Sinn Fein which led to peace in Northern Ireland and a period of stability.
Has Theresa May considered bringing back Enoch Powell aides Harvey Proctor and Barbara Hewson cousin Jonathan Denby to negotiate with DUP?
DUP and UUP call for Kincora Boys’ Home to be included in abuse inquiry UUP leader Mike Nesbitt refers to claims children were used by British intelligence services “to gain control over prominent public figures”
When the still, mostly classified (due to allegations that boys were supplied to Lord Louis Mountbatten’s ‘bloodsports’ lodge in County Sligo), selective investigation into Kincora in 1981 revealed that McGrath was not only a notorious paedophile, but also a paedophile pimp to the British establishment. Tara was effectively finished as an organisation. The investigation also revealed that McGrath set-up and administered Kincora as a centre for raping young boys and among McGrath’s well connected circle included John McKeague (founder of the Red Hand Commandos), as well as other prominent politicians and political personalities in England such as Sir Anthony Blunt (a third cousin of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother and once named as the ‘most dangerous woman in Europe’ by none other than Adolf Hitler), along with Sir Knox Cunningham (the Queen’s Counsel). Both members of the Cambridge scene of political research and development operations.
1959 Captain Peter Montgomery former BBC staff member in Belfast
Truthseeker1@thewakeupcall09:
Lord Louis Mountbatten former chauffeur Norman Nield exposed him
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, there have been such newspaper headlines as, “‘Uncle Dickie’ the Sex Pervert” (N.Z. Truth, Sept. 8, 1987), since Mountbatten’s former chauffeur, Norman Nield, started revealing details of the late Lord Mountbatten’s alleged sexual exploitation of boys.
Paedophile Lord Louis Mountbatten
Edward Prince of Wales and his cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten “relax” in a canvas swimming pool on board H. M. S. Renown during their 1920 Empire Tour.
Lord Louis was a great grandson of Queen Victoria and the uncle of Prince Philip (consort of Queen Elizabeth II). Mountbatten was also a promiscuous bisexual who was famously rumored to have had an affair with Edward VIII (who was Prince of Wales at the time) when he accompanied him on his Empire tours (see photo above).
The Queen. Like any human being, she is subject to the influence of those around her. While he lived, Lord Mountbatten was a persuasive counsellor, and he formulated the plan for Prince Charles’s unusually rigorous education.
He knew people who were very powerful. If McGrath had been unmasked at an early stage, Blunt would have been named as a paedophile and no one could have been sure who else would possibly be named. There were top hats and royalty in that circle.
1978 – The Dorchester Hotel where members of the royal family rose to give a standing ovation to Jimmy Savile as he walked into the banqueting hall for a Special Variety Club luncheon. Savile was seating between Lord Louis Mountbatten and Sir Billy Butlin and was praised by Angus Ogilvy, husband of Princess Alexandra.
Savile, Dublin & Belfast: Time to re-evaluate his role in The Troubles?
Ulsterman first to get Jimmy Savile cash: Victim receives £15,000 from BBC after being groomed by notorious TV star
The victim was in a care home in 1977 when he wrote to Savile, telling him how he had been sexually abused and would love to meet Abba or Boney M on Jim’ll Fix It.
The newspaper revealed that Savile paid for the boy to travel to the studio, but handed him to an accomplice who molested him.
The abuser, only known as ‘Brian’, started to sexually molest the victim and later drove him to an exclusive club in Pall Mall, London.
“At this house (the club) Brian abused me and a much smaller boy aged between seven and nine who looked very poorly and thin and was also being abused by a very obese man,” he said.
He believes he was drugged there before being abused, and woke up the next morning facing the other boy. However, he had no recollection of being abused by Savile himself.
He said Savile later made him a packed lunch, handed him £5 and sent him back home to Northern Ireland.
RUC didn’t treat Jimmy Savile abuse claim seriously
March 12 2013
The RUC did not treat a complaint from a victim of Jimmy Savile properly, a damning report reveals today.
It is one of eight police forces across the UK that have come under fire for ignoring Savile’s abuse victims as it emerged the disgraced presenter could have been stopped as early as 1964.
Inspectors said there is a “distinct possibility” that officers could fail to prevent another Savile-like scandal from happening.
In its 60-page report, Mistakes Were Made, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) suggested some victims whose complaints weren’t formally recorded were dealt with brusquely.
Eight victims had claimed that they tried unsuccessfully to report crimes – four who approached the Met, and one each who went to police in Cheshire, Merseyside, West Yorkshire and the then RUC, now the PSNI.
Last night a PSNI spokeswoman said: “PSNI have engaged the HMIC review and sought to provide inspectors with as much information as possible.
“We have now received the final report and will give full consideration to its findings and recommendations.”
No further details about the allegation made to the RUC are included in the report.
HMIC said: “We have concerns about the extent to which victims may have tried to report their allegations to the police… and, for whatever reason, were not treated as they should have been.”
It concluded: “We consider the failure to connect the various allegations was critical to the eventual outcome of the investigations. There was intelligence available of four separate investigations which was never linked together and, because of that failure to ‘join the dots’, there was a failure to understand the potential depth of Savile’s criminality.”
Just five allegations and two pieces of intelligence were recorded against Savile during his lifetime, HMIC found. This is in stark contrast to the 450 claims made against the former Top Of The Pops presenter after Operation Yewtree was launched by Metropolitan Police in October.
The earliest record uncovered by HMIC naming Savile in connection with a sexual abuse probe is dated 1964, but officers failed to act on the intelligence received.
A damning report by Met Police and NSPCC said Savile’s offending spanned from 1955 to 2009, meaning his reign of abuse could have been cut short by 45 years.
Alan Collins, a solicitor from law firm Pannone who is representing more than 40 of Savile’s victims, said further opportunities to investigate Savile were lost.
“There is a definite risk that unless policies and attitudes change, Savile will happen again,” he said.
As well as the 1964 Scotland Yard ledger, a record of an anonymous letter to the Met Police in 1998 was found, alleging that Savile was a paedophile.
One man who came forward in 1963 in Cheshire to allege rape against Savile was told to “forget about it” and “move on”, HMIC said.
Another went to Vine Street police station in London to report that his girlfriend was assaulted at a recording of Top Of The Pops and was warned that he “could be arrested for making such allegations” and sent away.
HM Inspector of Constabulary Drusilla Sharpling said: “The findings in this report are of deep concern, and clearly there were mistakes in how the police handled the allegations made against Savile during his lifetime.”
Considering whether such abuse on a similar scale could happen again, Ms Sharpling said it is neither “enough nor correct to say this couldn’t happen now”.
The HMIC report said that “the inconsistencies in approach that the forces have taken mean that there is a distinct possibility that such failures could be repeated”.
The 1964 intelligence record naming Savile also contains the first known reference to Duncroft School, the children’s home in Staines, Surrey.
Police had evidence of sexual abuse involving Duncroft pupils but “lost sight” of this intelligence until last year, HMIC said.
The next occasion Duncroft became known to police, in the context of allegations made against Savile, was in 2007 when Surrey Police commenced their investigation.
Jimmy Savile during a sponsored charity walk in Belfast on the Ravenhill Road in November 1976
A Northern Ireland woman who was befriended by Sir Jimmy Savile has said she is shocked and disgusted by claims that he was a predatory sex abuser.
Mrs Craig, who befriended Savile through her work with the Disabled Police Officers’ Association of Northern Ireland (DPOA),said: “I find it quite unbelievable — this is definitely not the man that I knew.”
Rosemary Craig, a “great friend” of the presenter, described the allegations as unbelievable and not in keeping with the man she knew.
Her husband, an ex-RUC officer, was severely injured after being shot by the IRA. She has done a lot of work with the DPOA.
She added: “Jimmy was a great friend and helped with the disabled police officers’ charity.
“He was the very first person to help me. At the time there was very little being done for disabled police officers.
“I wrote a letter to Jimmy Savile and he immediately responded. He sent me the money to fly over with a disabled officer and got him a new lightweight wheelchair. He put me on to Richard Branson who brought a Virgin aeroplane into Northern Ireland and took 375 disabled officers, their helpers and families to Florida for a holiday. All down to Jimmy Savile.”
Kincora opened on Belfast’s Upper Newtownards Road, close to Stormont’s Parliament Buildings, in May 1958 and closed October 1980 in the aftermath of the sex abuse scandal.
In 1981, three senior care workers were jailed – one of whom, William McGrath, was believed to have been an MI5 agent.
Newly uncovered UK government files show that, in 1986, the then MI5 director general Sir Antony Duff wrote to the then Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong about serious child abuse by top people..dailymail.
The files name former MI6 deputy director Peter Hayman, former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, Margaret Thatcher’s close aide Peter Morrison and Conservative Member of Parliament William van Straubenzee.
The files refer to the Kincora children’s home in Northern Ireland where boys were abused.
1961 School Trip to The Houses of Parliament with Wokingham MP William Van Straubenzee.
William van Straubenzee has connections to the Church, the Military, Northern Ireland, Kincora, Edward Heath, the Ministry of Education and Richmond Council, all of which have been linked to the UK child abuse scandal.William van Straubenzee
Henry van Straubenzee
Princes William and Harry were said to be ‘devastated’ after a teenage friend, Henry van Straubenzee, died in a car crash.
Henry van Straubenzee was killed instantly when the car in which he was a passenger hit a tree outside the exclusive prep school, Ludgrove, where all three boys were once pupils.
“A cover-up operation involving former British Ministers has been penetrated by SUNDAY WORLD during a detailed probe of the Dublin bombings.
“The men named in another Littlejohn type cover-up are Mr. William Whitelaw, former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and Mr. William Van Straubenzee, his Tory colleague, who was Minister for State for NI. in the Heath administration.
“Self-confessed mass murderer, Albert Walker Baker, has claimed he ‘made a deal’ with Mr. Van Straubenzee in Crumlin Road Jail in August, 1973.
“Later he signed documents agreeing to the ‘deal’ in the presence of Mr. Whitelaw – who was N.I. Secretary at that time.
“Baker was then on remand awaiting trial on charges of murdering four Catholics in Belfast.”
In the 1970s, Lord Longford, friend of Myra Hindley, compiled a self-funded report into pornography.
Lord Longford invited Sir Jimmy Savile, the Bishop of Leicester and Cliff Richard to join him on a wide-ranging tour of sex industry establishments, including strip clubs in Copenhagen.
It contained a long account of sex and sadism in a boys’ boarding school:
‘Sometimes the prefects did a lot of the whipping; at other times they made the third-year boys do it as well, or the second-year boys whip the first years and the first years whip each other.’
Telephone call from Lord Longford. He is setting up an independent commission of inquiry to look at the whole question of pornography.
‘It’s a high-powered group. We’ve got two bishops, an archbishop, a High Court judge and broadcaster and sage Malcolm Muggeridge. But we need some young blood. I thought of you and Cliff Richard. What do you say?’ I said yes.
Tuesday, June 15, 1971
Lunch at the Garrick Club with Lord Longford and the Evening Standard film critic, Alexander Walker. Lord L. was particularly mellow, fresh from yesterday’s trip to Windsor where he was installed as a Knight of the Garter.
In the late 1970s, Jimmy Savile’s brother, Johnnie, began working at Springfield Hospital where he ran the hospital radio. He was dismissed in 1980 after assaulting seven women (including staff and patients). He then went to Richmond Royal Hospital… as well as working for The Variety Club of Great Britain.
Dr Morris Fraser
Morris Fraser, the prolific predatory paedophile from the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, was employed by Springfield Hospital in1974.
Johnnie Savile was the brother of the notorious predatory paedophile and necrophiliac, Jimmy. By all accounts, Johnnie traded in on his brother’s fame. The consensus is that he was insignificant, but from what I have seen, he was far from it. Johnnie was perverse, no stranger to controversy and ‘in’ with the ‘right’ crowd.
South West London & St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust Inquiry
Despite claims in 1980 that Johnnie had assaulted one female patient and following the Jimmy Savile review, an inquiry was undertaken in 2015 by South West London & St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust in to Johnnie, which confirmed that between 1978 and 1980, he had assaulted seven women, including:
five patients,
one visitor,
one staff member.
In this BBC Report a victim of Johnnie Savile states how she was raped whilst at Springfield Hospital and that her attempts to report the matter were ignored.
A determined man is 52 year old Richmond man, Johnnie Savile.
Johnnie, brother of television and radio celebrity Jimmy Savile, has taken up the challenge of raising £16,000 to pay for a new x-ray machine at Barnes Hospital.
Johnnie, who is married to Gerda and his two daughters, Maureen (20) and Diana (21), is a well known figure in Richmond as he has been raising funds for different charities in the borough for over 40 years.
“I am a member of the League of Friends of the Royal Hospital and I stage discos for patients and staff’s birthdays or if a member of staff is leaving” he said.
He is a regular visitor to Lancaster House, Richmond, the home for retarded children and often brings with him games and toys. He sometimes take the children on outings.
Johnnie visits the home on behalf of the Variety Club of Great Britain, of which he has been a barker for over 20 years.
“I said I would be willing to stage a free disco at whatever school raised the most money in the sponsored walk but even that doesn’t seem to have inspired much interest”, he said.
Johnnie has however received help from one source. Children at a Home in Battersea have said they will organise a sponsored walk on behalf of the hospital.
…not only was Johnnie a member of the League of Friends of Richmond Royal, he also put on the discos, had constant access to a local children’s home and was able to take the children on outings as well as connections to Barnes Hospital, the Variety Club and a care home in Battersea. He was also doing children’s discos and local fetes.
Questions need to be answered!
Johnnie died in 1998. Nobody seems very concerned about the level of access he had to children with disabilities and in care homes. I think the whole situation needs to be looked at again – for the sake of the vulnerable children who I feel had been badly let down by the system.
it’s important another inquiry is carried out in to how he was allowed unfettered access to both Lancaster House and a Battersea children’s home and that Richmond upon Thames Social Services Department yet again has some very serious questions to answer.
Top of the Pops
Johnnie on Top of the Pops with his brother, Jimmy – celebrating the 800th edition on 26th July 1979.
Johnnie and Honor Blackman – 23rd February 1974. Johnnie was canvassing the constituency of Battersea North as prospective parliamentary candidate of the Liberal Party.
Ray Wyre: a former probation officer working in the field of child sex crime. Retained as a consultant by Nottinghamshire Social Services during the Broxtowe Case.
The child protection expert and former social worker, who set up the UK’s first residential clinic for paedophiles (Gracewell Clinic in Birmingham)
He later helped found the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a child protection charity specialising in safeguarding children against sexual abuse, and went on to train professionals all over the world.
During his career, he worked with some of the most dangerous criminals, including Reggie Kray and child killer Robert Black.
Police believe his taped interviews with Black could yet prove crucial as they seek to solve the 1978 murder of 13-year-old Genette Tate.
He questioned Anne Marie West as officers prepared the case against her parents, Fred and Rosemary.
Ray Wyre & Dr Morris Fraser were into group therapy aka ‘community-based residential’ as per this piece co-authored by Wyre for the Lucy Faithfull Foundation
Faithfull was born in South Africa, the daughter of a nurse and an army officer. When her father was killed in the First World War in 1916, her mother returned to England. She was educated at Bournemouth and studied then at the Sorbonne, which she financed by work in a nursery in Paris. In 1978 the University of Warwick made her an Honorary Doctor of Letters and in 1995, she also received the same degree from the Oxford Brookes University. She was elected an honorary fellow of St Hilda’s College, Oxford in 1992.
After her education Faithfull worked at Birmingham Settlement for three years until 1935 running clubs and acting as a caseworker. She entered subsequently the education department of the London County Council as a care committee organiser. During the Second World War and until 1948, she served as a regional welfare officer for the evacuee programme. In the following decade she became employed as an inspector in the children’s department of the Home Office.
Faithfull joined the Oxford City Council in 1958 as one of the first children’s officers. She was appointed its Director of Social Services in 1970, retiring four years later. In the New Year’s Honours 1972, she was awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Four years later, in 1976, Margaret Thatcher offered her a seat in the House of Lords and after an initial refusal she accepted a life peerage with the title Baroness Faithfull, of Wolvercote, in the County of Oxfordshire on 26 January. In the House, she was instrumental in the passing of the Children Act 1989. She helped to establish and from 1995 chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children. She was a vociferous opponent of Home Secretary, Michael Howard’s Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill of 1994 which proposed the establishment of secure ‘training centres’ in the grounds of adult prisons for children aged between 12 and 14, arguing that locking up children is ineffective and that the huge cost of these could be better spent intervening with families at an earlier stage.
She was trustee of a number of voluntary organisations, notably the Caldecott Community, and Bessels Leigh schools. vice-president of the National Association of Voluntary Hostels from 1978 and of Barnardo’s from 1989. Faithfull supported the National Children’s Bureau (paedohile Peter Righton et al) , of which she was president. In 1993 she founded the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which works as a child protection agency helping sexually abused children and their families. She died unmarried in London in 1996.
Until July 2001, Valerie was the Chief Executive of the charity ChildLine. Under her leadership, ChildLine counselled over one million children and young people and it grew from a small London based project to the national service it is today. A social worker by background, she worked in the Family Welfare Association in Lambeth and Brent and rose to become Director of Social Services.
(In a long interview article with Wyre, published by Achilles Heel in 1992, he mentions the ‘Brent Boys’ case, in which several boys were abused in a children’s home. Coincidence?)
Dr Mike Harris, BSc MBBS FRC Psych
Dr Harris holds responsibility for high secure provision at Rampton Hospital; medium secure units at Arnold Lodge in Leicester and Wathwood Hospital in Rotherham the Community Forensic Services, including low secure beds for Nottinghamshire; Offender Health in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire and the Trusts Capital Planning team and strategy. Dr Harris is based at Rampton Hospital. He continues to do outpatient psychiatry in the North of the county as well as assessing people for the GMC and NMC.
Miss Adrianne Jones, CBE
Now retired from paid employment and living in South Wales, Adrianne continues her involvement in social care and community matters through various charitable trusts, a housing association and a local school. Her time as a trustee of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation began in 1993 when Lucy, a former Director of Social Services, invited Adrianne to join the Board.
The majority of Adrianne’s working life was spent in local authority social services in Wales, in three London Boroughs and in Birmingham. She served on several national committees including those chaired by Peter Barclay (Role and Tasks of Social Workers) and Norman Warner (Inquiry into the selection, development and management of staff in children’s homes). She was President of the Association of Directors of Social Services in 1985. In 1994, after retiring as Director of Social Services in Birmingham, Adrianne led the Department of Health’s Support Force for Children’s Residential Care for 3 years. She subsequently undertook assignments, reviews and inquiries for the Government in Wales and for local authorities and voluntary organisations in England and Wales.
Mr John Trotter, LLB (Hons)
In particular, John represented social workers and the profession of social work in many child death and child abuse inquiries such as the inquiries into the deaths of Darren Clark, Paul Brown, Jasmine Beckford, Kimberly Carlisle, The Cleveland Inquiry, Victoria Climbie and others. John also represented ChildLine for many years and other organisations concerned with the safety and welfare of children.
Dr Arnon Bentovim MB BS FRCPsych, FRCPCH, DPM (Chair)
Dr Bentovim has conducted extensive research, training and consultation and has been involved with a number of organisations including; President of Relate 2001 until 2009; Chair of the Institute of Family Therapy, and the International Family Therapy Association 2004-2007 and Professional Advisor to ChildLine to 1990 to 2000.
Shy Keenan
Abuse campaigner: I told Esther Rantzen about paedo Jimmy Savile 18 years ago
She said: “I had been introduced to Esther through the late sex offender specialist Ray Wyre, as a victim of child abuse. I was talking to her about what needed to be done to help victims like me.
Esther Rantzen
‘It could have been after a program… It said in The Sun that Ray Wyre [the pioneering probation officer who worked with paedophiles] introduced us and I did know him very well.’
Bottomley, PeterCorbyn, JeremyDrew, DavidJones, LynneNorris, DanThat this House notes with deep regret the sudden death of Mr Ray Wyre, founder of the Gracewell Clinic and prominent member of the team that established and developed the Lucy Faithfull Foundation; acknowledges with admiration his ground-breaking pioneering work for more than a quarter of a century in the development of effective sex offender treatment; recognises fully the huge debt of gratitude we owe to him for the formulation of his remedial programmes for victims of abuse and their extended families, together with disciplined measures designed to rehabilitate the perpetrators; registers unqualified appreciation of the stunning impact globally of Mr Wyre‘s outright commitment to the protection of children whilst offering hope for change to those who abused them, as he worked tirelessly to raise awareness of these issues with other organisations throughout the world; and expresses the fervent hope that those who have worked with and for Ray Wyre for so long to such good effect will ensure that his methods and philosophy are sustained and developed further in the same spirit as he would have wished.
Navy larks – yet again – like Jimmy Savile & bro in naval uniform photo?
Sir Jimmy Saville OBE DJ TV Presenter stands to attention in a naval uniform saluting onboard HMS Belfast in London with his Brother
Sir Jimmy Saville OBE DJ TV Presenter stands to attention in a naval uniform saluting onboard HMS Belfast in London with his Brother John They had not spoken for 8 years due to a family dispute until they met on board the ship May 1990
Dr Ray Wyre
Ray Wyre credited as a child protection expert and a sex crime consultant. He began his current career as a probation officer trained in social work in UK prisons, in his past he trained to become a Baptist Minister. It is during his time at HMS Albany, that Wyre began to branch away from accepted methods for handling those convicted of sex offences.
Springfield mental hospital have a childrens ward that Richmond social services used to refer children in their care to
A SURVIVOR of the London 7/7 bombings has claimed she was a victim of a paedophile ring masterminded by her stepfather who had links to Jimmy Savile’s older brother Johnny.
Beverli Rhodes alleges she was raped by stepdad Patrick Rhodes at the age of 13 and passed around up to 60 of his evil cronies.
She also claims he took her to the BBC’s Wood Lane television studios in the early 1970s where she recalls being raped on three different occasions by men in dressing rooms.
And Beverli, now 51, says that she witnessed shamed DJ Savile’s brother abuse very young children at paedophile parties when she was 14 years old.
“Johnny Savile was a monster. He did some truly sordid things to very young children and got off on abusing disabled children because they couldn’t get away,” Beverli told the Sunday Mirror.
“He used to brag to everyone about being Jimmy Savile’s brother. He was very good friends with my stepfather Patrick who would arrange the children.”
Mum-of-four Beverli claims her stepfather held a senior position in the Freemasons and orchestrated the abuse for the paedophile ring which went on to include celebrities.
She wept: “I’ve been through so much but even the terrorist atrocity I suffered pales in comparison with what I witnessed at those parties.”
Beverli was in the crowded first carriage of a rush-hour Piccadilly Line train near King’s Cross when the 2005 explosion set off by suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay, 19, killed 26 passengers. She lost several teeth in the blast and sustained dreadful injuries to her face and head.
DEVASTATING For months afterwards she underwent multiple facial reconstruction operations – but the terrorist attack left her with devastating post-traumatic shock disorder.
Beverli has spoken publicly of her ordeal that day. But what she has never revealed, until now, is the extent to which her tormented childhood intensified her PTSD.
“I vowed never to reveal my past, not even to my children,” she confesses. “But when more and more people came forward to say Savile abused them it was time to break my silence.
“I survived but I wonder how many children now grown-up are still suffering in silence? I’d urge them to please, please come forward and speak to the police like I am.”
Beverli is in the process of making a full statement to Operation Yewtree, the Jimmy Savile investigation, about the childhood abuse that spanned six years of her life.
Her nightmare began when she was nine in 1970 at her home in Plymouth. She claims her stepfather would sell her used pants to paedophile friends for PS150 while her mum Christine was out.
“I was just a child but I knew it wasn’t right,” Beverli recalls.
She tells how her stepfather worked for a tile company in Plymouth and said that he was was high up in the Freemasons.
“He often had to go away on Masonic business or for work or charity trips.
These became a front for the abuse,” she says.
Beverli was 11 when she says her stepfather abused her.
From then on she claims she was passed around his pals like a toy.
“When I was 13 in 1974, he took my virginity,” she says
After that Beverli claims the abuse became monstrous. Not only did her stepfather rape her regularly but she claims she was raped by up to 60 other men. “Patrick even used his job as away of setting up meetings for people to have sex with me,” she says. “He would arrange a time to go to a client’s house to lay a floor.
Beverli says she stopped counting at 60. It was also around this time that Beverli claims she was first forced to attend paedophile parties.
Beverli says she attended many similar parties – sometimes twice a month – with about 10 men present and five children ranging in ages, a mix of girls and boys. But the one that sticks in her mind most was where she claims to have first met Johnny Savile.
“My stepfather was in awe of him because he had a famous brother, and they knew each other from their childhood in Yorkshire,” she says.
Johnny, five years younger than his famous brother, was sacked from Springfield Psychiatric Hospital in Tooting, South-West London, over an alleged depraved sex game.
A woman, believed to be a former patient at the hospital, complained that Johnny Savile, who died in 1998, mauled, groped and raped her. When Beverli was 14 or 15 her stepfather got a promotion and the family relocated to South Africa, but still the abuse didn’t stop.
Beverli claims it was on a business trip back to the UK that she was first taken to the BBC studios.
During the same visit back to Britain Beverli says she attended her first London paedophile party. Later on in the trip she says she spoke on the phone to a man she was told was a world famous celebrity. “Back in Plymouth I remember my stepfather handing me the phone,” she remembers. “I knew this man was speaking to him about organising a child, or children, for one of their parties. But I got the impression he was more interested in young boys.””I have been having therapy for years but my life is blighted with horrifying flashbacks and panic attacks,” says Beverli. “I wonder if anyone abused at those parties will remember me. I was introduced as Sasha or Bee. “If they do, then they’ll know what we went through and might feel brave enough to speak up about the abuse. I just want to be able to heal the horrors and move on.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC cannot comment on individual cases. It has asked that anyone with allegations of this nature should report them to the BBC investigation unit or the police directly.”
Brian Hutchinson – late father Dougie helped found the DUP and was once Ian Paisley’s right-hand man
DUP welcomed sex abuser Brian Hutchinson back to party
25 January 2010
A self-confessed sex abuser has been secretly allowed back into Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — in the latest scandal to rock the party.
Fruit farmer Brian Hutchinson, 42, was voted in as party treasurer in Armagh even though he assaulted a 15-year-old girl for more than a year.
The married dad of five sensationally quit the DUP in 2002 after his litany of abuse was exposed.
But the Sunday Life newspaper can today reveal that he is back in the organisation in a high-profile position controlling party cash.
A DUP spokesman admitted yesterday: “The Party acted on this matter in 2002.
“Mr Hutchinson withdrew from the party and his council position.
“In 2008 he rejoined the party and is the current treasurer of our Armagh branch.
“The Party will be making no further comment on this matter.”
Confirmation that Hutchinson has rejoined party ranks will be yet another blow to the DUP — still reeling over the Iris Robinson cash and sex scandal.
The revelation also comes as embattled Sinn Fein chief Gerry Adams is under fire for his handling of child abuse allegations facing his younger brother Liam.
Garden centre manager Hutchinson told us yesterday: “I’m just trying to put all that behind me and get on with party work.”
Hutchinson — whose late father Dougie helped found the DUP and was once Ian Paisley’s right-hand man — was booted out of the party in September 2002 after his teen assaults came to light.
He received a police caution for indecent assault — which involves admitting your guilt — and was put on the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years.
Hutchinson was voted in as DUP treasurer of the Armagh branch just one year after his name came off the list.
The party and Hutchinson have insisted he was not in the party in an official role until after his name was removed from the Sex Offenders’ Register.
But yesterday Hutchinson admitted he was invited to DUP bashes in Armagh before he was taken off.
He confessed: “I was at dinners at the area and DUP events from 2002 to 2008.”
Hutchinson was first suspended from the DUP in July 2001 and in 2002 quit his council seat and the party.
He said at the time: “I have decided it is best to resign for the sake of the DUP.”
The disgraced unionist said in 2002 that “no sex took place”.
But it emerged he’d been groping his 15-year-old prey for more than a year before he was rumbled.
His systematic abuse only came to light when the under-age girl finally plucked up the strength to tell her mum.
After she exposed Hutchinson, he was back behind the counter of his large nursery business in Co Armagh, which he still runs.
He had held his seat on Armagh council for nine years before he resigned.
Hutchinson succeeded his late dad when he retired from the council in 1993, after 40 years in local government.
His veteran politician father served time in Crumlin Road jail for his part in the notorious Siege of Armagh — when civil rights protestors were blocked from marching through the city centre.
Hutchinson spoke to us yesterday at his nursery, and said he did not want to comment on whether he thought it was suitable that he was back in the party.
He said he was voted back into the DUP in 2008 at the party’s Armagh annual general meeting.
Hutchinson added: “My nomination was put forward by someone, and someone else seconded it.”
When asked for the identities of the politicians who nominated him, he said: “I don’t remember who they are.”
We rang councillor Freda Donnelly to comment on his re-appointment — as she’s a DUP councillor in the Armagh City branch.
She slammed down her phone after snapping: “I have no comment to make.”
so it wasn’t a good idea then – but suddenly it is?
Shows how hypocritical May can be.
Secretive DUP Brexit donor links to the Saudi intelligence service
The shadowy donor group that gave the Democratic Unionist Party £425,000 during the Brexit referendum campaign has links to the former Director General of the Saudi intelligence service – also the father of the current Saudi Ambassador to the UK –
The donation to Arlene Foster’s party – which was used to fund key Leave campaign advertisements across the UK in the run up to the European referendum – was initially kept hidden because of Northern Ireland’s donor secrecy laws.
However, under pressure from activists after openDemocracy revealed how Brexit campaigners were funnelling dark money through Northern Ireland to fund “Take Back Control” adverts, the Democratic Unionist Party was forced last night to reveal its major donor to be a group calling itself the Constitutional Research Council.
Little is known about the Constitutional Research Council, including where it got these funds from. However, we do know one thing: it is chaired by the Scottish Conservative Richard Cook.
Cook has strong links with Saudi Arabia – which was seen by economists as a likely beneficiary from Brexit.
In 2013, Cook founded a company called Five Star Investment Management Ltd with the former head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence agency, Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz. The prince’s son is the Saudi ambassador to the UK.
Meet the Scottish Tory behind the £425,000 DUP Brexit donation
19 May 2017
Senior Scottish Conservative Richard Cook is at the centre of a major Brexit funding scandal.
Richard Cook and David Cameron.
A modest, semi-detached house in Clarkston on Glasgow’s southside seems an unlikely source for a secretive, £425,000 donation to the Democratic Unionist Party’s Brexit campaign. But the occupant – Richard Cook – is the only person publicly connected with the Constitutional Research Council, a shadowy pro-union group that funnelled dark money to the DUP ahead of June’s EU referendum.
And Richard Cook is not just connected to Northern Irish unionism – he has links that go to the heart of the Scottish Conservative Party, the Saudi intelligence service and a notorious Indian gun running scandal.
Mr Cook is a former vice chairman of the Scottish Conservative party and Tory election candidate (for which he was fast-tracked through the selection, according to reports on ConservativeHome). He has campaigned with Ruth Davidson and David Cameron, and his Facebook friends list is a roll-call of prominent Scottish Tories.
Scottish politicians are now calling for the Scottish Tory leader to clarify her relationship with Cook, who in the 2010 general election lost out to Labour’s Jim Murphy in East Renfrewshire. Key activists in his team were subsequently found burning the EU flag and posting Northern Irish loyalist song lyrics on Twitter.
Cook is at the centre of a political scandal raging in Northern Ireland. Back in February, an openDemocracy investigation found that donors had taken advantage of Northern Ireland’s secretive electoral laws to funnel hundreds of thousands of pounds to the DUP’s pro-Brexit campaign. Under pressure, the DUP revealed that the party had received £425,622 from a group called ‘the Constitutional Research Council’. Over £32,000 of this money was spent on data analytics company AggregateIQ, a small Canadian outfit that has been linked to Donald Trump’s billionaire backer Robert Mercer and Cambridge Analytica, who are now at the heart of an investigation by the Information Commission.
We know almost nothing about the Constitutional Research Council. The outfit has no formal legal status. What we can say for sure is that it is chaired by Cook, and he has promised to fund the pro-union campaign in any future Scottish independence referendum.
“More people with more money are ready to step up to the plate this time compared with the last referendum” Cook told the Sunday Times earlier this year. He didn’t reveal who those people are.
The DUP has also refused to say who the backers behind the CRC are, and there is little to suggest that Cook himself is a major donor. Former Conservative colleagues describe Cook as “a nice guy but not a rich guy”.
Richard Cook with his “good friend” Baroness Warsi, former chairman of the Conservative Party.
Cook – who could not be contacted for this piece – appears to retain an interest in Scottish politics. He is listed as an advisor on Think Scotland, a conservative-minded website funded by Scottish unionist businessman Robert Kilgour. Think Scotland is owned by former Tory MSP Brian Monteith. Monteith was head of press during the referendum for Leave.EU, the campaign group run by Arron Banks and Nigel Farage.
Cook’s interests are not confined to politics. Since general election defeat in 2010, he has been involved in a number of international business deals. In 2012, his company Cook Consulting (UK) Ltd held a press conference in Glasgow announcing its involvement in a £640m water desalination project in Pakistan. The firm failed to submit accounts in 2014 and was dissolved by Companies House via compulsory strike-off in 2015.
In 2013, Cook founded another company called Five Star Investment Management Ltd with the former head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence agency, Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz. The prince’s son is the Saudi ambassador to the UK. The other director of the company was Peter Haestrup, a Danish national who has been connected to the Purulia arms drop case, a long-running multinational scandal that involved weapons being dropped over the Indian province of West Bengal in 1995.
Richard Cook with Scottish Tory Jackson Carlaw.
Five Star Investment Management Ltd was registered at Mr Cook’s Glasgow address. The firm filed no accounts with Companies House, and was dissolved in December 2014.
Cook also has connections with right-wing pressure groups in the UK. He was Scottish spokesperson for Conservative Friends of Israel and for the Campaign Against Political Correctness, a campaign allied to the Freedom Association, a right-wing Eurosceptic pressure group that supported apartheid in South Africa.
Back in 2009, Richard Cook spoke alongside current Tory MSP Murdo Fraser at a Freedom Association fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Perth to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 election victory. Freedom Association Chief Executive Simon Richards later praised Cook as “one of the hardest working PPC’s (Parliamentary Prospective Candidates) anywhere in the country”.
The Freedom Association has historical links with Northern Ireland. Among its original founders was Ross McWhirter, a controversial journalist who campaigned for strict restrictions on Irish people in Britain, including making it compulsory for all Irish people in Britain to register with the local police and to provide signed photographs of themselves when renting flats or booking into hotels and hostel. McWhirter was shot dead by the Provisional IRA in Enfield in 1975.
The Freedom Association boasts of “friendly links” with the Democratic Unionist Party. In 2007 and 2008, leading DUP politicians Jeffrey Donaldson and Sammy Wilson were involved in Freedom Association “fact finding” events in Northern Ireland. At the time, the Freedom Association said it had “taken a close interest in Ulster matters from its earliest days and is keen to strengthen its ties with the province and to demonstrate its support for the Union.” Donaldson was the chair of the DUP’s Brexit campaign – his name appeared on the election material that the CRC’s £425,000 donation paid for – and Wilson was a prominent pro-Brexit DUP voice throughout the campaign, regularly appearing in the media.
After his defeat in the 2010 general election, Richard Cook wrote: “I believe deeply in our party, its membership and in the need for a centre right party to represent the hundreds of thousands of Scots who believe in the same things we do.” Among the activists he singled out for praise during the campaign were Ross McFarlane and Colin Taylor.
McFarlane was subsequently sacked as a Holyrood assistant by Ruth Davidson in 2011 after footage emerged showing him setting fire to the EU standard while dressed in the robes of Glasgow University amid anti-Catholic taunts. McFarlane had been Davidson’s election agent. Around the same time, it was discovered that Colin Taylor had posted song lyrics on Twitter glorifying Northern Irish loyalist terrorist group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, while serving as president of the student Conservative Association from 2009 to 2010. The social media posts were picked up when Taylor was working for the Tory Press and Research Unit at Holyrood.
Commenting on Richard Cook’s involvement with the CRC, Scottish Labour General Election campaign manager James Kelly said:
“This whole affair is like something from a spy novel and the East Renfrewshire Conservative Party is at the heart of it.
“Richard Cook isn’t just someone who happened to be a member of East Renfrewshire Conservatives. He’s been a leading figure in the local Tories for more than two decades… He’s close to senior elected Tories, including Jackson Carlaw.
“It simply isn’t tenable for East Renfrewshire Tory candidate Paul Masterton to maintain silence on this. Will Mr Cook play any part in his campaign? Will he refuse to take any funds from Mr Cook or anyone who has received money from Mr Cook? Will Mr Masterton make a statement about what he knew and when about these extraordinary allegations?
“This affair now risks tainting the Tory campaign to win the East Renfrewshire seat. It’s clear that only Labour can beat the SNP here.”
An SNP spokesperson said:
“These are deeply concerning allegations The fact that we still do not know the source of such a significant amount of cash used to help bankroll the Brexit campaign is unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to continue.
“Just as concerning are the apparent links to the highest levels of the Scottish Tory party. Ruth Davidson must clarify what links she has with Mr Cook, and whether her party has helped itself to money from the same murky sources.”
The Scottish Conservatives haven’t yet got back to our request for a comment. Richard Cook could not be reached for comment.
Cook’s “good friend” Baroness Warsi – former chairman of the Conservative Party. Warsi describes herself as a “Northern working-class mum”. She is a member of the Carlton Club
She served as a Special Adviser to Michael Howard for Community Relations, and was appointed by David Cameron as Vice Chair of the Conservative Party. Warsi was sworn of the Privy Council on 13 May 2010
Labour tried to do deals with the DUP last time there was a hung parliament
Under Gordon Brown, Labour had tried to strike a similar deal when there was a hung parliament in 2010.
Yvette Cooper, Shaun Woodward, Ed Miliband and Alistair Campbell were just a few of the Labour supporters or MPs to have recently criticised Theresa May for dealing with the extremely conservative, anti-abortion, anti-LGBT rights party from Northern Ireland.
However, when Brown failed to get a majority he wrote letters to the DUP asking to do a deal.
Amid criticism, former DUP leader Ian Paisley has been relishing telling everyone about Brown’s eagerness to pair up with the party.
Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant & Keith Vaz
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
I find it interesting that Corbyn is now eulogising his former Islington buddies. Why now and what’s in it for him?
I wonder how much these four know about child abuse in Islington?
…what went on in Islington under their watch is the big elephant in the room.
Born in London to Jamaican immigrants, Miss Abbott read history at Cambridge University before becoming an administration trainee at the Home Office.
She worked as a race relations officer for the national Council for Civil Liberties before moving into the media, joining Thames Television and later TV-am.
She was a press officer at the Greater London Council and Lambeth Council before changing tack and moving into politics.
After a brief stint at Westminster City Council, Miss Abbott was elected into the House of Commons in 1987
She was criticised during the MPs expenses scandal, after claiming £142,000 in 2009, including £1,100 on taxis.
She has also appeared on Have I Got News For You, Celebrity Come Dine With Me and Celebrity Cash in the Attic.
Lambeth knew Carroll was a problem long before he was eventually dismissed. In 1986, it discovered something that should have excluded him from working with children. Carroll already had a conviction for child abuse – which he hadn’t disclosed when he had applied for a job in Lambeth. But the conviction, and his failure to disclose it, did not lead to his dismissal.
Diane Abbott – press officer to Linda Bellos, leader of Lambeth Council
In mid-1986, three of Lambeth’s most senior officials held a secret disciplinary hearing, and decided to leave him in post. And when Carroll asked if he could turn Angell Road into a centre to provide therapy for victims of child abuse, Lambeth agreed. The police even sought advice from him when they were investigating alleged child abuse in another home, South Vale.
Janet Boateng: Former chair of Lambeth social services committee
Janet Boateng’s name never comes up in articles about the paedophile ring that operated in Lambeth Council-run children’s homes between 1974 and 1994.
But maybe it should, because she was chair of Lambeth Council’s social services committee, who had overall responsibility for the running of children’s homes, and she personally unveiled the ‘new child care strategy’ at a time when Lambeth children’s homes were infested with paedophiles.
Only thing that Vaz inspires is taking drugs with prostitutes behind his wifes back. What a time we live in to have role models lile Keith.
Chris Stacey@chrisstacey1
British Labour politicians at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton, UK, November 1987. From left to right, Bernie Grant , Paul Boateng, Neil Kinnock, Keith Vaz and Diane Abbott.
Diane Abbott – Michael Portillo has been friend since school
She is a product of Cambridge University, from which she gained a history degree, and before that, of Harrow County Grammar School, where she shone in the sixth-form drama club, making friends with the broadcaster Clive Anderson, the Washington ambassador, Sir Nigel Sheinwald and Michael Portillo, with whom she starred in Romeo and Juliet, though not in the title roles. Today, she and Mr Portillo appear in the BBC politics show, This Week, where their close rapport has been described by Jonathan Dimbleby as a “love-in.”
Abbott will be well aware of all the allegations against Portillo.
…the persistent rumors about NSPCC’s Wanless’ close friend and confidant Michael Portillo, now like Savile, a BBC TV personality, being allegedly involved in a Westminster sex scandal himself. Rumors circulated in 1994 that Portillo and another Tory Secretary of State, Peter Lilley, had got sexually involved with Britain’s first openly gay footballer, Justin Fashanu.
Unfortunately for the two secretaries of state though, a disgruntled Fashanu supposedly decided to “blow the lid,” threatening to “bring down the government” by leaking evidence of these affairs to the Daily Express. When MI5 allegedly threatened Fashanu, Tory MP Stephen Milligan, a part-time journalist, is said to have weighed in on the footballer’s behalf on a mission to get to the bottom of it all and “clean up the Tory party.”
Within days, however, Milligan was found hanged in his London flat, naked, with an orange in his mouth in an apparent suicide, made to look like he was a sexual deviant. Fashanu was swiftly sacked by his football club and got on the first flight to the United States. Several years later Fashanu was also tragically found hanged, this time in a garage in Shoreditch, London.
So, if Labour are ‘elected’ to Government, Diane Abbott is tipped to be Home Secretary and will Keith Vaz be the Minister for Children ?
Diane Abbott worked for the Home Office in 1976
Diane Abbott Race Relations Officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties 1978 to 1980, that would of brought her in contact with PIE.
Amongst her colleagues at NCCL were Harriet Harman, Patricia Hewitt and Paul Boateng
Abbott – elevated to the Shadow Cabinet for the first time since she entered Parliament in 1987 – was also close to Corbyn at his coronation as Labour leader in Westminster
For more than 35 years, Corbyn, 66, the MP for Islington North since 1983, has been a close friend and political soulmate of Abbott, 61, the MP for the adjoining constituency of Hackney North.
The relationship between Corbyn and Abbott went from platonic to physical in 1979.
At the time, Corbyn was about 30 and a full-time trade union official and councillor in North London, alongside his wife, who was keen to become an MP.
Having won a scholarship to Cambridge, Abbott, who was 25, had become a solicitor with the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), which was regarded as a stepping stone to Westminster.
Harriet Harman, who was acting Labour leader until last weekend, was legal officer at the NCCL, and Patricia Hewitt, another who became a Labour Cabinet minister, was general secretary.
‘Jeremy was also making a name for himself as a disciple of Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone
Listen to Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London, talking to David Mellor on the role of M15 in the Kincora Children’s Home Paedophile scandal
Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone knew about the Paedophiles for decades
Ken Livingstone said:-
“I was raising in parliament against Mrs Thatcher the Kincora Boys Home where boys were being abused and MI5 was filming it because they were hoping to be able to blackmail senior politicians in Northern Ireland.
They were hoping to catch one of Ian Paisley’s MP’s – and they never did – and give themselves some leverage. The truth is there’s been an awful lot of covering up of paedophiles and paedophile rings for decades and decades.”
Will the Prime Minister take time in her busy day to reconsider the statement that she made to the House last year about Sir Maurice Oldfield?Will she consider the inconsistency of the withdrawal of his positive vetting while no action was taken againstMr. Peter England, a deputy secretary in the Northern Ireland Office, and Mr. J. L. Imrie, an assistant secretary at the Northern Ireland Office, following investigations into the buggery of young children at the Kincora boys’ home? Is she not disturbed that Mr. Imrie has taken no action against the newspaper that named him and his activities four weeks ago, although he continues to work for the Government in the Ministry of Defence? Can she assure the House that she is convinced of Mr. Imrie’s innocence?
If not, will she now finally concede a genuinely independent inquiry into what went on in the homes in Kincora, irrespective of the damage that that may do to MI5 when its role is exposed?
The Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher)
I have nothing further to add to the statement that I made on Sir Maurice Oldfield in the House. I note that the hon. Gentleman uses the privileges of the House to name people who are unable to answer back.
Sir Maurice Oldfield (1915-81) was director of MI6 from 1973 to 1978 and Ulster Security Co-ordinator 1979. He was also homosexual. We know this to be true because Margaret Thatcher was forced to make a statement on the issue on April 23rd 1987.
Sir Maurice Oldfield became Security Co-ordinator in Northern Ireland in October 1979. Subsequently reports were received which caused his positive vetting clearance to be reviewed. In March 1980, in the course of that review, he made an admission that he had from time to time engaged in homosexual activities. His positive vetting clearance was withdrawn. By this time he was already a sick man; he finally ceased to serve as Security Co-ordinator in Northern Ireland when a successor took over in June 1980; he died in March 1981.
There was a lengthy and thorough investigation by the Security Service, which included many interviews with Sir Maurice Oldfield himself, to examine whether there was any reason to suppose that he himself or the interests of the country might have been compromised. The conclusion was that, though his conduct had been a potential risk to security, there was no evidence or reason whatsoever to suggest that security had ever been compromised; indeed, he had contributed notably to a number of security and intelligence successes which would not have been achieved had there been a breach of security. That conclusion stands.
The facts of the case were made known to the Security Commission, when it undertook the review of security procedures and practices, including vetting, in the public service which I commissioned in March 1981. In that report the commission dealt with criteria for positive vetting clearances and with the security implications of male homosexuality. I made it clear in my statement on the Security Commission’s report, which was presented to Parliament in May 1982 as Cmnd. 8540, that the Government accepted the Security Commission’s report and were acting upon its recommendations.
Ken Livingstone brought up the issue again on March 8th 1988, in the context of the Kincora Boys’ Home.
The most delightfully indiscreet oyster I ever met was Michael Havers, the Tory attorney- general for many years and, briefly, lord chancellor. He had a healthy sense of the ridiculous which made him deride excessive secrecy, but he also derived peculiar pleasure from breaking the secrecy rules with which he was so deeply involved. Among many leaks to me, perhaps the most extraordinary was his detailed confirmation — while we were shooting pheasants in 1986 — of the Official Secrets scandal surrounding Sir Maurice Oldfield, the former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.
At dinner in Grosvenor House a year previously, Sir David McNee, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, had told me that Oldfield had been suspended from secret work after Scotland Yard officers had reported his involvement in homosexual activities. His behaviour, which would then have barred him from service in MI6, was not detected until he had retired as MI6 chief in 1978. Courageously, he had come out of retirement at Mrs Thatcher’s request to become security supremo in Northern Ireland, and McNee had been so concerned by what he was then told about the ‘rough trade’ visiting Oldfield’s London flat that he informed the home secretary, who alerted Mrs Thatcher. Why did McNee tell me this well-kept secret? It was the reaction of an honest copper and great believer in the role of intelligence in national security, appalled that such behaviour by any man in a supreme position of trust should remain covered up to suit the establishment.
I took no action until Havers told me that Oldfield had confessed his folly to him and had admitted having falsified his positive vetting form over many years when asked about his sex life. He also told me that the prime minister had withdrawn Oldfield’s security clearance and suspended him from his intelligence job, though he had been allowed to continue, briefly, after inquiries had shown that he had not been blackmailed and had promised to restrain himself.
Chapman Pincher knew Sir Maurice Oldfield better than most, and went on to claim Oldfield’s obsession was “what is referred to in Britain as rough trade; lower-class, down-and-out young males”.
But according to Mr Pincher, in his book Traitors: The Labyrinths of Treason, Special Branch officers who were giving Sir Maurice round-the-clock protection throughout his Northern Ireland appointment discovered that male prostitutes were visiting him in his flat in Westminster.
It would seem that Sir Michael Havers told Chapman Pincher about Sir Maurice Oldfield’s ‘follies’ in 1986, with the confession actually taking place in March 1980. Sir Michael Havers was Attorney General from May 1979 to June 1987. Sir Maurice Oldfield finally resigned as Security Co-ordinator in Northern Ireland in June 1980, presumably after not being able to restrain himself.
It is often wrongly assumed that Oldfield’s links with Ireland date only from his appointment as Ulster Security Coordinator in 1979. But as Director of MI6 throughout the 1970s he was not only closely connected with Irish affairs, including the Kincora operation, but was a regular visitor to Belfast.
Sir Michael Havers would have been acutely aware of the Kincora scandal, which first came to public attention with an article in the Irish Independent in January 24th 1980, with the first convictions having taken place in December 1981. On February 16th 1982 there was a high-level meeting at the offices of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, in London. Also present were Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers; Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, James Prior; and Sir William Bourne, a barrister and senior civil servant. Sir Michael Havers reported he had previously been briefed by the Northern Ireland Director of Public Prosecutions that the RUC were still investigating issues around Kincora despite the recent convictions. On March 23rd 1982 Sir Michael Havers wrote to James Prior, admitting that Kincora had turned out to be a much more complex affair than he had first thought.
Why didn’t Andrew Parker, the present D-G of MI5 oblige John Imrie to fly across the Irish Sea and appear before Hart?
28 March, 2018
Village has learnt that John L.L. Imrie, formerly of MI5 and the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), died last summer without a whisper of his passing reaching the ears of the press. Imrie had the unique distinction of being the only British official ever linked to the Kincora Boys’ Home sex abuse scandal by name in the press during his lifetime. Imrie had served as an Assistant Secretary at the NIO in the early 1970s while the sexual abuse of boys at a number of homes in Northern Ireland including Kincora was rampant.
Imrie did not provide evidence to the Hart Inquiry in 2016.
Judge Hart, whose 2017 report is littered with factual inaccuracies, determined that MI5 had known nothing about the Kincora scandal until it was exposed by the media in January 1980.
Imrie was one of many who – had he told the truth – could have put Hart straight.
Privates on parade at victoria station
Imrie was a convicted sex pest. In 1979 he went ‘cottaging’ in London, that is to say, looking for sex with random strangers in gentlemen’s lavatories. He was arrested at the gents at Victoria Station when, after an attempt to attract a sexual partner by displaying his genitals, he was charged with indecent exposure.
Sir Howard SmithAndrew Parker
The last thing MI5 needed in 1979 was a sordid scandal involving an MI5 officer who had served in Belfast. At this time the Kincora scandal was bubbling under the surface ready to erupt across National headlines. Howard Smith was D-G of MI5. He appreciated the full potential of the scandal because he had served as intelligence supremo in NI in the early 1970s when Imrie had been stationed in Belfast and the Kincora ‘honey trap’ operation was up and running. Two social workers had already provided details of the scandal to Peter McKenna of the Irish Independent. They had learnt about it from Richard Kerr, a resident at Kincora for whom they were responsible. Hence, Establishment pressure was exerted to drop the charges against Imrie for his performance at Victoria Station. The endeavour failed, proving yet again that MI5 is not always top dog when confronted by honest police officers and lawyers. Indeed, only last year we witnessed another example of this when the incorruptible Chief Constable of Wiltshire, Michael Veale, his Assistant Chief Constable Paul Mills, and their Operation Confier team reported that former British PM Edward Heath was a paedophile. (See Village October 2017.)
The fact that Imrie was a figure whom Whitehall wanted to protect became public knowledge thanks to Private Eye magazine. On 17 August 1979 it reported that: “Up until the trial strong pressure was brought to bear by a variety of authorities to drop the charges in the national interest”.
Ken Livingstone noticed a discrepancy in the way Imrie had been treated compared to the mauling Sir Maurice Old eld had received after the exposure of his sexual predilections in 1980
Imrie was brought before the Magistrates’ Court at 70 Horseferry road, London, (now the City of Westminster Magistrates Court) where he pleaded not guilty to the charges preferred against him and submitted a preposterous defence maintaining that he had been caught short with a weak bladder and, fearing disastrous consequences on the train he intended to take at 11.10 to Sydneyham – which had no toilet – he had been compelled to display him- self to the gentlemen in the vicinity of the urinals. The presiding magistrate – another honourable individual who was prepared to do his job without fear or favour – concluded Imrie was lying since he had been arrested at 11.25, i.e. 15 minutes after the bladder-bursting train had departed. Imrie was convicted, conditionally discharged and ordered to pay £50 costs.
Imrie was not the only senior intelligence officer arrested for misbehaviour in a public lavatory in London during this era. In 1984 Sir Peter Hayman, the reputed Deputy Chief of MI6, was also arrested for gross indecency, and convicted. Hayman was an abuser of Richard Kerr, details of which will be revealed in a later edition of Village. Sir Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess, another pair of paedophiles from the ranks of both MI5 and the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring, were also members in good standing of MI5’s cottaging circuit.
Imrie’s conviction did not deflect the upward trajectory of his career.
After Kincora was exposed in January 1980, the RUC set out to track down the child molesters involved, or at least some honest officers in the RUC tried to do so before they were stifled. At least they managed to question Imrie before the vice grip of the cover-up took a hold.
Against this background, it is hardly unfair to ask if Imrie was a pederast (i.e. an abuser of teenage males), if not an outright paedophile himself. Why else would the RUC have made inquiries about him? The answers to these questions may be found lurking in the pages of Imrie’s personnel file which gathers dust somewhere in the vaults of MI5.
During the 1970s the RUC Special Branch officers who helped Joseph Mains, the Warden of Kincora, run the operation on the ground, are rumoured to have maintained a secret library of files as insurance in case anyone ever tried to prosecute them for trafficking the children involved to their abusers. The RUC Special Branch library may still be in existence and, if so, undoubtedly has bulging files on Imrie and others such as Peter England, also formerly of the NIO.
The Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse in London still has an opportunity to demand sight of Imrie’s personnel file and that of england but time is running out fast.
MI5’s interview rooms at Victoria Train Station
a career shrouded in mystery
Inevitably, a cloud of mystery hangs over Imrie’s career. A little speculation must be forgiven. Despite claims to the contrary, he probably never worked for the Ministry of Defence (MoD). References to him in the Civil Service Yearbooks during the 1980s as an MoD employee were probably nothing more than a cover for his true role inside MI5, a department that was not officially acknowledged as part of the British Government at that time. Countless MI5 officers were held out as MoD officials for decades to perpetrate the myth MI5 did not exist.
Imrie definitely worked in Germany during an earlier phase of his career, perhaps with Ian Cameron at the British Services Security Organisation, which was based in Berlin and responsible for the security of British forces in Germany in the 1960s. Cameron later headed up MI5 in NI in the 1970s and was Central to the Kincora operation. (See Village March 2017).
What did Imrie do in NI? We are on more solid ground here. Village has obtained a ‘confidential’ NIO file which was circulated to Imrie and provides an indication of the type of work he undertook: it was political in nature. The file is dated 19 December 1972 and concerns a meeting between Ian Paisley and others and the NI Secretary of State William Whitelaw. The file was also circulated to Franke Steele of MI6, the Chief Constable of the RUC and the General Officer in Command of the British Army.
Scraping beneath the bottom of the barrel
By the late 1980s, Imrie was working inside MI5’s ‘B’ Branch as a recruitment officer while being listed in the Civil Service Year Book for 1988 as a Grade 5 officer in the MoD Civil Administration Department. Just how a convicted sex pest rose to become a Grade 5 officer with responsibility for MI5 recruitment is staggering – even by the weird standards of that unorthodox organisation.
Or is it ? If we have learnt anything about MI5, it is that anything is possible once you drop down the MI5 rabbit hole. Imrie’s conviction may have been something that commended him to the Mad Hatters at the top table at MI5.
MI5 and MI6 recruiters are the only people who are briefed to scrape beneath the sludge at the bottom of the barrel. At that time both organisations needed people with the stomach to oversee and direct torture, murder and blackmail operations.
They also needed psychologically and emotionally stunted agents who could photograph and record paedophiles in the act of abusing children. MI5’s surveillance targets in this underworld included an array of degenerates ranging from lowly knuckle-dragging Loyalist paramilitaries to elevated Knights and Lords at Westminster such as Sir Edward Heath, Lord Greville Janner, Sir Cyril Smith, Sir William Van Straubenzee and Sir Peter Morrison, all of whom they hoped to blackmail, control and, if necessary, destroy. And who better than a lavatory-creeper like Imrie to recognise the type of rat capable of performing this sort of work in return for a miserable salary? Who better than Imrie to know when to inch open the secret side doors at MI5’s hQ when the type of creep who would get a kick out of this sort of work was loitering nearby ?
imrie and Peter england are exposed in the Sunday World
Imrie enjoyed a number of years of quiet anonymity after his conviction as a asher. Then, on 7 February 1988, the late Liam Clarke published a story in the Sunday World which named him as one of a group of four senior NIO officials who had been interviewed by the RUC about Kincora. One of the others was Peter England, who had been a Deputy Undersecretary with overall responsibility for the intelligence services in NI and a friend of Sir Anthony Blunt. (See Village november 2017.)
Clarke also described how Peter England had tried to force his sexual attentions on a male civil servant at the NIO; and had been recognised in a photograph by a boy he had abused. The boy was undoubtedly John Louis Baird. According to a report broadcast by BBC NI and supplemented by an article in Phoenix magazine, John Louis Baird was abused by England at a house on the Old Hollywood Road in Belfast which had been used as the pick-up point for Provisional IRA leaders during peace talks with the NIO and MI6 in the 1970s. The boy spoke to Chris Moore who broadcast an interview with him on the BBC in 1982. He was shown in silhouette and described how signals were exchanged via flashing headlights with England’s car before he was transferred to it. Moreover, a briefing document on personal security which was found in Kincora was linked to England. Several phone numbers appeared in the margins of pages 5, 7, 11 and 13 in England’s hand-writing.
Ken livingstone questions Thatcher about imrie’s failure to sue The Sunday World
Ken Livingstone MP (and future Mayor of London) was one of those who pursued the Imrie affair back in 1988. He noticed a discrepancy in the way Imrie had been treated compared to the mauling Sir Maurice Oldfield had received after the exposure of his sexual predilections in 1980. Oldfield had served as Chief of MI6 1973-78, and Security Coordinator NI, 1979 1980. He was pushed to the side-lines by Margaret Thatcher after she discovered he had confessed to what he had described as his homosexual “tendencies”. how could the mere admission of such “tendencies” have cost him his “positive vetting” i.e. his licence to operate within the intelligence community ? It was not homophobia since Imrie, a convicted flasher who opportuned men in toilets, and had been quizzed about Kincora, managed to retain his job and achieve promotion. Perhaps the explanation is that Oldfield had become an enemy of the ultra-right-wing faction that controlled MI5 and held Thatcher in their thrall whereas Imrie was presumably well got with them, especially after his service for them in Northern Ireland. Oldfield had enraged the Mad Hatters at MI5 by interfering with their plots against Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
Ken Livingstone holding Margaret Thatcher to account
Livingstone brought the Oldfield-Imrie discrepancy up in the house of Commons on 8 March 1988.
“Will the Prime Minister take time in her busy day to reconsider the statement that she made to the house last year about Sir Maurice Oldfield ?”, Livingstone asked her. “Will she consider the inconsistency of the withdrawal of his positive vetting while no action was taken against Mr Peter England, a deputy secretary in the Northern Ireland Office, and Mr JL Imrie, an assistant secretary at the Northern Ireland office, following investigations into the buggery of young children at the Kincora boys’ home ? Is she not disturbed that Mr Imrie has taken no action against the newspaper that named him and his activities four weeks ago, although he continues to work for the government in the Ministry of Defence ? Can she assure the house that she is convinced of Mr Imrie’s innocence?
“If not, will she now finally concede a genuinely independent enquiry into what went on in the home in Kincora, irrespective of the damage that may do to MI5 when its role is exposed ?”.
Thatcher replied: “I have nothing further to add to the statement that I made on Sir Maurice Oldfield in the house. I note that the honourable Gentleman uses the privilege of the house to name people who are unable to answer back”.
Thatcher’s answer was patently absurd. In the first instance, Peter England was dead and could not sue so parliamentary privilege was a red herring. Secondly, the whole point of Livingstone’s question about Imrie was to highlight the fact that Imrie’s name had appeared in the Sunday World yet he had not sued the paper. Thatcher, who had practised as a barrister, surely knew that newspapers did not enjoy parliamentary privilege for stories that did not arise from an exchange in parliament.
Imrie was also named twice by Private Eye in 1988 in connection with Kincora.
Will the london inquiry call the two RUC whistle-blowers ?
On 23 January 2015 the late Liam Clarke reported in the Belfast Telegraph that two RUC officers had told him that a tory MP had “visited Kincora during the 1970s”. Both officers, he reported, were “willing to help any inquiry into Kincora either here or in England. They revealed that the MP died before they could arrange to interview him”. There are only a tiny number of MPs who match this description. One of the officers revealed that the MP had visited NI “quite regularly…We were told by criminal records in Scotland Yard, London, that he had a conviction many years ago for indecent behaviour or something in a gents’ loo against another boy but his death meant we never got a chance to question him”.
The chances are stratospherically high that these two RUC officers were also the source of Clarke’s 1988 Sunday World story about Imrie and England. It is statistically unlikely that both RUC men have died since 2015. Since they know at least something about the Westminster MP, they should be asked to testify at the Independent Inquiry Into Child Sex Abuse (IICAS) in London. Their evidence about Imrie and the MP must surely be of some relevance to IICAS which is due to commence its probe into VIP-child-sex abuse this month.
Unfortunately the auguries that the truth will emerge at IICAS are not favourable. Thus far ICCSA has shown a disconcerting lack of interest in credible witnesses such as Richard Kerr while granting frauds such as ‘Nick’ “core participation” at their hearings (i.e. access to documents, legal representation and the right to question witnesses.) As Village readers may appreciate, ‘Nick’ is a ventriloquist’s dummy controlled by those protecting the Westminster VIP vice ring. His role is to discredit the existence of the VIP ring by blabbering out his far-fetched and ludicrous claims. At least one pederast connected to the Tory Party is fond of pooh-poohing the existence of the Westminster VIP vice ring in the media by reference to ‘Nick’s’ crazy allegations. This is like the Pope denying the existence of the Roman Catholic Church. This pederast abused at least one Kincora boy – richard Kerr – who was trafficked to London for his grotesque entertainment.
St Stephen’s where Imrie held himself out as a devout member of the Church of England
Graduating from flashing at strangers in toilets to greeting worshippers at church
Imrie never sued Liam Clarke, the Sunday World or Private Eye, and maintained a very low profile until his death. After his resignation from MI5, he lived in Dulwich, South London where he died last June. The only clue as to what he did in retirement is to be gleaned from a death notice which appeared on the website for St Stephen’s Church, Dulwich. Imrie, it reported, had been a devout member of the Church of England and attended St Stephen’s on a regular basis. The death notice read as follows:
“It is with sadness that we share in the news of the death of John Imrie. For many years he was a sidesperson at the 8am Sunday service as well as a regular at our mid-week Holy Eucharist on Wednesdays. During his working life he was a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence, serving both in Germany and Northern Ireland before reaching the highest level of the Ministry in London. His funeral will be here at St Stephen’s on Tuesday 11 July at 12 noon. May he rest in peace and rise in glory”.
There is no mention of Imrie having had a wife or children in his death notice, something that indicates he remained a bachelor throughout his life.
another Hart failure
As someone who was able to attend St Stephen’s Church as a ‘sidesperson’ on such a ‘regular’ basis, Imrie was hardly suffering from dementia or physical infirmity. A ‘sidesperson’ acts as an usher, greeter of worshippers and collector of donations at church ceremonies.
Clearly, Imrie was hale and hearty and could have testified at the Hart Inquiry in 2016. Equally clearly, this would have been the last thing he would have countenanced. It is inconceivable that he could have told the truth about Kincora without being sidestepped at St Stephen’s upon his return and shunned by every parent in Dulwich and beyond.
The man without eyes at the back of his head
More to the point: why didn’t Andrew Parker, the present D-G of MI5, or any of his staff, oblige Imrie to fly across the Irish Sea and appear before hart ? Ex-MI5 officers on a pension must obey such directives.
Parker, as Village readers will know, is more than happy to sermonising to others about their ‘ethical responsibilities’. What could have been more ethical and responsible than turning over every slimy stone at MI5 to uncover the truth about Kincora. By any calculation, Imrie’s file was an obvious one to submit to hart: Imrie was the only man ever mentioned by name in the press during his lifetime in connection with Kincora; moreover, one who was named in the house of Commons.
Hart, Parker and MI5 should also have made every effort to identify the RUC officers who spoke to Imrie during the Kincora probe to establish precisely why he had been of interest to the RUC’s early inquiries, and what they discovered about him. Yet not a single sheet of paper of any consequence concerning Imrie featured in the allegedly comprehensive compendium of documentation furnished to hart by MI5, the MoD and the RUC.
Of course, there is no mystery as to why the file on Imrie was withheld from Hart. The immoral majority who really control MI5 (home Office) and MI6 (Foreign Office) lied to the Hart Inquiry as Village has demonstrated over the previous year. It goes without saying that Parker – as an ‘ethically responsible’ individual – could have had no part in any of this, nor indeed any inkling that his subordinates were subverting the Inquiry behind his back. He’s only head of MI5, after all.
If the unexpurgated files relating to Imrie had been handed over to Hart, the floodgates would have buckled and the truth about Kincora would have burst forth. The public would have learnt that MI5 not only used it to blackmail Loyalist paramilitaries and senior Loyalist politicians, but that it was exploited by perverts like Peter England for their own sick personal gratification.
Chair of UK investigations (IICSA) changes suspiciously often as it investigates role of MI5 and MI6
12 June 2017
The London-based Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was established in 2014. It has a mandate to investigate VIP abusers with links to Westminster. Regrettably, it cannot be described as truly independent since it is a creature of the Home Office, the parent department of MI5 which blackmailed, protected and exploited paedophile networks in the UK and Ireland and has dirty tricks embedded in its DNA.
An “independent” Inquiry?
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was established in 2014 by Theresa May in her then capacity as Home Secretary. Her first choice as chair was Lady Ann Elizabeth Oldfield Butler-Sloss, whose appointment was announced on 8 July 2014. A storm of protest swept her off the chair within days because she was the sister of the late Michael Havers. He had served as Margaret Thatcher’s Attorney General in the 1980s. As reported in Village last month, Havers spoke up for the high-ranking British diplomat and MI6 officer, Sir Peter Hayman, after he had been exposed as a paedophile in March 1981 by Geoffrey Dickens MP in the House of Commons. The police had discovered that Hayman had been involved in a paedophile network and was a connoisseur of child pornography. Havers, speaking in his capacity as Attorney General, parried that Hayman’s collection was not extreme and had not warranted prosecution.
Butler-Sloss was born on 10 August 1933. Since the IICSA is likely to last another 12-15 years, she would have been well on the way to her century when it finished. Just what was Theresa May thinking?
May’s second choice as chairman was Dame Catherine Fiona Woolf, DBE, JP, DL, who was appointed in September 2014 and lasted a month. She was a friend and neighbour of Leon Brittan who had served as Home Secretary in the 1980s. In 1984 he was handed the Dickens Dossier which exposed a VIP paedophile network, by Geoffrey Dickens MP. Brittan commanded all the resources of the police and by lifting a telephone could have ensured that immediate action was taken to end the rape and brutalisation of children described in the institutions in the dossier. Instead he did precisely nothing. Why?
In 2014 it emerged that the Dickens Dossier had disappeared. When quizzed about this, Brittan initially claimed he had no memory of ever having received it but later relented and “recalled” he had handed it over to an official in the Home Office.
After media reports that Brittan had been a dinner party guest at Woolf’s house on at least three occasions, she stepped down from the IICSA and was replaced by Judge Lowell Goddard who shouldered the burden until 2016 when it became too much for her. One would almost be forgiven for suspecting that the Inquiry was designed to topple over under its own weight.
A subterranean campaign against the truth
A campaign to suppress the truth about manipulation by MI5 and MI6 of VIP paedophile networks has been afoot for decades and shows no sign of abating. As detailed in recent editions of Village, last year MI5 and MI6 (which is attached to the Foreign Office) lied to the Hart Inquiry about their involvement in the Kincora scandal and received a clean bill of health from it.
Meanwhile pro-establishment figures in the media (at least one of whom has been linked to MI6) have been campaigning to end police investigations into historical child abuse. There is growing support for this initiative among the British public on account of the behaviour of the police who investigated the singer Cliff Richard and others for child abuse when – patently – there was no evidence against them. Their behaviour was so inept one would be forgiven for thinking their intention was to poison the public against historical abuse inquiries.
Some of the vice rings which the IICSA should be investigating overlap with networks in Ireland. The odds are stacked high that the IICSA will be persuaded to ignore them in light of the publication of the Hart Report earlier this year which was meant to have dealt comprehensively with Irish issues but was hoodwinked by the spooks.
The Tory MP who visited Kincora
Other substantial threats to the Anglo-Irish paedophile network which have emerged in recent years have been swept back under the carpet. In 2015 two RUC officers who had been involved in the inquiries that led to the conviction of the staff at Kincora disclosed the involvement of a Tory MP at the home. On 23 January 2015 the late Liam Clarke reported in the Belfast Telegraph that they had told him that a Tory MP had “visited Kincora during the 1970s”. Both officers, he reported, were “willing to help any inquiry into Kincora either here or in England. They revealed that the MP died before they could arrange to interview him”. One of the officers revealed that the MP had been “coming over to the Northern Ireland Office quite regularly… We were told by criminal records in Scotland Yard London that he had a conviction many years ago for indecent behaviour or something in a gents’ loo against another boy but his death meant we never got a chance to question him”.
Clarke’s report adds credence to what Clint Massey, another Kincora survivor, recalls about his time at the home. “In those days, there were loads of people over from London. I have always assumed they were senior figures from Whitehall. I certainly heard English accents”.
Unfortunately, in 2017 the Hart Inquiry inaccurately concluded that the abuse at Kincora was confined to the staff members who were convicted in 1981 and that a wider sex-abuse ring did not exist.
The establishment’s Achilles heel
On a more positive note, there is a treasure trove of records which could act as a roadmap to pinpoint much of MI5’s complicity in covering up the VIP paedophile networks. They can be found in the archives of the D-Notice Committee. D-Notices are issued to the press to suppress the publication of information on the basis of “national security”. They are signed by judges. Clearly, they are not issued to curtail fiction, and therefore tend to attest to the accuracy of a story.
A D-notice was issued to suppress details about the rape of children at Elm Guest House, the notorious child brothel in London frequented by Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith, Peter Hayman and others. Richard Kerr was one of those abused at it. Hilton Tims, editor of the Surrey Comet, 1980-1988, has revealed that in the 1980s one of his journalists made inquiries about it only to receive a D-Notice which shut his probe down. Who applied for it? What grounds did they offer the judge who issued it? Indeed, who was the judge?
The same questions could be asked about the D-Notice issued to journalist Dan Hale to quash his investigation into a VIP network involving politicians. It had been based on information supplied by Barbara Castle, the former Labour cabinet minister and MEP.
What, other than a blackmail operation, could have amounted to a “national security” interest at Elm Guest House and justified the suppression of Hale’s inquiry?
Time will tell if the IICSA allows Kerr to testify about Elm Guest House and bothers to examine the D-Notice archive.
An inconvenient witness
One survivor who will not be welcomed by the darker elements of the Home Office should he turn up to testify at the IICSA is Richard Kerr. He was raped as a young child in Belfast and as a teenager at Kincora before he was trafficked to England where he was exploited by a string of VIP abusers at locations such as Elm Guest House and Dolphin Square. At least two of his friends and fellow victims died many years ago. One of them, Stephen Warren, couldn’t take any more and committed suicide by jumping into the sea from the Liverpool-Belfast Monarch Ferry.
One of Kerr’s abusers was a senior politician whom he has yet to name in public. The abuse took place in London so the IICSA should investigate it. Kerr has hinted at who the culprit was on Channel 4 News in 2016. Village believes that he was a high-profile Tory cabinet minister who died not long before the Channel 4 interview.
Sir Anthony Blunt
Kerr is holding yet another ticking time-bomb: he saw Sir Anthony Blunt, formerly of MI5, at Kincora during the period 1975- 1977 in the company of two other men. Blunt was a member of the Cambridge Spy Ring which betrayed Britain’s secrets to the Soviet Union.
Blunt was the third and youngest son of the Reverend Stanley Vaughan Blunt (1870–1929) and his wife, Hilda Master (1880–1969). He was also a relative of the Queen Mother. He was born at Holy Trinity vicarage, Bournemouth, Hampshire, on 26 September 1907. As a child he lived for a while in Paris, where his father was the British embassy chaplain. He was later educated at Marlborough School where he developed a strong interest in art. According to one of his biographers, Michael Kitson: “Blunt was part of a group of rebellious young aesthetes”, he was producing precociously fluent defences of modern art, much to the infuriation of the deeply conservative art teacher – an early indication of his academic talent and his instinctive contrariness”.
Blunt worked for MI5 during WWII and then pursued a career as an art historian. He was to become a Knight of the Realm and Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures. His world was turned upside down in November 1979 after he was exposed as a Soviet mole. Photographs of him were plastered over newspapers in the UK for months on end to remind Kerr of exactly who he was.
‘Small boys are cheap today, cheaper than yesterday’
Blunt developed an appetite for so-called ‘rent boys’: impoverished male youths condemned to eke out a living as male prostitutes in seedy toilets in London: hardly a lifestyle any of them embraced voluntarily. Blunt ‘cottaged’ for them around the lavatories in Hyde Park, near to Speakers Corner. Details of Blunt’s private life and his fondness for visiting Northern Ireland have been described in many of the biographies written about him. If Kerr had not stepped forward, there would still have been ample grounds for the IICSA to enquire into his background. Kerr is significant nonetheless because he places Blunt at Kincora with two other men. This fact makes it imperative that the IICSA should roll up its sleeves and take a long hard look at Blunt. Although Blunt did not abuse Kerr himself, his two companions did.
There are also unconfirmed reports that Blunt was a visitor to Elm Guest House.
Blunt acquired his taste for ‘rent boys’ from his fellow MI5 traitor Guy Burgess, with whom he once lived. Burgess was addicted to them. While Burgess purported to be concerned for the downtrodden, he made jokes about the children he exploited from their ranks. On one occasion he wrote a nauseating adaptation of La donna e mobile which he thought was hilarious: “Small boys are cheap today, cheaper than yesterday”.
Blunt’s treachery was uncovered by MI5 in 1963. The following year he agreed to make a confession in return for immunity and the wholescale betrayal of the secrets of everyone he knew. Peter Wright of MI5 was assigned to interrogate him. In return for his co-operation, Blunt was given a pardon and his treachery was concealed from the public. The pardon was not limited to his treachery; in addition it afforded him blanket immunity for any crime he had ever committed, something undoubtedly designed to cover his sexual transgressions.
A marathon seven-year interrogation
Blunt must’ve felt he had smashed a mirror for bad luck. His face-to-face encounters with Wright would drag on for seven years. They were still proceeding apace during the early years of the Troubles by which time MI5 was keen to find any mechanism to gain control and influence over Loyalist politicians and paramilitaries. Blunt was in a pole position to assist them with his knowledge of the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring of which he was a leading light. The opportunities for sexual blackmail were immense.
For seven years Wright and MI5 pored over the careers of the Oxbridge graduates of the 1930s and anyone else of possible interest known to Blunt.
Blunt’s circle of friends in Ireland
Wright’s odyssey into the hidden recesses of Blunt’s life unravelled an array of friends and associates in Ireland, connections which reached back to his childhood. Blunt had attended Marlborough School where he had befriended the celebrated Belfast poet Louis MacNeice, who was born in the same month as him. For a long time the pair remained the best of friends.
Sir Samuel Knox Cunningham, MP, KC
Blunt earned a scholarship to Cambridge in 1926 where he made more Irish friends. One of then was Sir Samuel Knox Cunningham who was slightly younger than him. Cunningham became known as the ‘Boxing Queen’ because of his homosexuality and prowess as a pugilist. He was a heavyweight boxing champion at Cambridge. In later life he was elected as a Unionist MP. In the 1960s he represented South Antrim. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, 1959-1963, and as such routinely attended Cabinet meetings at 10 Downing Street. Knox Cunningham often stayed with Blunt while in London and also knew Guy Burgess from their days at Cambridge. He was a rich man and lived on a 70-acre estate at Glencairn Park, and once came within an inch of becoming Grandmaster of the Orange Order. He chose not to stand in the 1970 general election and was succeeded by his fellow Orangemen and election agent, James Molyneaux who later led the Unionist Party. Molyneaux was a friend of another high-ranking Orangeman, William McGrath, one of the staff at Kincora who was convicted for child abuse in 1981.
Cunningham was also a key figure in the odious Anglo-Irish Vice Ring. At the start of Blunt’s debriefing, Peter Wright’s interest in Cunningham would have centred on the fact he had sat around the Cabinet table, was gay and the friend of a self-confessed KGB mole (Blunt) and another traitor who had defected to Moscow (Burgess). By the end of the debriefing in the early 1970s, Cunningham’s lofty position within the Orange Order and central role in Unionist politics would have been of equal interest to MI5. Cunningham was one of many homosexuals active inside the Orange Order who were susceptible to blackmail, especially as homosexuality was still a crime in Northern Ireland, and he undoubtedly knew many of them, including a leading light in the Orange Order, William McGrath, the housefather at Kincora.
Richard Kerr has revealed that Knox Cunningham was a visitor to Kincora. Since the IICSA is charged with investigating VIP child abuse, especially abusers who were Westminster MPs, the Inquiry will, it is to be hoped, listen to what Kerr has to say about Cunningham.
The Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Tyrone
Another of Blunt’s Irish friends was Captain Peter Montgomery, a cousin of ‘Monty’, the famous WWII field marshal. The Captain lived at a magnificent estate in Blessingborne, County Tyrone. The pair first met at Cambridge. Montgomery became one of Blunt’s earliest lovers, possibly even his first. Montgomery later became Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Tyrone, which meant he was one of a string of personal representative of the Queen in Ulster. He also became President of the Northern Ireland Arts Council. Montgomery always kept a room for Blunt at Blessingborne, and Montgomery often stayed with Blunt when he visited London. When Blunt suffered nervous exhaustion in 1943, it was to Ulster and the embrace of Montgomery he repaired for recuperation. After Blunt was exposed as an MI5 traitor, Blunt’s signature was found by Sunday Times reporters in the guestbook at Blessingborne.Captain Montgomery was also a key figure in the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring. According to the whistleblower Robin Harbinson, who knew him well, he procured boys from Portora Royal College, Enniskillen, for those in the vice ring with a penchant for well-bred children.
One of Blunt’s biographers, Miranda Carter, has provided a glimpse at the lifestyle Blunt and Montgomery enjoyed: “The writer Hugh Massingberd, Peter Montgomery’s great-nephew, remembered meeting Blunt, very much ‘off duty’, with his uncle in 1965. ‘It was a very hot day, and Blunt came in wearing virtually a G-string and a light sleeveless T-shirt, and said, “Peter’s overdressed and I’m underdressed. How do you do?”. It was a bit stagey. His [great] uncle also once took him to a party at Blunt’s old stomping ground, Palace Court. ‘There seemed to be a lot of oriental youths around, and Blunt and my uncle, one felt, had dropped their guards. It was full of opera queens and an odd mixture of seedy old faggots and oriental boys. It was very much a gay party’”.
Britain’s insatiable appetite for revelations about the Cambridge Spy Ring
As the bloodhounds in the UK press picked up the scent of Blunt’s MI5 treachery in 1979, he became preoccupied at the prospect of the seamy side of his private life being exposed. At the same time, senior members of the British Establishment were trying to talk Margaret Thatcher out of confirming that Blunt had been a KGB mole. They must also have been concerned that a root and branch investigation of Blunt’s sordid life by the media would expose the Anglo-Irish abuse network.
Now, if Richard Kerr manages to get to testify before the IICSA, he might yet manage to prise open this long-sealed can of Anglo-Irish worms. In the first instance, he will focus attention on Blunt and the Anglo-Irish network. While the British media has little interest in Kincora, it has an insatiable appetite for stories about the Cambridge Spy Ring. New books are published every year and receive a wider readership, and this has been the case for decades. If Blunt were linked to the vice ring that swirled around Kincora, some sections of the British media might become difficult to muzzle. If it became apparent that MI5 learnt about the inner workings of the Anglo-Irish vice ring through Blunt, and that this was what led them to Kincora, MI5 might yet face a torrid time in the British press, whatever about at the IICSA.
There is also a Byzantine and ironic possibility that Blunt – the arch traitor – returned to the MI5 fold in the 1970s, albeit with his tail between his legs. Those in MI5 who controlled him might have assigned him to work as an agent provocateur. And his mission? To lure influential pederasts and paedophiles to places like Kincora and Elm Guest House where MI5 surveillance teams were waiting to film them for blackmail purposes.
David Sullivan, whose body was found in February 2001, a year and five months after he went missing.
Unsolved murder of bus driver puts spotlight on suspected paedophile ring in the North
There are many questions for authorities over abuse in Enniskillen in the 1980s
Apr 12, 2019
In a windswept, isolated bog near Belcoo, Co Fermanagh, lay the body of a former school bus driver responsible for a litany of sex attacks against his young passengers. He had been brutally murdered, possibly in an attack motivated by revenge.
David Sullivan (51) spent much of his time driving his white, specially adapted Hyundai at all hours of the day visiting places such as scenic Lough Navar near Derrygonnelly, outside Enniskillen.
He was something of a nomad, a creature of the night who never slept for more than four hours. He had no siblings, just an elderly mother to whom he spoke regularly.
On February 3rd, 2001, his remains were discovered by a man walking his dog, a year and five months after he had gone missing. Sullivan was at that time suffering from advanced Parkinson’s disease.
Almost 20 years on, Sullivan’s killer has never been found and while there were always allegations about sexual impropriety when he was alive, including his possible links with local businessmen and professional people to a suspected paedophile ring in Enniskillen during the 1980s, it is only now with the passage of time that the true extent of activities can be revealed.
Jekyll and Hyde
Long before his murder, Sullivan – a youth leader with both St Macartin’s Cathedral Youth Club and the Duke of Westminster High School’s Youth Club in Ballinamallard – had already become a Jekyll and Hyde character. He spent his days driving for Ulsterbus and his nights in the company of teenage boys and criminals. He played snooker with his friends at the Wellington Snooker Club on Rossorry Church Road and allowed children to use his flat in Enniskillen.
One of his victims came forward this week to reveal how the chain-smoking Sullivan sexually abused him on his school bus 12 times when he was a boy, abuse that stretched over a five-year period.
John (not his real name) told the Impartial Reporter how Sullivan first raped him on his school bus when he was 12 years old, attacking him in a lay-by early one morning near Lisnaskea.
John recalled Sullivan telling him, as he looked over his thick glasses: “I can do what I want.”
“He would appear from anywhere and at any time. It was like a game of cat and mouse. He would have taken the first victim he found. That was me, too many times.”
John believes Sullivan was not operating alone. On one occasion Sullivan tried to force John to get into his car and when the teenager refused Sullivan sped off almost crashing into traffic. About 15 minutes later, another man driving a van pulled up claiming that John’s uncle had asked him to collect him.
“I was told to get into the van. It never dawned on me what was going to happen until he asked me to pull back the floor mat where he had a load of pornographic magazines.
“I was abused there and then. The irony was cruel. I finally stood up to Sullivan only to be met by another.
“There was no way he would have known about me had it not been for Sullivan. That is why I am convinced a paedophile ring was in operation,” John said.
Teenage boys were regularly seen entering and leaving Sullivan’s flat. Police believe he may have been involved with businessmen and professionals in a paedophile ring. These men include some well-known people, including some in positions of trust, who probably thought their secrets would never be unearthed.
Since the Impartial Reporter first published details of the case a few weeks ago, as part of a campaign to raise awareness of historical sex abuse, many victims have come forward to tell their stories.
There’s the man who was raped by several men in toilets in Enniskillen from February 1987, beginning when he was 12 years old.
“I came outside and was actually physically sick on the floor. I wasn’t really sure what had just happened to me,” he said.
“In that alleyway there was nobody and those toilets were empty, only for those men, and I would turn up and then I started seeing other boys there that I would’ve been at school with.”
Police closed an investigation into his claims due to a “lack of evidence”. He turned to alcohol and drugs and has suffered with his mental health ever since.
Then there’s the man who revealed how his attacker, a family friend and prominent businessman, made him watch pornography before sexually abusing him while his wife and children were on holiday.
“I couldn’t believe it, I covered my face and went to the place in my mind I had trained myself to go to. I just wanted my mum to come and save me but I was entrapped in something I didn’t want to admit I even knew about,” said Brian (not his real name). On another occasion the abuser took him to a country lane near Devenish Island and raped him. He was 14.
Five years ago, Brian went to the Police Service of Northern Ireland but his case was dropped by the Public Prosecution Service due to a “lack of evidence”.
Another person to come forward in recent weeks is Karen (not her real name) whose life spiralled out of control after she was repeatedly raped by her brother 30 years ago.
The woman, who has discovered her son was also abused by the same man, recalled when and where the abuse of her first started. She even remembered the colour of the bedsheets. Brown. Her brother was 15 at the time, she was 11.
“I can still see the big room, the double bed, the single bed. I can remember the brown bedspread, brown blankets, the walls were papered but there was one wall that had gloss paint. There was one window with brown curtains and a net curtain. The carpet was brown as well.
“And then it all started. I was 11 when my brother called me into his bedroom to give me a cigarette. Then asked me to touch him,” said Karen.
She claimed she knew of up to nine other victims of the same man and said when both she and her son reported the abuse to the PSNI in 2013 and 2014 the cases were dropped, again, due to “insufficient evidence”.
“It eats away at you like a cancer. Just imagine your heart being ripped from your chest and getting physically sick and not knowing where to turn when your own child tells you they were abused by the same person,” she said.
Questions for authorities
There are many questions now for the authorities. Who murdered Sullivan and why? Why was he never prosecuted for his abuse? Were claims of a paedophile ring ever properly investigated?
This week the PSNI’s public prosecution branch offered to meet the sex abuse victims who have been coming forward.
In a statement, Detective Chief Supt Paula Hilman said: “I am aware of the coverage relating to historic child sexual abuse cases covered by the Impartial Reporter in recent weeks. I would like to offer to meet with any of these victims to explore these incidents further.”
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Translink – which runs Ulsterbus – said in view of the “extremely serious matters” raised by the reports it had contacted the PSNI and was in the process of informing the educational authorities and other appropriate bodies about the claims.
Senior members of the PSNI are to be challenged by the Policing Board on this matter, while chief constable George Hamilton has taken a personal interest in these revelations.
Those sex abusers still living in Co Fermanagh who may have thought they got away with it may well expect a knock on the door from a police officer soon. The past is finally catching up on them.
Fermanagh historical sex abuse claims: Ten are arrested
4 August 2020
Ten people have been arrested by police investigating allegations of historical sexual abuse in County Fermanagh.
They are all aged between 63 and 78, and were arrested in County Fermanagh, Belfast, and Londonderry on Tuesday.
A police operation began last year when dozens of alleged victims of sexual abuse told their stories to the Impartial Reporter newspaper.
There have been claims that a paedophile ring was operating in Fermanagh.
Police have confirmed that as part of their enquiries they want to ascertain whether there are any significant or relevant links between the alleged offending.
Integrity of process
On Tuesday, police said one property in the Fermanagh area was searched as part of their operation.
Det Supt Gary McDonald said police were not in a position to give specific details about each arrest at the current time.
“However, I want to give reassurance to the both victims and the local community that we are continuing to work on the reports made to us over the past year,” he said.
Det Supt McDonald said that to “protect the integrity of each individual investigation” and to allow for an prompt investigation, “the team of investigating officers from Public Protection Branch felt it important that these 10 people were arrested and interviewed simultaneously to ensure the integrity of the interview process”.
Fermanagh child abuse: Four women claim ex-principal abused them
8 August 2019
John McElholm died in 1995
A former school principal in County Fermanagh sexually abused several young girls more than 30 years ago, it has been alleged.
Four women have told the Impartial Reporter newspaper they were attacked by John McElholm, a former principal of St Paul’s Primary School in Irvinestown, who died in 1995.
Mr McElholm was also a former chairman of the Fermanagh GAA county board.
The alleged victims said others knew the abuse was happening.
It is the latest report into historic sexual abuse in County Fermanagh carried by the newspaper in the past several months.
The Impartial Reporter’s Rodney Edwards told BBC Radio Ulster that Mr McElholm was “a highly respected member of the community”.
“For years he allegedly preyed on children by summoning them to his office, closing the blinds and sexually abusing them before sending them back to class,” he said.
“I have been investigating allegations surrounding McElholm for months now.
“The most striking is the amount of people say they knew or had heard rumours about what was going on.
“It was very much an open secret in Irvinestown but why was he allowed to get away with it?” he said.
Mr Edwards was contacted by four of his alleged victims.
‘Pillar of the community’
“They don’t know each other but their stories are similar,” he said.
The newspaper carries testimony from four woman who alleged they were sexually assaulted as children and a man who said he witnessed an attack by Mr McElholm.
One woman told the Impartial Reporter that she was in primary four when the abuse started and that it continued for four years.
She said she “thought no one would believe me as he was a pillar of the community”.
Mr McElholm was also the chairman of the Irish National Teachers Organisation and president of local St Vincent de Paul for a time, the Impartial Reporter reported.
‘Takes allegations seriously’
“By many accounts he was adored and respected by many,” said Mr Edwards.
“For the alleged victims, and for others, it is vital that someone confirms what was known back then and by whom,” he added.
The paper reports that the Public Prosecution Service are interviewing his alleged victims.
The Clogher diocese said it had never been made aware of any allegations against Mr McElholm.
The Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) was established after the alleged abuse took place as and therefore has no records available.
The PSNI told the paper that it does not comment on the detail of specific cases but that it “takes every allegation of child sexual abuse seriously whether it happened recently or many years ago”.
“The public protection branch continue to offer to meet with any victim of historical sexual abuse whether or not previously reported,” it added.
Half of all top IRA men ‘worked for security services’
Half of all senior IRA members in the Troubles were working for intelligence services, a secret dossier of evidence into the murder of two RUC men has claimed.
The remarkable document has laid bare a startling series of claims about the infiltration of both the police and terror groups during the ‘Dirty War’.
It claims the IRA ran agents in the RUC and also that Dundalk Garda station was regarded by British intelligence as “a nest of vipers”, with at least two officers actively assisting the Provos.
The information is contained in a secret 24-page document in the name of Ian Hurst — a British intelligence whistleblower — which has been seen by the Belfast Telegraph.
The sensational claims are due to be made to Justice Peter Smithwick’s Dublin tribunal of inquiry into the murder of two senior RUC officers in 1989.
The victims, Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan, died in a hail of IRA gunfire as they crossed the border following an intelligence exchange with the Garda in Dundalk.
The dossier also claims:
The shadowy Force Research Unit (FRU) had a file on suspected rogue gardai prepared to pass information to the IRA and act as its agents. MI5 also had a network of agents with the Garda.
The IRA had a network of informants in public agencies such as social security offices and vehicle licensing departments.
One in four IRA members was an agent, rising to one in two among senior members.
Martin McGuinness was involved in all strategic military decisions taken by the IRA.
At the centre of the web of intrigue sat the IRA’s head of internal security, the agent known as Stakeknife, who took information from rogue gardai while himself working for British intelligence.
Perhaps the most shocking claim is that a rogue Garda Sergeant leaked intelligence to Stakeknife. Stakeknife has been identified as Freddie Scappaticci, a veteran Belfast republican.
Scappaticci has strongly denied working for British intelligence and said he had cut his links with the IRA in 1990. He is legally represented at the Smitwick Tribunal and is now considering giving evidence in person.
Last night Mr Hurst refused to comment on the document.
He said: “I believe that this was made public to mess me about. I cannot comment on it because of an injunction preventing me from giving details of my career in special forces.”
Mr Hurst worked in military intelligence between 1981 and 1990, spending most of that time in the FRU, responsible for handling agents and informants in Irish paramilitary groups. The injunction has been varied to allow him to give evidence to Smithwick in Dublin.
However tribunal lawyers are insisting that he give his testimony in closed session, something he suspects is part of a deal with the British authorities to limit potentially embarrassing disclosures.
One of the alleged rogue officers in Dundalk has already been indentified. Owen Corrigan, a detective sergeant, was named by Jeffrey Donaldson under Parliamentary privilege. Mr Corrigan, now retired, has always denied the allegation and appeared at the tribunal to reject them. He is one of three gardai, two based in Dundalk and one in Donegal, named in the document.
In the document Mr Hurst says “the fact that a Garda was passing information to the IRA did not bother me anymore or any less than in the same way members of the RUC/UDR/BA (British Army) occasionally passed information to the IRA and regularly to members of various loyalist paramilitaries.”
Mr Hurst assisted John Stevens’ inquiry into security force collusion with terrorists in Northern Ireland.
The document states Lord Stevens told him that of 210 terrorist suspects he arrested, only three were not security force agents, and some worked for several agencies.
Background
The Smithwick Tribunal is examining claims that members of the Irish police or other employees of the Irish State colluded in the murders of the two most senior RUC officers to die in the Troubles. Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Supt Robert Buchanan were shot dead while returning from a meeting at Dundalk Garda station in the Republic. The tribunal has so far heard evidence from a number of witnesses, some of whom have alleged that members of the Garda passed information to the IRA.
A MAN FROM THE DARK CORNER OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
Doubts about Ian Hurst’s reliability were dispelled after I published stories based on his information back in 1999.
The first, an unlikely sounding tale claiming military intelligence had doctored bullets used to shoot Gerry Adams, was immediately confirmed by the Defence Advisory Committee. After that he was arrested, and I was questioned under caution.
For a time I gave him the pseudonym Martin Ingram to obscure his identity, but now that alias has been dropped.
He was the first member of the Force Research Unit (FRU) — the dark corner of military intelligence which ran agents in terrorist groups — to speak publicly.
He had two tours of duty in Northern Ireland. Between 1982 and 1990 he was in Londonderry handling agents like Frank Hegarty, an IRA quartermaster later murdered for betraying a cache of Libyan weapons, and Willie Carlin, who got out just ahead of the execution squad.
A second tour was in Enniskillen between 1990 and 1991. There he met his wife, from a Donegal republican family. That affected his vetting and he bought himself out of the Army in 2003.
Penetration of the Provisionals
Mr Hurst was responsible for handling agents in the IRA and for a time had enhanced access to other agents’ reports, though not their names, on military intelligence computers. He has painted a picture of an organisation penetrated at almost every level and with its head of security, Stakeknife, working for the other side. The document says: “As a rough guide you should expect one in four PIRA volunteers to be agents of one agency or another.” Lord Stevens (above), the former Met chief, is quoted as
saying that only three out of 210 terrorist suspects he arrested in a collusion probe in Northern Ireland were not working for either the RUC, MI5 or the Army. The document claims that Hurst secretly taped a conversation with RAF Air Vice Marshal Andrew Vallance, who was quoted as telling him that the most sensitive matter was the identity of Stakeknife and his role as a British agent.
IRA agents within the Garda
The document claims that the FRU had a file on suspected rogue gardai prepared to pass information to the IRA and act as its agents. It names three people who were allegedly on the list, two in Dundalk and one in Donegal. It quotes Basil Walsh, a senior Garda officer who Mr Hurst met in 1999, as saying he was aware of one named Garda who worked for the IRA. Mr Walsh allegedly told him “that every time something was done to try and eradicate the mess something happened to intervene”. The document also claims MI5 had a network of agents with the Garda. MP Jeffrey Donaldson has named retired detective sergeant Owen Corrigan under Parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons in April 2000, as being a “rogue garda”. Mr Corrigan denies all allegations of collusion. Last week former agent Kevin Fulton claimed Corrigan was passing information to the IRA and was regarded as a “friend” of the group
Role of McGuinness in the IRA
MR Hurst once backed claims that Martin McGuinness reported to MI6, the British foreign intelligence agency. This was based on a document passed to him, and accepted by him in good faith, after he left the Army but which appears to have been a forgery. The document does not repeat that claim but it does put Mr McGuinness in a central role in the IRA. It states the IRA’s “security unit came under the operational command of Northern Command” and adds “the person in charge of that unit throughout the entire Troubles was PIRA member Mr James Martin McGuinness”. It accuses McGuinness of being “directly involved in matters of life and death for persons rightly or indeed wrongly suspected of informing on PIRA members. Mr McGuinness was also a key player in the long-term strategic strategies used by PIRA”. McGuinness has always denied such a leading role and stated that he left the IRA in the early 1970s.
Republican intelligence gathering
It is claimed that the IRA had a network of informants in public agencies such as social security offices and vehicle licensing, North and South. This echoes claims by Martin McGartland , a former RUC agent in the IRA. One section of the document reads: “PIRA was extensively penetrated at all levels, most sources of the information to PIRA were readily identified (by military intelligence) but seldom compromised.” To back up its claims that the intelligence services turned a blind eye to IRA intelligence sources, it claims that in the early 1990s a FRU agent was targeted by the IRA with the help of a social security employee who is still working in the same office. It claims that the IRA could informally “obtain information from driver licensing, social security, councils, utilities far quicker than the FRU”, especially in cross-border areas where red tape was involved in working through the RUC and Garda.
Stakeknife, the Army’s key agent
Stakeknife was a key military intelligence agent within the IRA, a man with a hotline of his own which gave him direct contact with dedicated handlers in an office known as the ‘rat hole’. When he called, he identified himself with a code number, but Mr Hurst learned his true identify by chance while manning the phone. Stakeknife had been caught drink-driving and gave uniformed police the hotline number in an effort to extricate himself. Hurst vouched for him, and it has been claimed that Stakeknife was Freddie Scappaticci, though Mr Scappaticci strongly denies this. The document expands on Stakeknife’s role as head of the IRA internal security. It claims he controlled IRA agents in the Garda. The most corrosive suggestion which Justice Peter Smithwick will have to consider is that officers Breen and Buchanan were allowed to die rather than risk compromising the Army’s most important agent in Ireland.
The web of collusion and spies
MR Hurst has frequently claimed some members of the RUC, UDR and Army colluded with terror groups. The statement portrays a wilderness of mirrors in which every organisation has the other penetrated to some degree and “all sources have a shelf life”. It talks of British agents in the Garda, Garda agents in Northern Ireland, IRA agents in the RUC and Garda and RUC agents in the IRA. It states “the fact that a Garda was passing information to the IRA did not bother me any more or any less than in the same way members of the RUC/UDR/BA (British Army) passed information to the IRA and members of various loyalist paramilitaries. It was a matter for HQNI and the RUC and way above my pay grade … in other words it was a strategic and not a tactical problem”. It concludes that none of this “registered massively on the Richter scale, it was just a fact of life, indeed it was well within the rules of our game!”
The document states Lord Stevens told him that of 210 terrorist suspects he arrested, only three were not security force agents, and some worked for several agencies – a proxy war fought in NI by shadowy competing westminster groups
Scott Nelson@SocialistVoice
Michael Gove wrote an extreme right-wing pamphlet against NI Peace Process, labelling it a moral stain#DUP Coalition
Robert Alston was born in 1938, brought up in Sussex, educated at Ardingly College and New College Oxford, and did National Service with the Royal Sussex Regiment.
From 1961 to 1998 he was a member of the Diplomatic Service. The Middle East (as a Persian speaker) and defence, security and proliferation issues were the principal themes of his career. He served overseas in Afghanistan, France, Iran, Belgium (in the British Delegation to NATO), Oman (as ambassador from 1986-90), and New Zealand (as High Commissioner also accredited to Samoa and as Governor of the Pitcairn Islands from 1994-98); also in Belfast on secondment to the Northern Ireland Office.
Since retiring from the Diplomatic Service he has been involved with education (as Chairman of the Council of Ardingly College from 2005-10 and Chairman of the Governing Body of the Marsh Academy New Romney fro 2007-13); the Church (on the staff of Archbishop George Carey from 1999-2002; the Commonwealth Institute and its successor the Commonwealth Education Trust; the Pilgrims, where he serves as a member of the Executive Committee; and the County of Kent as a Kent Ambassador and a Deputy Lieutenant from 2007-13.
He became a Freeman of the World Traders (on the firm recommendation of Past Master Peter Gadsden) in 2000, and progressed through the Company to the Mastership in 2007-8. For him highlights of his year were the Sheep Drive across London Bridge in aid of the Lord Mayor’s charities (the brainchild of his wife Pat, also a Liveryman of the Company), and leading a delegation of World Traders to accompany Lord Mayor David Lewis on his official visit to Oman.
George Carey, who was archbishop of Canterbury at the time when police were investigating claims of sexual abuse by Peter Ball, wrote letters of support, to the director of public prosecutions and the chief constable of Gloucester police in February 1993.
Carey wrote of Ball’s “excruciating pain and spiritual torment” and the implications for the state of his mental health.
Ball escaped prosecution at the time, resigned his post as bishop and retired to a cottage provided by Prince Charles, Prince of Wales’s Duchy of Cornwall estate.
After a fresh investigation was opened in 2012, Ball, now 83, was sentenced to 32 months in prison in October 2015 after pleading guilty to abusing 18 vulnerable young men between 1977 and 1992.
Since retiring from the Diplomatic Service he has been involved with education (as Chairman of the Council of Ardingly College from 2005-10 and Chairman of the Governing Body of the Marsh Academy New Romney from 2007-13);the Church (on the staff of Archbishop George Carey from 1999-2002; the Commonwealth Institute and its successor the Commonwealth Education Trust; the Pilgrims, where he serves as a member of the Executive Committee; and the County of Kent as a Kent Ambassador and a Deputy Lieutenant from 2007-13.
He became a Freeman of the World Traders (on the firm recommendation of Past Master Peter Gadsden) in 2000, and progressed through the Company to the Mastership in 2007-8. For him highlights of his year were the Sheep Drive across London Bridge in aid of the Lord Mayor’s charities (the brainchild of his wife Pat, also a Liveryman of the Company), and leading a delegation of World Traders to accompany Lord Mayor David Lewis on his official visit to Oman.
Led by Freeman Hon causa Pat Alston ONZM, in the organisation of the 2008 London Bridge Sheep Drive which raised more than £50,000 for the Lord Mayor’s Appeal.
Patricia Alston, ONZM, is a Director of Romney Tweed CIC, a company she founded in 2012 which aims to create employment in an area of social deprivation on the Romney Marsh, Kent, through the manufacture of high quality cloth from the wool of Romney sheep.
A former secretary in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) from 1959-1969, she served in Tokyo, the FCO Inspectorate and the Private Office.
From 1969-1998, she accompanied her husband, Robert, a member of the Diplomatic Service, on postings to France, Iran, Belgium, Oman and New Zealand. From 1986-1990, Robert served as Ambassador to Oman, and from 1994-1998 as High Commissioner to New Zealand, also accredited to Samoa, and as Governor of the Pitcairn Islands.
Patricia is a former Chairman of the British Diplomatic Families Association and was Chairman of The World Traders Sheep Drive Committee in 2008. She is a Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of World Traders.
In 2010 Patricia was awarded New Zealand’s honour, the ONZM, in recognition of her services to New Zealand – United Kingdom relations.
The company No. 8850986 was incorporated on 24 January 2014
PATRONS
Admiral of the Fleet the Lord Boyce, KG,GCB,OBE,DL, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Governor of Dover Castle Sir David Wootton, former Lord Mayor of London, and Deputy Chairman of the City Wool Advisory Board
DIRECTORS
Patricia Alston,ONZM, Founder of Romney Tweed CIC, former Chairman of British Diplomatic Spouses Association, Chairman of World Traders Sheep Drive Committee 2008. Robert Alston,CMG,QSO,DL, retired diplomat, former Chairman of the Governors of Marsh Academy and Ardingly College. Member of Kent Ambassadors and Deputy Lieutenant of Kent, Past Master World Trader. John Corneille, Independent management consultant, former PwC Partner and Chair of the Pro Bono committee of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants. Edna Delaney, Managing Director, Romney Resource Centre, which specialises in assisting educational underachievers, NEETS, the unemployed and early school leavers. Alison Gowman, Partner in DLA Piper UK LLP, Alderman of the City of London. Trustee of several organisations. Past Master Glover. Ursula Underhill, Consultant in education and assessment. Previously worked for Cambridge International Examinations (a department of the University of Cambridge). Taught for 17 years in secondary, further and higher education.
COMPANY SECRETARY
Alan Milne, FCIS, Chartered Secretary in Practice with International Experience.
ROBERT ALSTON AND PRINCE CHARLES (CLOSE FRIEND OF PAEDOPHILE SIR JIMMY SAVILE)
MORE than 300 guests joined HRH Princes Charles and HH Sayyid Shihab bin Tariq Al Said for the 40th Anniversary reception of the Anglo Omani Society at Lancaster House London, Other notable guests included Robert Alston, the Anglo Omani Society chairman…Sir Alan Duncan
Prince Charles said he particularly welcomed the formation of the Anglo Omani Society’s New Generation Group which is working with the Princes Trust in Oman. He pointed to work of the Trust, which following his visit in 2013, is now supporting the Public Authority for SME Development (Riyada) in Oman helping to mentor entrepreneurs.
Duke of York supports call for Oman-UK trade agreement
2016
Prince Andrew – linked to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein (LOLITA EXPRESS) and Robert Alston – brother of Richard Alston convicted paedophile/part of PIE ring who abused children with John Whittingdale’s half brother, PIE treasurer Charles Napier
Duke of York supports call for Oman-UK trade agreement
23rd July 2016
Prince Andrew was addressing a reception of senior Omani and British diplomats and business figures at the Anglo-Omani Society (AoS) headquarters in Sackville Street, London held by the Omani British Friendship Association (OBFA) of which he is Patron.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al Hinai, the Sultanate’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Robert Alston, Chairman of the Omani-British Society, members of the society and members of the Omani diplomatic mission in Britain were present on the occasion.
London: On the occasion of the Omani British Friendship Association (OBFA) Financial Services Roundtable, The Anglo-Omani Society and OBFA hosted a reception on Monday in the presence of His Royal Highness The Duke of York and His Highness Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, patrons of OBFA.
Attended by leading dignitaries and senior level business figures from both Britain and the Sultanate, the event, hosted by the Anglo-Omani Society and OBFA at the Society’s premises in Sackville Street, was organised on the occasion of the OBFA Financial Services Roundtable.
AoS chairman Robert Alston with His Highness Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said with Prince Andrew in the rear
Other guests included HE Sheikh Al Hinai, Oman’s Ambassador to the UK, HE Dr Al Futaisi Oman’s Minister of Transport, Lord Ahmad UK Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport as well as the Ambassadors of Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. In addition the Anglo Omani Society chairman Robert Alston and its New Generation Group chairmen Oliver Blake and Sheikh Ma’an Hamad Al-Rawahi helped host the event.
Businesses and Omani Government organisations represented included HSBC, Oman Air, Omran, Oman Global Logistics, Ithraa, Apex Publishing, Oman Travel, Dentons LLP, BAE Systems, Charles Kendall Group, Carillion, Pathfinders and BP.
Robert Alston was a director of the Antarctic Heritage Trust – Prince Charles’ sister, Princess Anne is patron
Robert Alston on the staff of Archbishop George Carey from 1999-2002.
Archbishop Carey accused of failing to refer to police detailed 1992 allegations against Peter Ball.
George Carey, who was archbishop of Canterbury at the time when police were investigating claims of sexual abuse by Ball, wrote in support of Ball to the director of public prosecutions and the chief constable of Gloucester police in February 1993.
Several people who allege that Bishop Ball abused them while serving as Bishop of Lewes between 1997 and 1992 are preparing to sue the diocese of Chichester for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Why did the CPS abandon investigation into Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor?
The reputation of Sussex as a paedophile hotspot now has further credence thanks to child sex abuse convictions in the overlapping Anglican diocese of Chichester ...
Cardinal Murphy O’Connor’s Cover-Up of Child Abusers Must Be a Lesson to the Catholic Church
NSS Executive Director Keith Porteous Wood has followed the career of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor who died on 1 September 2017 and seeks to set the historical record straight with this alternative obituary.
The death of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor has understandably resulted in obituaries lauding his achievements as a Prince of the Catholic Church. But we are pleased that few ignore entirely the Cardinal’s involvement in one of the most scandalous child abuse cover-ups this country has seen.
I don’t doubt for a moment that Cardinal Murphy O’Connor did some good in his life, but there was another side to his story that should not be forgotten – a side that resulted in pain and suffering for many children. And the ruthless campaign by the Church to repress the details of the Cardinal’s many errors and misjudgements, and worse.
Despite the image of a genial old buffer that the Cardinal liked to project, it did not stop him, in 2006, from sacking his talented press secretary, a lay position, simply because he was “openly gay”. And O’Connor was “firmly against the repeal of Clause 28, which banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools”, a repressive and vindictive measure now regarded with embarrassment. This, despite the prevalence of gay men in the priesthood.
Those with long memories will also remember that, following complaints from parents, O’Connor, when Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, moved a known serial practising paedophile cleric, Michael Hill, from unsuspecting parish to unsuspecting parish.
If O’Connor’s objective had been to reward Hill by affording him the greatest possible opportunities to prey on an almost unlimited supply of vulnerable unaccompanied juveniles, some of them thousands of miles from their parents, he could have done no better than appoint Hill as Catholic chaplain at Gatwick Airport. Yet this is exactly what O’Connor did, despite his knowledge of Hill’s repeat offending and psychiatric reports that Hill was likely to re-offend.
Needless to say, O’Connor never shared what he knew about Hill’s criminal abusive activities with the police, contributing directly to Hill’s ability to continue his orgy of abuse unhindered. Hill was eventually convicted and jailed in two separate trials for abusing a boy with learning difficulties at the Airport, as well as eight other boys. Ten further charges unaccountably “remain on file”.
To his dying day, the best Murphy O’Connor could do in his mea culpa on Hill was to say his response was “inadequate but not irresponsible”. Not much consolation to the victims and their families. Nor will have been the self-righteous indignation of his pitiful response to criticism:
“Inevitably mistakes have been made in the past; but not for want of trying to take the right and best course of action.”
Richard Scorer, abuse lawyer and NSS director, examined the Hill saga exhaustively in his book Betrayed: The English Catholic Church and the Sex Abuse Crisis and demonstrated beyond doubt that O’Connor’s claims about Michael Hill were completely baseless.
And, so predictably, O’Connor’s affable mask slipped again and he got pretty vicious when the media started asking what were, to his mind, too many questions and getting too close to the uncomfortable truth.
Few if any others than O’Connor could have managed to intimidate the BBC into silence, yet having done so, O’Connor still had the gall to claim that there was an anti-Catholic bias in the media. He wrote:
“Many others feel deeply concerned by the apparently relentless attack by parts of the media on their faith and on the church in which they continue to believe.”
That old trick so well practised by the Catholic hierarchy: portraying itself as the victim.
That would all be shocking enough, yet there is credible speculation that the Hill saga could have been just the visible tip of the iceberg. A 2012/3 report by the group Stop Church Sexual Abuse has speculated that:
“[Anglican] clergy … seem to have worked together with priests from [O’Connor’s] Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton … to abuse children.
Reports include that of a Catholic priest who had multiple reports for alleged child sex offences and who was moved by the Catholic Bishop [O’Connor] over to the CoE diocese of Chichester and became an Anglican Minister.
“The relationship between the [Catholic] Diocese of Arundel and Brighton [O’Connor’s] and [the Anglican one of] Chichester [in which Peter Ball, mentioned below, ministered] has been historically close. … in the 1980s … Bishops Cormac Murphy O’Connor and Peter Ball [not imprisoned until 2015 on multiple counts of sexual abuse committed over twenty years earlier] were close friends and it is now [claimed] that both sat on multiple reports of child sexual abuse by clergy and did nothing to protect children from further abuse.
“In total upwards of 17 Anglican and 19 Catholic clergy have been reported to have abused children up to the late 1990s within these Dioceses. Most lived and/or worked within one small geographic area which adds to the concern that there [may have been] a network of sex offenders shoaling for victims within church communities, schools, cathedrals, youth groups and scouting groups.”
Even the Daily Telegraph reported police investigations into “claims that O’Connor hampered Hill’s prosecution” and if the claims above are correct about O’Connor’s close friendship and nefarious collaboration with the devious and mendacious Peter Ball, who escaped justice for decades, this does not seem in the least far-fetched.
At least, however, O’Connor is still indelibly connected in the public’s mind with the disgraceful Michael Hill saga, having been widely reported including in The Times, with severe criticisms including “Victims’ groups demanded his resignation in 2002”.
The Church could not but have known very much more. But the process of rewriting history is no doubt in full progress.
Does it not however speak volumes about the Pope and Catholic Church that, given all the above, they chose, out of all the possible candidates, “His Eminence Cardinal” Cormac Murphy O’Connor to be a cardinal, to be the most senior Catholic in England and Wales, to be Emeritus Archbishop of Westminster, and to be the Pope’s Apostolic Visitor to investigate clerical child abuse in the Archdiocese of Armagh?
But maybe we should not be surprised. The Pope tellingly did not strip O’Connor’s fellow Cardinal in Scotland, Keith O’Brien, of his cardinal’s biretta for abusing his rank with decades of predatory sexual activity, when it all came to light in 2013.
It seems from the Gibb Report into disgraced former Bishop Ball that Sussex police appear to have done a workman-like job on abuse in the Anglican diocese. I would have suggested that the Sussex Police now turn their attention to the Catholic diocese, but unfortunately the CPS told them in 2003 to abandon the investigation whilst refusing to explain why. Hopefully this was not because of O’Connor’s clerical rank, just like the CofE’s Report suggested Peter Ball’s cleric rank was the reason he escaped justice in 1993.
Damian Green sacked after ‘misleading statements’ on porn claims
20 DEC 2017
Damian Green, one of Theresa May’s closest allies, has been sacked from the cabinet after an inquiry found he had breached the ministerial code.
He was “asked to quit” after he was found to have made “inaccurate and misleading” statements about what he knew about claims pornography was found on his office computer in 2008.
He also apologised for making writer Kate Maltby feel uncomfortable in 2015.
Laura Kuenssberg said the PM “had little choice but to ask him to go”.
The BBC’s political editor said the departure of a close friend left Mrs May a “lonelier figure”.
The 61-year old Mr Green, who as first secretary of state was effectively the PM’s deputy, is the third cabinet minister to resign in the space of two months, Michael Fallon and Priti Patel having both quit in November.
In her written response, Mrs May expressed “deep regret” at Mr Green’s departure but said his actions “fell short” of the conduct expected of a cabinet minister.
He had been under investigation regarding allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards journalist and Tory activist Ms Maltby. He denied suggestions that he made unwanted advances towards her in 2015.
He also denied that he had either downloaded or viewed pornography on a computer removed from his Commons office in 2008.
An official report by the Cabinet Office found that two statements he had made in November about being unaware pornographic material had been found on a computer in his office were “inaccurate and misleading” and constituted a breach of the ministerial code.
The report also found that although there were “competing and contradictory accounts of what were private meetings” between himself and Ms Maltby, the investigation found her account “to be plausible”.
Her parents, Colin and Victoria Maltby, said in a statement they were not surprised to find that the inquiry found Mr Green to have been “untruthful as a minister, nor to that they found our daughter to be a plausible witness”.
They praised their 31-year-old daughter for her courage in speaking out about the “abuse of authority”.
Ms Maltby is not commenting on Mr Green’s resignation until she receives more details from the Cabinet Office.
In his resignation letter, Mr Green said statements he made about what he knew about the pornography could have been “clearer”, conceding his lawyers had been informed by lawyers for the Met Police about their initial discovery in 2008 and the police had also raised the matter within him in a phone call in 2013.
“I apologise that my statements were misleading on this point,” he said.
Damian Green has never been a politician with a huge public persona, or even a hugely well-known character.
But he was an extremely important ally of Theresa May. Not just a political friend but a genuine one, close to her for decades.
The parish priest in the village of Newick, the Rev. John Baker, organized a donors’ group to back Mr. Knight in his struggle and mobilized the support, among others, of Viscount Hampden, Viscount Brentford, the Earl of March and Mrs. Susan Sainsbury, the wife of a Conservative Member of Parliament. Their efforts won the support of the Anglican Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball, a member of a small monastic order who shuns ecclesiastical vestments and worships in a converted pigsty. Group Contributed $313,000
The Secret Life of a Paedophile exposed a Chaplain at Ardingly, later Bishop John Neale, to have colluded with Righton.
Bishop John Neale wrote a letter to Righton concerning one of those boys abused by Righton and when Neale was asked if he knew of his long-standing friend’s (Peter Righton) sexual interest in boys and whether he might have done more to protect them, he declined to reply.
Smith and Brittan are dead, as is Willie Whitelaw who had, while Home Secretary in 1980, allegedly blocked a police investigation into a Westminster paedophile ring.
Also gone is Sir Tony Hetherington, the DPP at the time that the then Lancashire police chief Albert Laugharne was told by his office to shut up about Smith.
Paedophile Sir William van Straubenzee is in Jeffery Epstein’s Black Book
More people at Ardingly charged with child sexual abuse:
CLIVE WILLIAMS
Clive Williams was a director at …Ardingly College along with Robert Alston -diplomat brother of convicted paedophile, PIE member, Richard Alston – partner of PIE member Peter Righton
Maurice Victor Clive Williams, of Ardingly College Limited (Ardingly College, College Road, Ardingly, RH18 5JY, Forest Row) is a 72-year-old director that is mentioned in 3 filings. This British national worked for 1 company, to name just a few Ardingly College Limited.
This director worked with The Revd Canon John Ratings in Ardingly College Limited, Nicholas Paul Smith in Ardingly College Limited, Andrew Kerr Stewart Roberts, Simon Charles Ward, Caroline Fiona Rich.
20 former pupils at Ashdown House prep school in Sussex – where London mayor Boris Johnson was a boarder – have recently come forward with complaints about extreme cruelty and sex offences committed on them as young boys. A number of teachers are being investigated.
Maurice Victor Clive Williams, 71, retired, of High St, Barcombe, East Sussex, has been charged with four offences, two of indecent assault and two of gross indecency, all with a girl under 16. Another man, Martin Haigh, 66, unemployed, of Lavender St, Brighton, has also been charged with eleven offences, five of indecent assault and six of gross indecency. Four of the indecent assault charges against Haigh involve one boy and the fifth charge involves another boy. Two of the gross indecency charges involve the boy subject of the four indecent assault charges, two involve a second boy, one involves another third boy and one involves a fourth boy. All the boys were aged under 16 at the time of the alleged offences. The offences are alleged to have occurred while both men were employed as teachers at Ashdown House School near Forest Row. None of the offences are alleged to have been committed jointly. The charges, authorised by the CPS, follow an investigation by East Sussex child safeguarding detectives.
A third man, now aged 68, arrested in Tadley, Hants, in January 2015 on suspicion of gross indecency, has been stood down from his police bail while the CPS consider the evidence in relation to him.
‘Men Who Are Attracted to 13-Year-Old Boys Make the Best Teachers’ – Director of Kent Social Services ’74-’85
The Confessions of Rev. Nicolas Stacey
Nicolas Stacey was Director of Social Services for Kent from 1974 to 1985.
In the archives of the British Library are five tapes which should be a cause of concern to us all. Much of the interview with Rev. Nicolas Stacey relives his action-packed adventures at war, his unlikely turn as an Olympic athlete, and his time in the Church of England. Some of the content of the tapes have caused victims of Kendall House sexual abuse to call for an immediate inquiry.
Nicolas Stacey was the Director of Social Services for Kent from 1974 until 1985. The position was relatively new and had only been created three years prior. Nick had made a sideways move from being Director of Social Services for Ealing from its inception in 1971. On the tapes, Stacey says “They started these social service departments, and I thought that this could be something that I could do. Although I was neither a social worker, nor local government officer.”
He goes on to explain, “I think the Chief Executive thought, ‘Look, I’m going to upstage Keith Joseph’ (the then Secretary of State for Social Services) by persuading the council to put up somebody who would be turned down again, because I was not, simply not, qual… ‘cause in general, almost all the people that were appointed had some social worker training.” Stacey was obviously unsuitable for the role but by 1974 he was in charge of six thousand staff across Kent, and responsible for over one hundred thousand potential service users.
If we rewind the tape at this point and go back to Nicolas Stacey talking about his school days, we can begin to see why he was so inappropriate for the role.
Billy Williamson
I was amazed to hear Rev. Stacey talk of his old Deputy Headmaster at Wellesley House Pre-Prep School, Broadstairs, Kent. I had already heard of the fiendish Billy Williamson whilst investigating Ashdown House Prep School, the Sussex boarding school where Boris Johnson was a student. After his time as Stacey’s deputy head in Broadstairs, William Glynn Williamson became the headmaster of Ashdown House and his reign of terror was unforgettable to the students whom he ruled. He was known for bare-bottom flogging of teenage boys, harsh corporal punishment, and a short fuse. William Glynn Williamson had married the mother of a Wellesley house pupil, Laura Violet Morton, and used her fortune to acquire Ashdown House boarding school for boys.
In Alex Renton’s book, Stiff Upper Lip: Secrets, Crimes, and the Schooling of a Ruling Class, we can see examples of Billy Williamson and his behaviour towards children. Renton writes, “Billy Williamson had taken over Ashdown shortly after the Second World War. One of his pupils in the early 1940s, when he taught at a school called Wellesley House, was publisher Anthony Blond. In a memoir, he described Williamson as a ‘magic man,’ a brilliant teacher. Blond says Williamson was ‘in love, as teachers have to be (without being practising pederasts) if they are to stay sane, with the concept of ‘boy’ – and some specimens more than others’.” Williamson was a keen flogger of their “bare bottoms,” but the pupils liked their master no less.
Rev. Stacey was good friends with Anthony Blond, who also published his autobiography Who Cares? in 1971. Nick Stacey describes on the tapes how Blond was a “very colourful man” and goes on to say, “He married and then I think he got divorced, and he lived with the most ‘beautiful boy’ in London, called Andrew McCall, and that split up. And then he married a very upper class girl. And much younger than him. And I said to Anthony when he got engaged to her, what do her parents think about this and he said, ‘They think I’m an elderly bisexual Jew.’”
Nick Stacey would also describe Billy Williamson in a peculiar manner on the recordings. “Willie Williamson, who went on to be headmaster at Ashdown Forest where Princess Margaret sent her son, was a genius with bright, attractive 13-year-old boys… and absolutely never did anything that was the least bit improper — but I mean he was really an example of [how] people who are attracted to boys of that age are the most brilliant teachers.”
Williamson would also employ Martin Haigh, the teacher who in 2017 was convicted of sexually abusing four boys during his time teaching at Ashdown House. Billy Williamson’s brutal abuse of young boys would continue unabated until he stepped down as headmaster of Ashdown in 1975.
Rev. Nicolas Stacey frequently used terms like “bright attractive 13-year-old boys,” “beautiful boys,” and made statements like “people who are attracted to boys of that age are the most brilliant teachers.” If those statements were to be made in an interview for the Director of Social Services for Kent today, what would happen? I would suggest the result should be a public inquiry.
Stacey’s Blanket Silencing
The third and fourth tapes contain damning evidence of neglect, cover ups, and a systematic culture of ignoring children that went right to the top of Kent Social Services. Stacey became relaxed speaking to the interviewer, Louise Brodie. After hours of stating his early triumphs, Nick begins to speak of his tenure as the Director of Kent Social Services. At times, he makes more statements that cause concern.
“It’s terribly sad when you’re sexually orientated towards children,” he said, while defending a Canadian child sex offender who was a church organist. Stacey describes how he frightened the other Directors of Social Services because he was “a different beast.” But his tone becomes almost sinister when talking of rules he set down with his six thousand member staff about dealing with accusations of abuse. “Nobody was to go to the police about accusations against staff without my approval. And it is incredible the way times have changed. I could never begin to do that now. But children, especially children in care, are incredibly manipulative.” Nicolas Stacey should never have been director of Kent social services.
Children were physically pinned down in Kendall House, drugged with excessive doses of controversial medications, beaten regularly, mentally abused, sexually abused, and in some cases raped. Nicolas Stacey states, “I never once went to the police. This was because I never felt that we had a serious case and never in the eleven years I was there did a scandal occur. I mean no scandal that I know of, or none that got out in the public.” Louise Brodie cuts in on the recording and asks Stacey, “No scandal about your staff?” Stacey replies, “About my staff. Now what I did do, I said ‘Look, I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to resign. I am going to have you put on the register of “at risk”.’” A clear admission by Rev. Nick Stacey that he had covered up abuse whilst head of the Kent Social Services. This was Stacey’s “Frost-Nixon” moment. “I would try and get them to go to counselling, had it emerged, you know, that… rampant abuse of kids had occurred, you know.”
Nick Stacey openly admitted on tape that there were cases of abuse, but that he had not informed the police, and instead offered voluntary counselling to the abuser. No mention of the abused at all. But the shock confessions don’t stop there. Stacey went on to say, “A member of staff once hit a child very hard and we had to go to the police. But I went into the dock. I got one of the best QCs. In fact, he was a son of Canon John Collins, you would know from your South African experience. And I went to court and spoke. I said you’ve got no idea how these children wind care staff up. You know, we sit comfortably at our home, we expect care staff with small pay to look after some of the most admittedly tragically deprived. It’s not their fault that they wind people up, and they’re aggressive. Once somebody loses their cool and they do hit somebody then, you know, you say they should be locked up. And I got them off.” Stacey seemed to be very focused on his staff and never on the service users in his care. How many other cases of abuse did he cover-up?
The Survivors
For Stacey it was always about winning, but for the former residents of Kendall House during his term as Director of Social Services for Kent, life had been about loss. The tapes, which were recorded in 2006, were discovered by one of the survivors. Teresa Cooper had once been locked in a room for over a hundred and sixty days in Kendall House. That was one of the many various illegal punishments that the teenage girls living in the care home endured.
My initial thought whilst listening to the Nicolas Stacey tapes was of the various survivors of Kendall House during his tenure as director. I spoke with Teresa Cooper and I asked how it felt when she first discovered the tapes. “I was shocked,” Mrs. Cooper told me, “and then I cried because I didn’t know who to tell as no one listens to me.” I could only imagine the range of emotions that Teresa Cooper experienced. She went on to tell me “I can’t describe how shocked I was. Mortified is an understatement because when you listen to the recordings you realise what you are up against.”
What’s clear from listening to the seven hours of interviews, is that Nicolas Stacey was very much a part of the establishment. Rev. Stacey admitted to hiding cases of abuse while he was responsible for the safety of the children in care homes around Kent. This admission should be enough to deserve a public inquiry into Kent Social Services during his reign as well as the Kent Police force’s response to the recorded confessions. Nick Stacey is a perfect example of the culture that existed in the United Kingdom during the 70s and 80s, where the cries of victims were ignored. Instead, Stacey routinely protected sexual predators and child abusers in general. It is important for all of us to understand what went wrong during that period of systematic child sexual abuse. Kent Police and Kent Social Services refuse to take any responsibility for their inaction even after the facts have surfaced.
There are still hundreds of people who suffered abuse, whilst in Kent care homes, who remain unrepresented. Their extreme experiences and ongoing related sufferings have been ignored by the current Kent establishment. And yet, before Nicolas Stacey’s death in May 2017, he was honoured as a speaker at the Kent Legend’s Association dinner. His various obituaries in the major British newspapers praised him as a man who helped revolutionise the care industry. His sympathy for and aid to paedophiles has been completely ignored.
Former headmaster of prep school attended by Boris Johnson and Damian Lewis is arrested on suspicion of child sex offences
Clive Williams, 69, is understood to have been arrested on Wednesday
He took the helm at Ashdown House in 1975 and remained until 2003
£24,000-a-year school in East Sussex dogged by claims of historic abuse
Mr Williams was released on bail after interview while investigations continue
Johnson family left ‘sad’ and grateful for Mr Williams’ ‘fantastic teaching’
11 July 2014
The former headmaster of the £24,000-a-year prep school attended by Boris Johnson has been arrested on suspicion of child sex offences.
Clive Williams led Ashdown House school in East Sussex, whose former pupils also include the Homeland actor Damian Lewis, the Queen’s nephew Viscount Linley and former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell, for almost 30 years.
He is understood to be the 69-year-old man who Sussex Police say they arrested and interviewed on Wednesday over alleged sexual assaults and child neglect.
Mr Williams was released on bail while investigations continue and is not charged with any offence.
The former headmaster of the £24,000-a-year prep school attended by Boris Johnson has been arrested on suspicion of child sex offences.
Clive Williams led Ashdown House school in East Sussex, whose former pupils also include the Homeland actor Damian Lewis, the Queen’s nephew Viscount Linley and former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell, for almost 30 years.
Alumni: The Queen’s nephew Viscount Linley
New boy: Viscount Linley, then aged 7, is left in the care of ‘Billy’ Williamson in 1969.
The headmaster, who had been so charming to Princess Margaret, turned out to be a sadist, addicted to spanking the bare bottoms of his charges.
There was talk of blackmail and predatory older pupils encouraged by abusive teachers. That chimed with my adult perception of the bizarre sexualisation of life at Ashdown, especially the system of reward and discipline. At least two children I knew who had been given authority over younger kids used it to force sexual contact – Williamson seemed to have turned a blind eye. There was talk of connections with house masters at Eton, to which Ashdown fed pupils. There had been at least one suicide. There were more teachers in the complaint.
Stanley Johnson (centre) with friends Norman Lamont and Leon Brittan
The hard choices that face the Father of the Mayor
Stanley Johnson
7 May 2008
By chance, Clive Williams, headmaster of Ashdown House, the Sussex prep-school which Boris and three of his siblings (Rachel, Leo and Jo) attended, telephoned me as I sat down to write this article to congratulate me on becoming First Father.
‘What about this charge, Clive,’ I asked, ‘that Boris doesn’t pay attention to detail?’
‘Codswallop!’ Clive replied. ‘You can’t write Greek and Latin prose as well as Boris did without having a supreme ability to master detail. If you’re going to get it right, you have to be meticulous.’
Here’s one of Maurice Williams / Clive Williams’ teachers:
Martin Haigh – Ashdown teacher
Ex-teacher sentenced for sex offences at East Sussex boarding school in 1970s
24 Mar, 2017
Martin Haigh
A Brighton man has been given 12- year prison sentence for sexual offences against four pupils at an East Sussex boarding school, at Ashdown House School, where he was a teacher in the 1970s, and possession of indecent images of children.Martin Haigh (pictured), 67, unemployed, of Lavender St, Brighton, was sentenced at Brighton Crown Court on Friday (24 March) after a four day trial on charges of offences against two of the boys, which had ended in his being convicted on the previous day.He was convicted of four offences, one of indecent assault and three of gross indecency, against the two boys who were then pupils aged between seven and 12, at Ashdown House School, an independent preparatory boarding school near Forest Row, between 1973 and 1975 while he was a teacher there.At a previous hearing before the trial Haigh had also admitted seven other offences, three of gross indecency and four of indecent assault, against two other boys at the school during the same period.He also admitted an offence of possessing indecent images of children, found on a computer at his address when officers searched it in 2015. The images were taken from the Internet and there is no evidence that they were children known to him.Haigh was sentenced to a total of 11 years for the sexual offences and an additional one year for the possession of indecent images.He will be a registered sex offender for life and has been served with a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) severely restricting his access to children and computers.The prosecution, authorised by the CPS, followed an investigation by East Sussex child safeguarding detectives after allegations were referred to them for the first time in January 2014.Police emphasise that there are no current or recent safeguarding issues at the school in relation to this case.Detective Constable Paul Deadman said; “This was a complex and protracted investigation, during which it became clear that Haigh had systematically taken advantage of the trust of young and vulnerable boys to abuse them for his own sexual gratification.
He is understood to be the 69-year-old man who Sussex Police say they arrested and interviewed on Wednesday over alleged sexual assaults and child neglect.
Mr Williams was released on bail while investigations continue and is not charged with any offence.
A spokesman for the family told The Times: ‘We are all sad to hear this news. We were all four happy at Ashdown and will always be especially grateful to Clive Williams for his fantastic teaching.’
There is no suggestion that the Johnsons, Mr Lewis, Mr Mitchell or Viscount Linley were among the alleged victims.
Mr Williams took the helm of the school near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, with his wife Rowena in 1975 and remained until 2003, a time in which the school admitted girls for the first time.
Since he left, however, the 170-year-old school has become the centre of allegations of historic sexual abuse.
In December it emerged two former pupils were suing the school over abuse they claimed happened in the 1970s and involved ‘more than one teacher’.
An email seen by the Daily Mail said: ‘The effects of this abuse has damaged a number of pupils long into adulthood and it is felt among us that, as part of the healing process, it is important for us to take our power back and take action against such damaging and horrendous actions.’
Multiple complaints have been forwarded to officers from Sussex Police’s Operation Mitre who have been in touch with more than 20 alleged victims, including some who live abroad.
The Sussex Police spokesman added: ‘During January this year we were contacted by a firm of Solicitors representing a number of clients who have reported to them that they were sexually and physically assaulted by staff whilst they were pupils at Ashdown House School near Forest Row in the 1970’s.
The investigation continues and now spans a period from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.
Damian Lewis: Boarding school is a ‘very violent’ experience that ‘defines you emotionally for life’
Posted on 16 May 2016 by Boarding Concern
Damian Lewis, the Old Etonian actor, has told how he found being sent to boarding school a “very violent experience“.
The star said children who are sent away from home to be educated are left with an experience that “defines you emotionally for the rest of your life”.
The son of a City broker, he was born in the wealthy London suburb of St John’s Wood and was sent to boarding school Eton, whose former pupils include David Cameron and Boris Johnson.
Lewis, who has two children with fellow actor Helen McCrory, said he would not send his own children to boarding school at such a young age.
Recalling his own experience, he said: “I went at eight and I think that’s very hard. You go through something which, at that age, defines you and your ability to cope.
“There’s a sudden lack of intimacy with a parent, and your ability to get through that defines you emotionally for the rest of your life. It’s a very violent experience in those first few weeks. It’s just, boom.”
[Wikipedia has Damien Lewis (b.1971) as attending Ashdown House prep school.]
We were all four happy at Ashdown and will always be especially grateful to Clive Williams for his fantastic teaching.’
The story begins in 1974. Boris, Leo and I (Jo, my littlest brother, was in crèche) are at the European School in Brussels. The Belgian capital in the Seventies was all wild dinner parties, consciousness-raising groups and open marriages. My mother was often in hospital, and my father was often away, and when they were “at home”, my glamorous parents tended to be out.
After being a chaplain at Ardingly, Peter Ball went to St Bartholomew Church in Brighton – Diocese of Chichester – where he had close unrestricted contact with children.
Vickery House was the former vicar of St Bartholomew’s Church in Brighton
-Ardingly alumnus, brother of diplomat Robert Alston-Ardingy alumnus and governor – long term partner of Ardingly alumnus, paedophile Peter Righton of PIE
-friend of paedophile PIE member, British Council teacher, Charles Napier – half-brother of John Whittingdale who was pps and friend to Margaret Thatcher – who was close friends with paedophile Jimmy Savile – Jimmy Savile was good friends with both Peter Ball and Prince Charles.
Robert Alston, Ardingly alumnus and governor worked for Lord George Carey who wrote letters of support for paedophile Bishop Peter Ball
Bishop Peter Ball was good friends with both Jimmy Savile and Prince Charles
All linked.
Richard H Alston b 1945 and his partner Peter Righton b 1926
Righton, age 35, was 19 years older than Alston, who was 16 when they met. They spent 40 years together, the court heard.
They met in 1961 when Richard Alston was still a student at Ardingly.
They spent 40 years together – (diplomat brother Robert Alston would most likely have known his brother’s partner of 40 years – PIE member Peter Righton, who was friends with PIE member Charles Napier.)
Charles Napier and Richard Alston
The court heard Alston and his partner Peter Righton forced an 11-year-old boy at the school (not Ardingly) to watch pornography and then perform sex acts on him at their home.
Southwark Crown Court heard Charles Napier – now a convicted paedophile – would sometimes be present.
Charles Napier (left), half-brother John Whittingdale MP
Charles Napier, treasurer of PIE, former envoy for the British Council in Cairo appeared in court along with Richard Alston – brother of diplomat Robert Alston.
“The man who may hold key to UK’s biggest paedophile network ever”
Righton – the subject of a 1994 documentary on paedophiles
After he had been found guilty of abuse as early as 1972, Napier was placed on List 99 with the Department of Education and so should not have been allowed to teach again However Peter Righton, an equally devious and prolific abuser, intervened As Director of Education at the National Institute for Social Work, Righton had become a prestigious social work professional.
Charles Napier was able ( by his own admission in a number of letters to Righton over many years ) to abuse countless number of boys in Sweden and Egypt over many years in the late 70’s through the 80’s until 1992 when the arrest of Righton and the discovery of these letters led to his ( Napier’s) immediate dismissal
Napier and Righton ” shared ” a large number of victims, and offences, including rape, during the 80’s but never faced charges on any of the most serious cases of abuse
Many questions remain unanswered including who were Napier’s referees for his employment with the British Council
Why was Righton allowed to reach the very top of the social work profession ( with posts at NISW and the National Children’s Bureau as stepping stones to positions as a Home Office/ Government “expert” on major reports ) despite being caught red handed abusing boys on a large scale in the 1950’s and writing quite openly in NISW and NCB journals, articles etc from 1971 onwards about his views that adult and child sexual relationships we re not necessarily harmful.
As a true test of his new found “remorse ” (Napier) can nowshare with the Police all the names of the ” rich and famous ” who attended the parties his victims referred to
As Treasurer of the Paedophile Information Exchange in its peak period of membership in the mid 70’s Napier holds the key to the identity of hundreds of dangerous abusers who continued to abuse thousands of children over many decades
Police Investigate Public School Paedophile Ring’ The Times, 25 August 1996.
SCOTLAND YARD detectives are investigating allegations of a paedophile network involving teachers from some of Britain’s top public schools, writes Stephen Grey.
The paedophile and child pornography unit is inquiring into a ring of private school staff who allegedly exchange information, boast of abusing youngsters and travel abroad together on “sex tours”. At least six teachers have been questioned and their homes raided as inquiries continue into the ring that has links to some of the most notorious paedophiles in Britain.
The paedophile unit has been assisted by detectives from forces around the country as well as social workers.
The inquiry began after a former teacher at Abberley Hall preparatory school in Herefordshire allegedly confessed to a colleague to being part of a huge network of paedophiles.Abberley Hall confirmed last week that both teachers were no longer on staff.
The former teacher claimed that he had had sex with “hundreds and hundreds” of boys and named teachers at six other leading establishments.
Trips for the teachers to indulge in child abuse with “rent boys” have allegedly been organised to countries including the Philippines, Czech Republic, Romania, Albania, Thailand and even Bosnia.
“These people decided a few years ago it was no longer safe to talk openly of abusing kids in this country, but decided they were perfectly safe abroad. At home they content themselves with sick pictures of child abuse,” said one source.
Although full details cannot be revealed for legal reasons, the investigation has involved a series of police raids, including one at the home of a head of department at a prominent London public school, where pornography was removed.
Stephen Meek (left) became Principal of Geelong School in 2004
1996 cont.
Another raid took place at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex. Last week Stephen Meek, headmaster confirmed that two staff had been dismissed after a police caution for the possession of indecent material. “It was nothing to do with pupils at the school,” he said.
Other teachers also named include three masters at another leading public school, two masters at two famous preparatory schools in the home counties, and a choir school teacher. The teachers were said to exchange paedophile videos. When they feared police raids, they allegedly worked together to conceal material. “Many of these teachers will be secure in the knowledge that they will never be prosecuted,” said one police source.
Also named as allegedly linked to the network are Peter Righton, the former childcare expert exposed as a paedophile, and Charles Napier, a former treasurer of the Paedophile Information Exchange and a former staff member of the British Council in Cairo who was jailed last year for sex assaults on youngsters in London.
Headmaster Old Swinford Hospital, Stourbridge September 1978 – August 2001 (23 years)
Ardingly College
Head of Classics
September 1961 – August 1978 (17 years)
^ Chris Potter would have been teaching at Ardingly when Richard Alston was a student and he would have been there during part of Peter Righton’s friend Bishop John Neale’s tenure as chaplain.
Christopher Potter was born in Worcester 61 years ago. He studied classic Greek and Latin at Cambridge University – subjects he still teaches. His first experience in education came at a boarding school in Ardingly, Sussex, before he came to Old Swinford in 1978.
Twenty three years on, the father-of-five is retiring, earning him the honour of being one of the longest serving headmasters in the history of the school.
‘Over the past years we’ve built up a big entry to both Cambridge and Oxford, and we’re recognized on a national level for our academic achievements, but this boy was the first from this school to get into Cambridge for 320 years, and that was a big day for both me and the school’ he says.
Apart from the academic results, Old Swinford has also educated some familiar faces. Nick Baley, the new doctor Anthony Trueman in EastEnders, and Ian Hislop from the TV-show Have I Got News For You are just some of the ex-pupils that have made it big.
Left unconscious 3days fractured skull Prospect House Dorm2 @osh_SCH by Headmaster Potter O.B.E. et al. Age12 ’82 #Coverup #ptsd #headinjury #injustic
Joined August 2011
Child Abuser Christopher Potter OBE is still alive. Life long friend of Leon Brittan . Uncover child abuse at @osh_SCH
StephenCook68
Stephen Cook
Victim of extreme abuse/ full time boarder’79-81@Old Swinford Hosp.School by Christopher Potter O.B.E. et al. Seeking Justice for ComplexPTSD & neuro-damage
News anchor Jon Snow has described how he was abducted and undressed by a member of school staff when he was six years old.
Snow went to Ardingly College in West Sussex, where his father was headmaster. He said in his autobiography that the school’s domestic quarters had a “prison-camp feel” as he described the incident in 1953.
Snow wrote in Shooting History that the man responsible was a member of domestic staff named “Jim”, who lived on the school grounds and had been released from a psychiatric hospital.
Ardingly College Lodge No 4410
This is the Masonic Lodge for Ardingly College. We are independent of the school, but strongly connected.
Ardingly College is an English public school at Ardingly, in Sussex. It was founded in 1858 by Nathaniel Woodard. Woodard established Ardingly as St Saviour’s College, after Lancing and Hurstpierpoint
In 1923 the then Headmaster of Ardingly College, together with other masters and the Provost of the school, the Bishop of Lewes, set up a new private lodge under the UGLE for Masons having a connexion with the school. We are that Lodge. We are open to Old Ardinians, school staff, parents of pupils and of OAs, and any other friend of Ardingly College
Support from the School staff continued for many years. GJ Ince, the School Chaplain, was appointed our Chaplain at the Consecration and served in that office until 1944
The school has its own Masonic Lodge, Ardingly College Lodge, which is a member of the elite Freemason “Public School Lodges” Council.[19] The Lodge, which is open to male Old Ardinians as well as those with an affiliation to the college, was founded in 1922 by the then headmaster, Thomas Erskine Wilson, together with masters, the Provost of the school and the Bishop of Lewes.[20]
In 1958 the school celebrated its centenary . On 9 June 1958, as part of the celebrations, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Ardingly. A stone plaque on the terrace parapet commemorates the visit, where she “beheld the view”. Later that week, on 14 June 1958, the then Prime Minister , Harold MacMillan , visited the school to open the Centenary Building, which comprises the college cricket pavilion and upstairs Centenary Room. On 8 May 2008, the Duke of Kent visited Ardingly as part of its sesquicentenary celebrations and officially opened a new teaching block at the pre-preparatory school.
Robert Alston was governor of Pitcairn Island where sexual abuse was rampant.
Legacy of Sexual Mayhem, the Dark Secrets of Pitcairn Island
For Britain, the case raised embarrassing questions about its supervision of the colony, now known as an overseas territory. Judges and lawyers were appointed, and in 2003, after a series of legal and logistical hurdles had been surmounted, 13 men were charged with 96 offences dating back to the 1960s.
In 2004, I spent six weeks on the island, reporting on one of the most bizarre court cases imaginable.
Why was it that many outsiders persisted in defending men who were guilty of a crime that was normally reviled — pedophilia? Why did they continue to mythologize Pitcairn, although it had failed, in such a dramatic way, to live up to its utopian image?
Several people who allege that Bishop Ball abused them while serving as Bishop of Lewes between 1997 and 1992 are preparing to sue the diocese of Chichester for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The Rev Guy Bennett from the diocese of Guilford which borders the Diocese of Chichester is another convicted child sex offender who came out of prison in 2000 and immediately held himself out as a vicar at, at least, one church service in the Diocese of Chichester where he now lives.
Official inquiries into prolonged failure to prevent child abuse in the Diocese of Chichester which includes Lewes brought up allegations against Bishop Peter Ball
She wanted to exclude some of the survivor’s allegations against Bishop Peter Ball, in a bid to protect the Church of England.
He says she told him she “cared very much about the Church”.
Mr Johnson, who suffered assaults by a number of clergymen when he was a choirboy in the Church of England Diocese in Chichester, said he felt during her review of Church abuse, Baroness Butler-Sloss had been “showing bias and wasn’t being impartial”.
The Rt Rev Peter Ball, who was bishop of Gloucester and bishop of Lewes in East Sussex, was charged with two counts of indecent assault and one of misconduct in a public office, following her investigation into abuse in the diocese of Chichester during the 1970s and 1980s.
Baroness Butler-Sloss was behind controversial paedophile ruling
Butler-Sloss gave character evidence supportive of Chard at another trial eight years ago when he was accused of assaulting a man while working as a nightclub bouncer. Chard was also convicted for that offence, but on that occasion escaped being sent to prison.
Chard’s victim from the 2007 case and his family have expressed anger that Butler-Sloss, who last year stepped down as chair of the independent historical child abuse inquiry, was again prepared to apparently back him in court.
Peter Ball associated with other sex offenders in the clergy and that he was investigated in 2008 for being part of a suspected paedophile ring.
Convicted paedophile Bishop Peter Ball with Peter Canon Gordon Rideout, from Polegate, East Sussex, who was jailed for 10 years in May 2014. He was found guilty of 36 separate sex offences by a jury at Lewes Crown Court.
Canon Gordon Rideout was chaplain on a military base in Middle Wallop, Hampshire, in the UK.
In the 1970s Canon Gordon Rideout was taken to a military court on child sex-abuse charges.
He was cleared by the military hearing.
Rideout was cleared of three indecent assaults by a court martial in 1972. One of Rideout’s victims, June Potter said: “We went out of our way to write statements and everything. I gave them names.”
Canon Gordon Rideout went on to sexually abuse young girls and boys across the south of England.
Canon Gordon Rideout was the vicar of All Saints Church in Eastbourne for 25 years.
Clergyman Canon Gordon Rideout was chaplain at Moira House School, Eastbourne, until 2003, and chairman of governors at Bishop Bell C of E School in Eastbourne until November 2011.
Bishop Bell C of E School in Eastbourne
Child sexual abuse
The school has been at the centre of three major child safeguarding problems, including a child sexual abuse scandal:[11]
In February 2009, teaching assistant Robert Healy was jailed for seven years after he admitted grooming two girls using the social networking site Bebo, then having sex with them.[12]
Canon Gordon Rideout was allowed to remain chair of the school governors for more than a year despite having being suspended by the Church of England following a Criminal Records Bureau check and despite the school being aware.[13] Rideout was jailed for 10 years in May 2013 for abusing 36 vulnerable girls and boys at a now closed Barnardo’s home in Crawley, West Sussex, over a four-year period between the 1960s and 1970s.[14]
In September 2012, maths teacher Jeremy Forrest was arrested in Bordeaux, and subsequently charged by Sussex Police with the abduction of a 15-year-old female pupil.[15] He was found guilty in June 2013, and after pleading guilty to five further charges of sexual activity with a child, was jailed for 5½ years.[16][17] The judge said that Forrest had been repeatedly warned by colleagues but had lied to them and had been motivated by self-interest.[18] Although a review published in April 2013 did not find evidence of “any significant or systemic failings in safeguarding” following the Forrest verdict,[11] there were calls for headteacher Terry Boatwright to be sacked.[19]
GEORGE BELL GROUP supporters- LORD LEXDEN and The Revd Lord Carey (his son rev Mark Carey was recently arrested for child abuse and Lord Carey covered up for convicted paedophile Bishop Peter Ball)
Clergyman Canon Gordon Rideout was a serial sex offender who preyed on young children across the south of England.
In 2013, Rideout, 74, was jailed for 10 years at Lewes Crown Court after being convicted of two attempted rapes and 34 indecent assaults on 16 boys and girls
In the 1970s Canon Gordon Rideout was taken to a military court on child sex-abuse charges.
At that time Rideout was chaplain on a military base.
Canon Gordon Rideout, 73, of Filching Close, Wannock, is alleged to have committed the offences between 1962 and 1973 in Crawley, London and Hampshire. A total of 36 of the 38 alleged offences are of indecent assault on girls and boys in their early teens, Sussex Police said. Of those, 31 are alleged to have been committed at a property in Crawley, West Sussex, and one in Barkingside, east London, between 1962 and 1968. A further four indecent assaults are alleged to have taken place in Middle Wallop, Hampshire, between 1971 and 1973. The other two allegations are of attempted unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl in Crawley
Peter Ball, Bishop of Lewes; the Rev CM Johnston; the Rev GT Rideout
1979
PAR310 – PARISH OF EASTBOURNE ALL SAINTS
PAR310/7 – Incumbent: other records
PAR310/7/2 – Photographs
PAR310/7/2/12 – Photographs of events commemorating the church centenary
PAR310/7/2/12/16 – Peter Ball, Bishop of Lewes; the Rev CM Johnston; the Rev GT Rideout
Jailed sex predator priest handed additional sentence
A FORMER priest who is already serving ten years in prison for 36 historic sexual offences has now been sentenced to nine months in prison.
Gordon Rideout
pleaded guilty to one charge of indecent assault on a girl under the age of 16 at a children’s home in Reigate when he appeared at Guildford Crown Court on 20 December 2016. The assault took place between 29 July 1969 and 21 July 1974.
Rideout was originally jailed for 10 years in May 2013 at Lewes Crown Court for a series of historic sexual offences between 1962 and 1973, including attempted rape and indecent assaults on both boys and girls, some of whom were under 13 years of age.
Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS South East Jaswant Narwal said: “Gordon Rideout was in a position of trust throughout his career, something he abused systemically. The impact he had on the victim in this case cannot be underestimated, even more than 40 years after he abused her, as it is clear this has affected the rest of her life and now Rideout has finally accepted responsibility for his actions and been sentenced for them.”
Theresa May’s father revealed to have spent time working at a church in Reigate
St Mark’s Church where Reverend Hubert Brasier led worshippers during a harvest festival
7 July 2017
St Luke’s Church in Reigate
It has been revealed that Theresa May’s father, Reverend Hubert Brasier was a curate at St Luke’s Church in Reigate more than 60 years ago.
He worked at the church in South Park from 1948 to 1953.
After leaving Reigate, he went on to Eastbourne where he became chaplain of All Saints’ Hospital. His daughter, Theresa (May), was born at Eastbourne in 1956.
The incumbent vicar at St Luke’s during Mr Brasier’s curacy was the Reverend Canon Walter Palmer Godwin who served the parish for some 39 years, from 1914 until his death on June 23, 1953.
Mead Lodge and Rosemead, Reigate, Surrey In 1942, Barnardo’s opened its Mead Lodge hostel at 115 Bell St Reigate – less than a mile from St Lukes Reigate, Church Road, South Park, Reigate, Surrey, RH2 8HY, United Kingdom RH2 8HY, United Kingdom
Gordon Rideout pleaded guilty to one charge of indecent assault on a girl under the age of 16 at a children’s home in Reigate.
Aug 1960 saw the arrival of a party of boys from Gordon Williams House St the Boys’ Garden City
The assault took place between 29 July 1969 and 21 July 1974.
Ian Gow was church warden at Rev Jonathan Graves’ church – St Luke’s Church, Stone Cross. He paid tribute to Gow at church service attended by Margaret Thatcher
In 1988, St. Luke’s was reopened with Father Jonathan (Graves) as Priest and the then Eastbourne MP, Ian Gow, as Church Warden
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has attended a private church service in memory of murdered Conservative MP, Ian Gow, who died this morning following a car bomb explosion at his home. Gow was a church warden at St Luke’s Church near his village in Hankham, East Sussex. The Reverend Jonathan Graves pays tribute to Gow.
Rev Jonathan Graves appeared at a Plea and Case Management Hearing at Lewes
Crown Court on Thursday 5th May. He is charged with 11 counts of abuse, these include:
– Indecent assault against a male,
– Gross indecency against a male,
– Assault / neglect / ill treatment / abandonment of a child,
– Indecent assault against an adult female.
He pleaded not guilty to all charges and a trial date has been set for 5th December 2016.
Fr. Jonathan was the vicar of St. Luke’s Church, Stone Cross in the Diocese of Chichester from 1995 – 2002, where most of the alleged offences took place.
He later had his Permission to Officiate as a Church of England priest withdrawn.
Despite this Fr. Jonathan continues to officiate and play the organ at funerals, particularly at Hastings Crematorium – he conducted 137 funerals in a four year period AFTER being banned by the Church of England.
You do not have to be licences to conduct a funeral and Fr. Jonathan is a ‘retired priest’ conducting ‘humanist’ funerals… apparently,
even though they have prayers and hymns?!?
– This is completely legal.
We are not trying to pre-judge the outcome of the trial and recognise that everyone is
innocent until proven guilty but….
Is it right for a man facing such serious charges to be visiting families in their
homes at a time when they are vulnerable due to their recent bereavement with,
it would appear, no real safeguards being put in place?
A former Church of England priest has been charged with abusing a boy more than 25 years ago.
Jonathan Mark Graves, 57, of Jervis Avenue, Eastbourne, is accused of indecent assault against a boy aged 11 to 13 between 1987 and 1990.
He was also charged with child cruelty against the same boy and indecent assault against two women, one between 1994 and 1995 and the other in 2002.
Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss looked into the case in 2010 as part of a review for the Diocese of Chichester over concerns about several priests. The report was sent to Sussex Police in 2011. Police launched Operation Perry to investigate three priests, Graves of which is the last.
Jonathan Graves was a priest at St Luke’s Church in Stone Cross, East Sussex
The sadistic priest – Jonathan graves abused at st Luke’s Stone Cross in the 1980s
Church of England priest has been jailed for 12 years for torturing and sexually abusing two schoolboys in the 1980s and 90s.
At the time, he was the vicar at St Luke’s Church in Stone Cross.
He was convicted on Thursday at Hove Crown Court of 12 offences dating between 1987 and 1992.
Former Church of England priest has been jailed for 12 years for torturing and sexually abusing two schoolboys in the 1980s and 90s.
Jonathan Graves, 60, of Eastbourne, East Sussex, restrained the children, who were aged between 12 and 14, using belts and chains, and then beat them.
At the time, he was the vicar at St Luke’s Church in Stone Cross.
He was convicted on Thursday at Hove Crown Court of 12 offences dating between 1987 and 1992.
‘Manipulative and twisted’
During his summing up Judge David Rennie called Graves “secretive, cynical, manipulative and twisted”.
Det Insp Jon Gross, of Sussex Police Public Protection Command, said: “I’m pleased as far as you can be with this, it’s a significant sentence for this type of offence.
“This man has had two personas, the public persona that his congregation knew and let parents put their children in his care, and behind closed doors the planning to groom these children and get them to do despicable things.”
He added he had “nothing but admiration” for the victims who came forward and “stuck with” the prosecution process for about four years.
Graves, of Jervis Avenue, was cleared of five similar charges, including one offence of indecent assault on a 50-year-old woman in 2002, following a nine-day trial.
Graves was the vicar at St Luke’s Church in Stone Cross at the time of the attacks
Two retired Church of England priests have been arrested in the Eastbourne area on suspicion of sexually abusing children and young men.
Canon Gordon Rideout, 73, is suspected of sexually assaulting nine young people between 1965 and 1972.
Former parish priest Robert Coles, 70, is suspected of sexually assaulting three young men in West Sussex in the late 1970s and mid-1980s.
One of the allegations against Robert Coles was investigated in 1997, and an arrest was made, but there was insufficient evidence to justify criminal proceedings at that time.
The other allegations have only recently emerged as a result of the current inquiry.
Rev Michael Butler of Albany Trust moved to become Chichester diocese Press Officer mid 70s before R Harbinson complained re Fr. Colin Gill
Misc
ANDREW SADLER was linked to Peter Righton and Charles Napier in the child sex video ring (“Operation Fledgeling”).
Andrew Sadler was accused of a sex act on a boy at Abberley Hall preparatory school in 1995, convicted of child rape in Romania in 2000 and convicted of child grooming in Britain in 2007.
Richard Alston contributed to various books written or edited by Donald Mitchell, Benjamin Britten’s publisher and later director of the Britten Estate.
Britten and Pears were close to Queen Elizabeth and the Queen mum. Britten often stayed at Sandringham and Queen Elizabeth attended many concerts at Aldeburgh.
Alston was also thanked first in “Britten and Auden in the Thirties: The Year 1936 : the T.S. Eliot Memorial”edited by Donald Mitchell
“Acknowledgements“I am much indebted to Richard Alston without whose dedicated editorial assistance I should have found it difficult to see this revised edition through the press… and to Peter Righton for correcting proofs…”
Letters from 1966 between the then Archbishop of Canterbury and a bishop show the Church agreed that a convicted paedophile should be ordained.
The correspondence has emerged in a report into the Church’s failure to support victims of Roy Cotton that was published online and then removed.
A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Chichester told the BBC the Meekings Report was removed because the document had accidentally included some confidential information.
Both studies looked into the behaviour of Cotton and another paedophile priest, Colin Pritchard.
Former Sussex priest jailed for sex abuse against boy
Feb 22 2018
Ifor Whittaker was previously known as Colin Pritchard
A “disgusting and despicable” ex-Anglican priest has been jailed for sexually abusing a boy and conspiring with another priest to abuse the child.
Ifor Whittaker, formerly Colin Pritchard, was convicted of abusing the boy, aged between 10 and 16 when the abuse happened in the 1980s and 1990s.
The 73-year-old also conspired with ex-clergyman Roy Cotton, who has since died, to commit sex acts.
Whittaker, of Rectory Road, Sutton, south London, was jailed for 16 years.
He was told he will serve a minimum of 10 years in prison. He is already a registered sex offender for life after a previous conviction.
Sentencing Whittaker, Judge Paul Tain described the priest’s behaviour as “disgraceful, disgusting and despicable”,
He said: “It was an obvious and clear case of grooming, where he carefully manipulated a vulnerable child.”
Whittaker had “attempted to bamboozle, cheat and mislead the jury”, the judge said.
He said the abuser had “plied the victim with alcohol” and “emotionally blackmailed the boy by saying ‘no one would believe you over a priest'”.
The boy had been invited by Whittaker to do gardening work at the church
Whittaker, a former rector of Sedlescombe, near Battle, was convicted of seven counts, which also included gross indecency and inciting the boy to commit gross indecency.
The offences took place between February 1987 and February 1993 in East Sussex, Hove Crown Court was told.
The jury was told Whittaker was a “predatory paedophile” and had organised and facilitated the abuse with Cotton, who worked as a priest in Brede, near Rye, in the 1990s.
He died in 2006 and was never prosecuted.
The victim, now in his 40s, told the court Cotton had been the main abuser and had “just passed me over like a toy to be borrowed by a friend”.
‘Quite forceful’
The court heard the abuse began after he was invited to do gardening work at the church by Whittaker in return for pocket money.
Whittaker and Cotton “had an agreement” and Cotton would often take the boy to and from Whittaker’s house, it was said.
There were also occasions at Cotton’s house when, after abuse had taken place, Whittaker would “suddenly immediately appear in the room as if he had been watching”, the jury heard.
Whittaker’s victim described him as “quite forceful, quite scary”.
The jury was told Whittaker had previously pleaded guilty to gross indecency and indecent assault in 2008 over offences which had take place in Wellingborough in Northamptonshire against teenage boys in the 1980s.
The diocese apologised “unreservedly” after Baroness Butler-Sloss’s report criticised both senior clergy and Sussex Police over how they dealt with historical claims of abuse by Cotton and the then Colin Pritchard.
Following Whittaker’s latest conviction, the Diocese of Chichester issued a statement saying: “We express our profound sorrow and regret to the victim in this case and our admiration for their courage and determination in coming forward.
“The abuse of children is both a travesty and a tragedy and a complete betrayal of the Christian faith.
“This case demonstrates once again why it is so important to listen to those reporting abuse.”
Bishop turned ‘blind eye’ to Bexhill vicar’s abuse, inquiry hears
06 March 2018
A damning image of ‘wilful blindness’ in historic cases of sexual abuse of children who were ‘terrified and silenced’ by clergy in Sussex has been set out at a public inquiry. Fiona Scolding QC, lead counsel to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said yesterday that abuse that left an ‘indelible scar’ on children was often ignored or forgiven.
In one segment, Miss Scolding described abuse by a Reverend Colin Pritchard, former vicar of St Barnabas’ Church in Bexhill and a church in Sedlescombe. She said: “There have been suggestions about the culture of abuse operated by Reverend Pritchard and that Bishop Peter Ball turned a blind eye to that abuse.” Pritchard was arrested in 1997 on suspicion of sexual offences, and again in 2007. Miss Scolding said: “There were no restrictions upon his ability to attend church or be involved in ministry with children from his arrest until July 2007.
Reverend Pritchard, who was vicar of St Barnabas in Bexhill, pleaded guilty in 2008 to seven counts of sexual assault on two boys and was jailed for five years. Pritchard – now known as Ifor Whittaker – was convicted last month of sex offences against a boy and jailed for 16 years. The crimes were when he worked in Sedlescombe, police said. Speaking on behalf of the Diocese of Chichester and Archbishops’ Council for the Church of England, Nigel Giffin QC said the Church’s response to abuse in the last few decades was ‘not nearly good enough’. The IICSA inquiry will look into how far institutions failed to protect children from sexual abuse within the Anglican Church. It focuses on abuse within the Diocese of Chichester, which covers all of Sussex, as a case study. Miss Scolding said: “As a society we have over the past 10 years had to examine some uncomfortable truths about our wilful blindness to such abuse.” Richard Scorer, speaking on behalf of many of the victims, said: “The Church of England claims to offer moral guidance to the country yet clerical sexual abuse cases powerfully undermine the claim. This leads to the cover-up of abuse. “The question is whether the Church can be trusted to put its own house in order.” In a statement, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said: “The failures that we have seen are deeply shaming and I personally find them a cause of horror and sadness. “That children have been abused within the communities of the church is indeed shameful.” The inquiry continues.
2011 Baroness Butler-Sloss was appointed by the Diocese of Chichester to carry out the review which looked into the behaviour of Cotton and another paedophile priest, Colin Pritchard.
The Bexhill connection triggered some thoughts. A number of names seem to be linked to the area.
Stingemore – arrested at the same time as McSweeney –
Priest marks silver jubilee FR TONY MCSWEENEY, parish priest of St George’s church in Sprowston Road, Norwich, celebrated 25 years since his ordination with a Mass on January 21. Three hundred parishioners of all ages were at the church to mark his silver jubilee. Fr Hugh Flower, parish priest in Eastbourne, who trained for the ministry at St John’s seminary near Guildford with Fr McSweeney, said in a homily that he had been inspired by Fr McSweeney’s relationship with the parish he had served for 10 years.
link Peter Ball suspected of committing offences during late 1980s but allegations against other priests date back further still
The arrest of Bishop Peter Ball on suspicion of sexual offences against boys and men at addresses in East Sussex and elsewhere is the latest development in a wide-ranging and often contentious series of official inquiries into decades of alleged child protection failures in the diocese of Chichester on England’s south coast.
………………………….
From the 1970s to the 1990s there were sporadic and low-profile investigations into allegations of sexual abuse against priests in the diocese, but none got as far as the courts. The breakthrough case was arguably the 2008 conviction of Rev Colin Pritchard, a vicar in Bexhill. Pritchard pleaded guilty at Northampton crown court to four counts of indecent assault on a child and three counts of gross indecency on a child. The offences are reported to have taken place between 1979 and 1983 and to have involved two victims, aged between 12 and 15. He was jailed for five years.
Another case involved Roy Cotton, who became a priest in the diocese of Chichester after having been convicted of a sexual offence against a child in 1953 for indecently exposing himself in the organ loft of a village church. Cotton died in 2006 and was never prosecuted.
After Cotton retired he was granted permission to officiate and Meekings reported that a member of St Saviour’s and St Peter’s church in Eastbourne told him that “Cotton attended that church and made a ‘nuisance’ of himself with the choirboys which led to a number of them leaving or wanting to leave the choir and the church”.
THE former Bishop of Blackburn has been criticised in an inquiry report into child sexual abuse in his former diocese.
The Right Rev Nicholas Reade, the Bishop of Blackburn from 2004 to 2012, has been held to account by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse over his time as Archdeacon of Lewes, in the Diocese of Chichester.
The Rev Robert Coles admitted the alleged sexual abuse of a teenage altar server in the 1980s to Bishop Nicholas and a fellow clergyman, the inquiry was told.
But despite Coles confessing to sexual activity with the 15 or 16-year-old boy at his home, neither Bishop Nicholas nor his colleague disclosed this information to police, following the former’s arrest in 1997.
Coles, who was a parish priest across the southern diocese, faced no criminal action at the time.
But an investigation was relaunched in 2012 and he was later convicted on two separate occasions of serious sexual offences involving young boys and given substantial jail sentences.
Referring to the 1997 disclosures, Prof Alexis Jay, the inquiry’s chairman, said in a final report: “Archdeacon Reade declined to report a serious indecent to the police, yet repeatedly sought to justify this failure on the basis that ‘he had not raped the boy’.
“Coles should have been reported to the police and subject to disciplinary action or a risk assessment.”
The inquiry heard that Coles sexually groomed a child in 2007-08. He was officially retired but still continued to officiate.
Mr Reade was also found to have defended another minister, Rev Roy Cotton, who had a past conviction for indecent exposure involving a boy in a church organ loft in the 1950s.
Cotton, an ‘Anglo-Catholic’ was supposed to only be allowed to celebrate Mass at his retirement home but officiated in public several times when children were present, the inquiry report disclosed.
He was investigated twice over allegations that he abused boys in the 70s and 80s, with another disgraced minister. Three victims came forward to make accusations. No criminal action was taken but Sussex Police’s inquiry was found to be ‘inadequate’. Cotton, who was the subject of later church and judicial inquiries, died in September 2006.
Prof Jay, referring to Cotton’s case, added: “This was a clear example of the diocese failing to prioritise its responsibilities for children and young people.
“Its concerns seem to have been led by pastoral concerns for Cotton, rather than the danger he posed to children.”
The current Bishop of Blackburn, the Right Rev Julian Henderson, this week wrote to all clergy in the diocese, calling on them to learn lessons from the inquiry’s findings.
Mr Reade was Archdeacon of Lewes before being appointed Bishop of Blackburn in 2004. He retired in 2012.
The child sex abuse inquiry was prompted by revelations that no fewer than 20 individuals with connections to Chichester Diocese had been convicted of sexual offending against children, including Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and later Bishop of Gloucester, over the past 50 years.
In her findings, Prof Jay said: “The Church must take action to ensure that this catalogue of errors does not occur again.”
As chaplain of Eastbourne Hospital Hubert was under the Chichester Diocese of the Church of England. During the 1960’s til the 1990’s this diocese has some of the worst examples of child sexual abuse committed by priests. The numbers and the scope of the phenomenon is truly astounding. Canon Gordon Rideout who was the Vicar of All Saints in Eastbourne was jailed for ten years for 36 separate offences on 16 children between 1962 and 1973. Peter Ball, former Bishop of Lewes was convicted of abuse in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Former priest Keith Wilke Denford of Burgess Hill and organist Michael Mytton were convicted of historic sexual abuse.
Former priest Keith Wilke Denford of Burgess Hill and organist Michael Mytton were convicted of historic sexual abuse.
Michael Mytton worked as an organist in the Lewes area
A retired Church of England priest and a former organist and choirmaster have been found guilty of a string of child sex abuse offences dating back more than 25 years.
A judge said that Father Keith Wilkie Denford and Michael Mytton had committed “a grave breach of trust and a gross breach of trust”.
Denford, who was the vicar at St John the Evangelist Church in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, was found not guilty of abusing one of the boys aided by organist and choirmaster Mytton (known as Mark), 69, in the back of Mytton’s Jaguar.
Prosecutor Marcus Fletcher said during the trial that one of Denford’s two victims recalled blowing the whistle about the abuse to a vicar – but nothing was done.
In the end, it was not until last year that police were alerted after one of the boys, now in his late 30s, found out that Denford was still in contact with children.
Through police investigation, the name of a third boy emerged and he disclosed that he suffered abuse at the hands of Mytton from around 1990 to 1994 when he was aged 10 or 11.
He told investigators that he once accompanied Mytton to a dinner party as his “plus one”.
The jury was told that in 1981 Mytton was convicted of two counts of gross indecency on a 12-year-old boy, forcing Mytton to leave his position at a church in Uckfield.
Denford and Mytton are the two latest figures linked to the scandal-hit Diocese of Chichester to be convicted of historic child sex abuse offences.
In February, retired priest Robert Coles, 71, was jailed for eight years at Brighton Crown Court after he admitted abusing young boys dating back to the 1970s.
Coles, of Upperton Road, Eastbourne, pleaded guilty to buggery and four indecent assaults on one victim and three indecent assaults against two other boys.
The offences took place in West Sussex and elsewhere in the late 1970s and early 1980s against boys aged between 10 and 16 at the time.
Church accused of systematic failings after sixth abuser in two years unmasked
A SEXUAL abuse victim has accused the Church of “systematic behaviour” in failing to act on allegations of assault after the sixth Sussex churchman in two years was exposed as an offender .
The claim comes after it was revealed on Thursday that former Bishop of Chichester George Bell, a man once tipped to be Archbishop of Canterbury, sexually abused a young child for a number of years.
Campaigners are now questioning the Diocese of Chichester’s ability to investigate itself, as historic cases continue to emerge despite five separate inquiries.
Additionally an inquiry into the Church’s handling of the Peter Ball case was commissioned on October 5 and the diocese is also co-operating with the national Goddard review into child sexual abuse.
Yesterday there was no clarification from the current Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, following his comment that there had been no cover up by the Church.
This despite an 18 year delay between Bell’s abuse being reported and the Church passing allegations to the police.
George Bell was so feted nationally and internationally that there is church property, a charity, a house of Bishop Luffa School in Chichester, and even a feast day in his name.
But by Thursday his reputation lay in the same increasingly crowded gutter as five other vicars, bishops and church employees from the diocese – which covers almost all of Sussex – who have been convicted since 2013.
The list includes Father Keith Wilkie Denford, a Burgess Hill vicar convicted alongside church organist Michael Mytton of abusing 13 year old boys in the late 1980s.
Robert Coles, a priest from Eastbourne, who pleaded guilty two years ago to 11 charges of abusing boys between the ages of 10 and 16.
And this month former Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball was jailed for taking sexual advantage of young men who came to him for guidance.
Additionally, Bexhill vicar Colin Pritchard was jailed in 2008 for abusing boys in the 70s and 80s, in a case which also brought to light abuse perpetrated by his deceased colleague Roy Cotton.
Phil Johnson, a victim of Ball’s who waived his right to anonymity, said yesterday: “In nearly all these cases information was reported to the Church and the Church failed to take action. This is a sign of systematic behaviour.”
Since 2012 the diocese has seen the publication of the Meekings Report into past cases, an enquiry by Baroness Butler-Sloss, an Archiepiscopal Visitation Enquiry commissioned by Lambeth Palace, and the publication of the Carmi enquiry into abuse in Chichester. Despite these new cases have continued to come to light.
Keith Porteous Wood, director of the National Secular Society, said the problem was internal enquiries with insufficiently broad terms of reference, and called for the Church to be totally transparent in its dealings with the national Goddard enquiry.
For the diocese, Bishop Mark Sowerby of Horsham insisted that the Church’s attitude was now one of complete openness, adding: “We have moved a very long way from the inadequacy of the response [to the Bell allegations] in 1995.”
The remnants of Bell’s tarnished reputation is now being removed by those now troubled by the association.
A spokeswoman for Chichester Cathedral said that George Bell House would be renamed. Prestigious Church of England secondary school Bishop Luffa faced calls from campaigners to rename one of its houses, which is named “Bell house” after the bishop.
And the removal of an annual Church of England feast day held in Bell’s name is expected when church officials next meet, with a spokesman saying that until that can take place, he would “not advise anyone to mark the day in any liturgical way.”
On 23 April 2012, a former altar boy, Christopher Hunnisett, 28, appeared in court accused of murdering Peter Bick, 57, as part of a campaign of hate against paedophiles.
Police found Peter Bick, 57, dead in his flat on January 11 2011.
It emerged this week that Mr Bick – who most recently worked as a meet-and-greet-man at Asda in Silverhill – spent time in prison after he admitted conning a 95-year-old Thakeham woman out of £70,000. The pensioner had given Mr Bick power of attorney but police found he had siphoned off funds to bankroll an upmarket lifestyle and clear his credit card debts. When he was interviewed he said he had paid himself an annual salary and had moved some money around to try and maximise the interest. He was planning to pay it all back, he added.
“Peter was a great animal lover, and especially loved horses and dogs. He was a member of a carriage driving club, a hobby he was passionate about, and he would attend many shows.”
After being freed from prison in September 2010, Hunnisett, of Hastings, East Sussex, made a “hit list” of men he planned to kill in his bid to rid the world of paedophiles.
Mr Bick, an Asda employee from Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, was at the top of Hunnisett’s list of targets
He said he had contacted Mr Bick via a website and met him at his flat, where he claimed the older man had admitted committing sex acts with youths aged 14 and 16.
He then attempted to “honeytrap” him, claiming he could arrange a threesome with himself and a public schoolboy aged 15, whom he invented using the online alias “Golden Boy”, while the boy’s parents were away on holiday.
He claimed Mr Bick agreed but before it was due to happen he travelled to Bexhill, where he told him the boy was unable to join them.
Hunnisett said he then stripped naked and committed a sex act while Mr Bick watched, claiming it was part of his cover. Under the pretext of sex games he then tied the also naked Mr Bick to his bed with shoelaces tied around his neck, saying the older man had admitted it was something he had done with one of the young boys.
As the foreman of the jury returned a guilty verdict, Hunnisett, of Chanctonbury Drive, Hastings, leapt over the dock in an attempt to escape and shouted “Every word I said was true”.
He had to be restrained by eight people and could be heard sobbing as they tried to calm him down in the dock.
The Queen has attended every year since it began in 1943 and even competed at the show in her younger days. Other members of the Royal Family, including HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and HRH The Princess Royal, have also taken part in the show’s competitions. In recent years, the Queen has watched many of her own horses compete in the showing classes.
• The Duke of Edinburgh competed in the Carriage Driving at Royal Windsor Horse Show for more than 30 years. He won in 1982 and was second five times.
A former altar boy who killed and dismembered a paedophile vicar has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a man believed to have been a friend of the Duke of Edinburgh.
Peter Bick, 57, who shared a love of carriage racing with Prince Philip , was bludgeoned to death in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
He told neighbours he had on occasions driven for the Duke.
A former altar boy who was cleared over the killing of a vicar was today being questioned by detectives on suspicion of murdering a friend of Prince Philip.
The Hon Peter Bick, 57, who took part in carriage driving races with the Duke of Edinburgh, was found dead at his home in Bexhill in East Sussex
Nearly 200 drivers from as far afield as Blackpool, Leeds and Devon gathered at Smiths Lawn, Windsor Great Park for this year’s Windsor Sponsored Drive. The grand rosettes were kindly sponsored by Mrs Gillie Simpson and the completion certificates by The Hon. Peter Bick.
The participants, who included HRH Prince Philip with his team of Fell ponies, really appreciated the fine weather and glorious setting. The course consisted of six obstacles and a 15 km drive through the Deer Park.
FORMER Newham hospital radio chief Bob Rush has paid tribute to a colleague who was found bludgeoned to death at his flat.
Mr Rush was station manager of Woodside Radio, which broadcast to patients at both Newham General and St Andrew’s hospitals when Peter Bick was chairman of the Trustees.
The chairman of Monega Association added: “I saw Peter three months ago…”
Newham General Hospital – Chancellor: HRH The Princess Royal
1983: Newham General Opens
Newham General was opened by Her Majesty The Queen on 14 December 1983 under the management Newham Health Authority.
1986: Phase two opens
On 18 February 1986 phase two of Newham General Hospital, which included additional maternity beds, a special care baby unit, a rehabilitation department and an academic centre, was opened by Diana, Princess of Wales.
1991: Trust established
2004: Change of name –The trust managing Newham General became Newham University Hospital NHS Trust.
Newham Healthcare NHS Trust was established as a first wave NHS trust under the Government’s reorganisation of the health service. The new trust took over responsibility for running Newham General from Newham Health Authority. The trust also managed St. Andrew’s Hospital in Bromley by Bow (founded 1871). St Andrew’s closed in 2006.
Another good friend of Prince Philip was accused of sexually abusing his son and was also involved in carriage racing with Prince Philip
The seventh Earl of Lonsdale- James Lowther Lord Hugh Lowther, the eighth Earl of Lonsdale also accused him of having sexually abused him when he was a child and claimed that a plan to disinherit him was hatched shortly after he reported his father to the police for his persistent sexual abuse throughout his childhood.
The 7th Earlmarried four times, had eight children and was a close friend of the Royal Family. He would often entertain the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at the family seat of Lowther Castle.The imposing building at the centre of the Cumbrian estate is now a partly-ruined shell, but the Duke would compete in carriage-racing events in its vast grounds
St Mary Church is part of diocese of Arundel and Brighton – ARUNDEL as in near CHICHESTER above
Why did the CPS abandon investigation into Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor?
19 Mar 2015
As the full scale of the British Establishment’s cover-up of child sex abuse becomes apparent, Alistair McBay argues it is time for the Crown Prosecution Service to make public its reasons for dropping the investigation into Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor 12 years ago.
It’s hard to know where to begin in writing about the issue of child sex abuse in Britain. As Home Secretary Teresa May said earlier this month, the abuse is “woven, covertly, into the fabric of British society”. She warned that “what the country doesn’t yet appreciate is the true scale of that abuse” but might have added “or the scale of the cover-up.”
Previous Bishops of Arundel & Brighton – Bishop Cormac Murphy-O’Connor – friend of Cardinal Keith O’Brien (below) – friend of Sir Jimmy Savile
This case related to decisions made by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor when he was a mere bishop in the Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton in Sussex between 1977 and 2000, and centred on how he handled allegations of child rape by priests and the notorious Father Michael Hill in particular.
Ian Jackson told Ms Barnes in an email that he thought she was making the wrong decision by going to the police
21 August 2012
An evangelist Christian preacher from East Sussex urged a victim of sexual abuse not to report the man responsible to the police
Ian Jackson told Lina Barnes he would not support her if she reported that Gospel Hall Brethren preacher Allan Cundick assaulted her at the age of 12.
But Ms Barnes, 33, who sought advice from him last year, said he wanted to protect the Church.
Mr Jackson, who travels the country preaching in gospel halls and has given sermons at Marine Hall in Eastbourne
Simon Bass, from the Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service, said: “To use scripture as a means of saying we should keep this in house and we should not report this to the authorities again – it’s quite incredulous to even think that somebody would do that.
“It’s totally against what is good safeguarding practice.”
Geelong Grammar: Child Sexual Abuse Royal Commission report set to be tabled in parliament
February 13, 2017
SURVIVOR of abuse at Geelong Grammar School has slammed its trademark positive education program as “crap”, as the royal commission’s findings on the elite Corio school are set to be tabled in Parliament.
Libby O’Brien attended Geelong Grammar in the 1980s and said she hoped the commission’s report did not “get swept under the carpet”.
“There are so many more perpetrators out there,” she said, despite the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse having been in progress since 2013.
“The cover-ups were really frightening,” she said. “I just want to make sure (the royal commission finding) doesn’t go under the radar.”
Ms O’Brien said the decades-long fight for justice had been “an extremely painful process”. She and a group of survivors and friends covered Geelong Grammar’s gates with coloured ribbons in February of last year, transforming it into a “Loud Fence” symbolising those who were sexually abused and couldn’t be heard.
“I’m so sick of telling this story,” Ms O’Brien said. “I keep getting slapped in the face — it’s really, really hard.”
In a November, 2016, submission to the royal commission, counsel assisting David Lloyd said former Geelong Grammar principal John Lewis had failed to protect students under his care.
“Mr Lewis did not treat the issue of child sexual abuse seriously and preferred the reputation of the school to the interests and welfare of the students,” Mr Lloyd said.
A spokesman for Geelong Grammar said the school would be responding to the royal commission’s findings when they become available.
The school was at the heart of a debate in South Australian politics last weekend, when it emerged SA schools had forked out more than $620,000 for Geelong Grammar to teach educators from Adelaide’s northern suburbs how to “nurture and sustain positive relationships”. SA Opposition treasury spokesman Rob Lucas described the program as a “massive waste of taxpayers’ money”.
A spokesman for the SA Department for Communities and Social Inclusion said Geelong Grammar was “one of the world leaders in the adoption of positive education”.
Ms O’Brien said she was “pretty disgusted” that the school was profiting from a program espousing student wellbeing.
“It’s such crap,” she said.
She urged anyone with information on historical abuses to go to the authorities.
“Anyone who knew anything, just report it to police,” she said. “Every report counts.”
Commissioners are holding a public hearing on Catholic Church authorities until February 27. From March 6 they will hold hearings on Commonwealth and State governments, the Uniting Church, Anglican Church, Yeshivah Melbourne and Bondi, and Australian Christian churches and Pentecostal authorities.
Former Geelong Grammar principal John Lewis after giving evidence at the Royal Commission hearing in Melbourne in 2015.
Geelong Grammar payout could hit Catholic Church and other institutions
28 October 2018
A landmark $1.1 million settlement between a sexually assaulted student and one of the nation’s most elite private schools could unleash a wave of court action against institutions that have made modest payments to victims of shocking abuse.
The settlement is expected to have significant implications for the Catholic Church, which settled hundreds of cases of clerical abuse with ex gratia payments of less than $75,000 on the condition that victims waived their right to sue the church.
Former Geelong Grammar School student Peter (not his real name) agreed in 1998 to a confidential $32,000 settlement with the prestigious Anglican school. He was abused as a nine-year-old at the school’s Glamorgan campus in Toorak.
Peter’s lawyers recently claimed the settlement was not binding because the school had not acted in good faith when it insisted it was unaware the teacher was a paedophile.
With the help of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, they were able to prove that Geelong Grammar had known for years about the teacher’s predatory behaviour and covered it up.
The school had sent him to a psychiatrist in 1973, but he returned to teaching and continued to abuse boys.
The royal commission unearthed more damning evidence in 2015, including a particularly damaging exchange between the school’s principal at the time it was negotiating with Peter and another senior figure.
The teacher had been sacked in 1974 following further allegations of sexual abuse involving students. But he was re-hired in 1980 as a relief teacher at Glamorgan, where he abused Peter and some of his classmates.
During negotiations with Peter in the 1990s, Glamorgan campus head Phillipa Beeson wrote to school principal Lister Hannah: “If [the survivor] got wind of this we could have a real problem on our hands”.
It was part of a strategy to make no legal admissions, while offering paltry sums of money to victims, who were required to sign confidentiality agreements and waive their common law rights.
“We should be sensitive, caring, helpful, etc and offer to do whatever we can to help but on no account should be (sic) make an admission that the claim could be true,” Ms Beeson wrote in a facsimile to Mr Hannah in 1997.
“We should do it quickly and with lots of ‘concern and clucking’.”
Peter told Fairfax Media he was disgusted with the school’s duplicity and their desperate attempts to minimise compensation.
“They knew the teacher was a child abuser and they were intentionally keeping that from me,” he said.
There are thousands of historical deeds similar to the one signed by Peter in 1997.
The Catholic Church in Victoria alone settled about 700 claims from 1996 to 2012 through its internal complaints process – the Melbourne Response and Towards Healing.
Most signed away their right to pursue civil action. But Peter’s lawyer Michael Magazanik, of Rightside Legal, said because Geelong Grammar tried to mislead and deceive his client, the deed agreement was void.
Peter subsequently launched legal action, culminating in the recent settlement.
“It became perfectly clear if you want a fair result, you have to fight them,” he said.
“Geelong Grammar were extremely adversarial, my lawyers dragged them kicking and screaming to the door of the court before they gave up. The school has not changed its approach despite its public rhetoric.”
At least five former teachers have been convicted of abusing students at the elite school, which was attended by Kerry Packer, Rupert Murdoch and Prince Charles.
It became perfectly clear if you want a fair result, you have to fight them.
Peter
Principal Rebecca Cody, who started at Geelong Grammar six months ago, said the school had a significant responsibility to acknowledge and learn from the hurt of the past.
Geelong Grammar School principal Rebecca Cody.
“Through hearing the voice of survivors, inspired by their courage to speak about their experiences at Geelong Grammar School, I am resolute that our ongoing approach to child safety and healing historical harm is proactive and embedded in our systems and culture,” she said.
“We have used and will continue to use the learnings of the royal commission, in addition to our own experience and considered reflection of the school’s past practices and processes.”
Peter’s case, because it settled outside of court, has not established a precedent for survivors who want to sue after waiving their rights. But Mr Magazanik said these types of deeds are likely to become an issue for the Catholic Church.
Other institutions involved in child abuse cases may also be affected.
“It has been paying abuse survivors tiny sums for years. Where those survivors were suffering mental illness and did not have lawyers – as was often the case – then those settlements are open to question,” he said.
Lawyer and advocate Dr Judy Courtin said the Geelong Grammar settlement was extremely rare in a new area of law in which no precedents have been set in Australia.
“The legal landscape in this whole area is shifting by the second,” Dr Courtin said.
While Queensland and Western Australia have both amended laws to give courts discretion to set aside historical deeds of release, Victoria is yet to do so.
The state abolished the statute of limitations so there were no time limits on when victims could sue, and it recently repealed the Ellis defence, meaning the Catholic Church could now be legally targeted.
But Dr Courtin said Victorian law does not yet empower judges to set aside historical settlements, which were often well below the amounts awarded in a successful civil trial.
Some were made to victims without legal representation, abuse was understated and others, like Peter’s, were made deceptively.
“The introduction of legislative provisions by the Victorian government that provides judges with the power and discretion to set aside such deeds, thus opening the way for new action, is paramount and urgent,” Dr Courtin said.
Cranbrook headmaster Nicholas Sampson wrote ‘misleading’ letters after sexual abuse allegations raised #caroyalcomm
14 Feb 2017
Headmaster: response ‘just not good enough’
Former Geelong Grammar headmaster Nicholas Sampson faces questions about how the school dealt with allegations of sexual misconduct by former teacher Jonathon Harvey
The headmaster of one Sydney’s most expensive private schools, Cranbrook, wrote “misleading” letters about a teacher accused of child sexual abuse at his former school and failed to report the allegations to a higher authority, a royal commission has found.
Nicholas Sampson, then the headmaster of Victoria’s Geelong Grammar, paid teacher Jonathan Harvey to retire early in 2004 to avoid any formal complaints of child sex abuse being made against him.
Mr Sampson told the commission he was alerted to allegations against Harvey by the victim’s brother, BLW, and conducted a “fairly cursory” investigation before asking Mr Harvey to retire early.
The commissioners found Mr Sampson should have notified the Victorian Institute of Teaching about the allegations and that he “should have made a documentary record of the reason [Harvey left the school]”.
Instead, Mr Sampson wrote letters to Harvey thanking him for his “outstanding service”, praising him as a “wonderful teacher, an outstanding housemaster, a fine and thoughtful colleague and a tremendous and committed schoolmaster”.
A second letter from Mr Sampson to Harvey confirmed an extra year of pay following his retirement “due to the exceptional service [he] offered”.
The commission dismissed Mr Sampson’s defence that the letters were for personal use: “The letters were plainly kept amongst the school’s formal records in relation to Harvey,” it found
“We also reject the submission that the letters were not misleading. No other records were produced which recorded the real reason for Harvey’s departure from the school, and no explanation was given as to why such documents were not produced.”
Mr Sampson, who became the headmaster of Cranbrook in 2012, an Anglican, $35,000-a-year school in Bellevue Hill, told the commission he was acting in the best interests of the victim, BLF, who did not want his identity revealed.
“We accept that Mr Sampson attempted to act in the best interests of BLF by securing Harvey’s resignation without disclosing his identity,” the Commission found. “It is clear, however, that he should have notified the Victorian Institute of Teaching.”
Royal Commission: Vatican has no test for paedophiles
In a separate sitting on Tuesday, the Commission also heard there was no requirement for the Catholic clergy to be screened for sexual attraction to children but that the Vatican does have a detailed assessment procedure for homosexuality.
The Catholic Church’s central authority spent 13 years developing a protocol on homosexual tendencies among potential priests but has stayed “silent” on the issue of paedophiles, the commission heard.
The commission is examining factors behind abuse claims in the Catholic church, with data showing seven per cent of priests were alleged offenders between 1950-2010.
“As I understand it, the Vatican is specific that you must test for homosexual tendencies but the Vatican is silent in that same way on testing for children,” Commissioner Andrew Murray said.
Sister Lydia Allen, who assesses candidates for the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Homebush, said the Vatican was working on such a document.
“I have asked them if they have any documents on this situation of child abuse and they don’t yet … it’s part of a project they are going to work on,” she said.
“They do not have . . . anything that says, ‘You must assess for that’.
“However, I think it would be an unspoken rule. I don’t think it needs to be stated explicitly because it’s so obvious.”
David Leary, an academic and Franciscan friar, told the inquiry the assessment process was flawed.
“The first test for a candidate for either religious life or the seminary or for the priesthood is not a question about whether or not they’re homosexual,” he said.
“It’s about whether or not they are compassionate and that’s the thing that needs to be tested.”
Dr Leary said the Catholic church was “highly resistant” to understanding how its structures may have led to child sexual abuse.
“I don’t think we understand the psychology that underpins … child sexual abuse,” he said. “It’s really clear in every other jurisdiction except the church.”
Peter Thompson, rector of Vianney College in Wagga Wagga, told the commission it would be impossible to effectively screen every candidate for the priesthood.
“No one can infallibly predict that someone is not going to offend,” he said.
The hearing, before Justice Peter McClellan, continues.
Originally from the UK, Mr Nicholas Sampson was Principal of Geelong Grammar in Victoria from 2000 to 2004. He then returned to the UK where for eight years was head of the prestigious Marlborough College. Mr Sampson became Headmaster of Cranbrook in 2012.
Having long admired the unique culture of Cranbrook and its philosophy of integrity, balance and the rigorous pursuit of excellence, Mr Sampson has an ambitious vision for 2013 building on these strengths and values to create a blueprint for the future.
Mr Sampson holds a Master of Arts Degree in English Literature from the University of Cambridge. His career in schools has been built on a firm belief in the value of a balanced and expansive education which enable students not only to discover and polish their own talents, but also to admire the gifts of others and to embrace the value of service.
An avid reader of literature and with a strong interest in the arts, Mr Sampson also played hockey at representative level, and is the father of twin daughters.
Marlborough College, educator of royalty – the school in Wiltshire where Princess Eugenie is a pupil.
Former pupils include the poets John Betjeman and Siegfried Sassoon, the actor James Mason, the traitor Anthony Blunt, and songwriters Nick Drake and Chris de Burgh
Ghislaine Maxwell is alleged to have supplied a number of under-aged girls for Jeffrey Epstein‘s sexual abuse and sex-trafficking scheme, according to US court documents.
The 53-year-old was educated at Marlborough College and Balliol College, Oxford.
TEACHER Andrew Richards has left Marlborough College after police launched an inquiry into his alleged possession of computer porn.
This week both police and the £22,000-a-year public school, where Princess Eugenie is a pupil, have confirmed that a teacher is being questioned over material found on his computer.
Neither the school or police would name the teacher but the Gazette has established that the man arrested was the housemaster of C3 House.
Sources within the police force and the school confirmed that it had been Richards who was arrested.
The maths teacher was arrested in his home at the school after police carried out an undercover operation two weeks ago and seized his computer. They took action after receiving information that Richards had downloaded obscene images on his computer, which is still being examined by a specialist team of officers.
After news of the arrest began to circulate in the town this week the school issued a statement saying: “Marlborough College can confirm that following the discovery of inappropriate material on a computer, one of our masters has left the school with immediate effect.
“There is no suggestion of improper behaviour with any pupil in the school.
“The College brought the matter to the attention of the relevant authorities, with whom we have been working closely.
“We understand that the police are carrying out an investigation into
this matter and therefore it would not be right for us to comment
further.”
The master of the public school, Nicholas Sampson, said he was unable to make any further comment.
Wiltshire police put out a statement saying: “On Saturday, April 30 as a result of information received from Marlborough College a male member of staff was arrested and interviewed at Salisbury police station.
“The man was subsequently bailed without being charged to return to Salisbury police station on a date in June.
“Inquiries are being completed to establish if any offences have been committed.”
Marlborough College, one of the top five public schools in the UK, has been rocked by several sex scandals in recent years.
In 2003 the school’s swimming pool manager, Mark Davies, was arrested after allegedly indecent pictures were found on his computer. Davies, brother of the Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, was cautioned but not charged.
In 2002 there was another scandal when students sitting an exam saw pornographic pictures projected onto a screen. Teacher Richard Jowett, who had been invigilating, had been looking at pictures of naked women on his computer unaware that it was sending the images to an overhead screen in full view of pupils.
Career maker: Prince Harry’s ex-girlfriend, aspiring actress Cressida Bonas, poses with Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein at a screening of the latter’s new film Big Eyes in London
Prince Harry’s ex-girlfriend Cressida Bonas slopes off to hobnob with ANOTHER Epstein pal
6 January 2015
When Prince Harry’s former girlfriend Cressida Bonas agreed to go skiing with her chum Princess Eugenie, she had no idea she would be caught up in the storm engulfing the Duke of York.
After Prince Andrew joined his daughter and her model friend at their £22,000-per-week chalet in the Alps, it was besieged by the world’s media amid a growing furore over claims Andrew had sex with an under-age girl ‘procured’ for him by his close friend, convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
So it was an unfortunate coincidence that Cressie’s first public engagement on returning to London on Sunday was a bash thrown by another of Epstein’s friends, film producer Harvey Weinstein.
Sloping off: Cressida has recently returned to London from spending time in Verbier in the Swiss Alps with her old friend Princess Eugenie and her family
Dressed in a midriff-baring outfit with her glossy mane worn loose, the 25-year-old posed next to Weinstein, 62, at a screening of his latest offering, Big Eyes.
(Lurking behind was Charles Dance, who in 2004 famously seduced vicar’s daughter Sophia Myles, 33 years his junior, and then cruelly dumped her.)
Despite the movie mogul’s long-standing association with Epstein — the two even made a failed bid for New York magazine in 2003 — the screening was an occasion not to be missed for aspiring thespian Cressida.
Weinstein, who is married to 38-year-old fashion designer Georgina Chapman, a friend of the Duchess of York, is known for mentoring young actresses.
(L to R) Harvey Weinstein, Princess Eugenie of York and Georgina Chapman at attends a VIP screening of ‘Lion’ hosted by Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman at Soho House on December 19, 2016 in London, England
He is credited with propelling Gwyneth Paltrow (pictured below) to A-list status, having collaborated with her on eight films, including Shakespeare In Love, for which she won an Oscar in 1999.
So it is understandable that Cressida, who scored a small part in Harvey’s forthcoming movie Tulip Fever, is keen to nurture her relationship with the Hollywood tycoon.
Aptly she plays a ‘society lady’ in the film, which is based on Deborah Moggach’s novel.
Since splitting with Harry, ambitious Cressida has been taking her acting career seriously.
Last month, she attended a private vocal training school on Orkney to improve her articulation and projection skills.
Meanwhile, her first play, There’s A Monster In The Lake, is being revived later this month at Waterloo Vaults.
Perhaps Cressie, who has given few signs she wants to rekindle her romance with Harry, has set her sights on an even more desirable prize than a prince: an Oscar.
Geelong Grammar took no steps to protect students after abuse reports, says inquiry
14 Feb 2017
Royal commission releases report into prestigious Victorian private school criticising headmaster who went on to Eton College
The prestigious Geelong Grammar School’s long-time headmaster took no steps to bring in measures to protect students from a teacher alleged to have sexually abused pupils, a royal commission has found.
Geelong Grammar’s 1980-94 headmaster, John Lewis, allowed Jonathan Harvey to remain at the school despite knowing about allegations against him, the child sex abuse royal commission said.
It said by 1991, Lewis – who became headmaster of England’s elite Eton College after leaving Geelong Grammar – knew about allegations Harvey sexually abused students in 1982 and 1985 as well as allegations of inappropriate conduct with students.
“Despite this knowledge, Mr Lewis allowed Harvey to remain in a position where he had unsupervised access to students,” its report said. “Mr Lewis did not take any steps to prepare policies or procedures to protect the safety and welfare of the students at Geelong Grammar.”
Geelong Grammar’s 2001-04 headmaster Nicholas Sampson, now headmaster of Sydney’s Cranbrook School, organised for Harvey to be paid his entire 2005 salary to retire a year early after a staff member complained his brother had been abused by the teacher in the 1970s.
Sampson attempted to act in the victim’s best interests by securing Harvey’s resignation without disclosing the former student’s identity, but should have notified the Victorian Institute of Teaching, the commission found.
Sampson thanked the maths teacher for his outstanding service and did not record in writing the real reasons for Harvey’s departure, despite verbally informing others at the school about the allegations.
The commission said he should have made a documentary record of the reasons, but accepted Sampson’s evidence that he would now approach a similar situation very differently.
The royal commission also criticised Geelong Grammar for not investigating a boarder’s 1989 complaint that he was sexually abused, before expelling the 14-year-old for speaking out.
No member of staff notified police of the allegations, the commission said. Lewis should have ensured the allegation was investigated, it said.
The commission also found the school’s Highton campus master Robert John Bugg was involved in the boarder’s dismissal for discussing the sexual assault with other students.
Bugg must have believed the likely perpetrator was probably a staff member, it said. “In removing BIW from the school and not investigating the complaint, Mr Bugg failed to protect BIW’s interests and the interests of other students at Highton.”
Live-in boarding house assistant Philippe Trutmann was convicted for abusing BIW and 40 other Geelong Grammar students.
The commission found the school put its own financial interests before those of a student seeking compensation after being sexually abused by a teacher by not disclosing that it knew the teacher may have been jailed for pedophilia.
Before her death, Sian, the wife of diplomat Thomas Hurd and daughter-in-law of the former home and foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd, had been an active campaigner for the charity, Women for Women International.
Nick Hurd was one of 295 MPs who voted against an amendment to the Official Secrets Act that would have given witness protection to the victims of high-profile child abuse
Nick Hurd (Conservative), who voted against it, has a demonstrable relationship to Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire child abuser from the USA who is at the the heart of an ongoing child sex abuse scandal implicating Prince Andrew.
Epstein has been on the sex offenders register since 2008 after serving thirteen months of an eighteen month sentence for soliciting an underage girl for prostitution, and is currently facing allegations that he recruited a 15-year-old girl to act as a sex slave on a private jet for his friend and client, Prince Andrew.
Supporting the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation
Yet another paedophile friend of Prince Andrew: Father Gleed
How a royal gift exposed sexual abuse at an elite Canadian school
Oct 12, 2017
Prince Andrew wanted to memorialize his friend and former chaplain at Lakefield College School.
The resulting tribute prompted paedophile Father Keith Gleed’s victims to finally break their silence.
L: Prince Andrew renews his memories of Lakefield College in 1985; which he attended in 1977; R: Keith Gleed
Nine years ago, Prince Andrew paid a visit to his Canadian alma mater: the prestigious Lakefield College School, just north of Peterborough, Ont. It was not the first homecoming for His Royal Highness. A teenage exchange student back in 1977, the Queen’s second son retains strong ties to his old campus and has reminisced often about how deeply he treasures those “life-changing” six months. But that particular trip, in May 2008, was especially sentimental. The Duke of York had a gift to present: a hand-carved baptismal font for the school chapel.
Crafted in part from a large rock that Andrew had delivered from Scotland’s Balmoral Castle, the font was created to honour a dear friend: the late Keith Gleed, an Anglican priest who served as chaplain at the elite private school between 1974 and 1980. After meeting at Lakefield, Andrew and Gleed remained such good friends that the prince invited the reverend both to his 21st birthday party and to his wedding to Sarah Ferguson. Shortly before Gleed died of cancer in 2001, Andrew even travelled to his hospital bedside to say goodbye—“surely a testament of true friendship,” according to Gleed’s obituary in the school newsletter.
The day the font was dedicated, staff and students joined Andrew inside the A.W. Mackenzie Chapel for the blessing ceremony. Dead for seven years by then, Gleed was fondly remembered as “the confidant of the troubled, the defender of the bullied and a true friend to all.”
In reality, Father Keith was none of those things. He was a pedophile who preyed on vulnerable young students and took his secret to the grave—only to have the truth exposed, ironically enough, because of Andrew’s well-intentioned efforts to enshrine his memory.
Maclean’s has learned that after the prince unveiled Gleed’s religious tribute, at least five former students came forward to report they were sexually abused by the one-time chaplain. Two have launched lawsuits against Lakefield College School (LCS)—including one graduate, now 54, who says it was Andrew’s gesture that spurred him to break his silence in 2014, prompting Lakefield to initiate a third-party investigation that triggered other victims to come forward.
“Greg was pained and haunted by the knowledge that a pedophile like Father Keith was permanently honoured with a baptismal font on the school’s premises,” says the man’s statement of claim, which seeks $5 million in damages. “Thereafter, Greg began to disclose the sexual abuse he had endured at Father Keith’s hands, which, up to that point, he had kept a secret.” (Although the lawsuits are not subject to a publication ban, Maclean’s has chosen, after consulting with the victims, to identify them by their first names only: Gregory and Edward.)
At Gregory’s urging, school officials removed the memorial font from the chapel. Its current whereabouts is unknown. Lakefield will say only that the one-of-a-kind piece “was removed from school property in 2014.”
That Keith William Gleed was a sexual deviant is not in dispute. Lakefield’s own independent investigators concluded in 2015 that the disgraced chaplain violated “the trust and authority” of his position and “afflicted harm on innocent students by engaging in sexual misconduct.” But the two lawsuits go further, accusing Lakefield of “failing to reveal, and in fact, concealing, Father Keith’s sexual misconduct” from parents and police, and permitting the abuse “to continue unchecked.” At the very least, the lawsuits allege Lakefield is liable for the conduct of its former employee, who was encouraged “to have regular, unsupervised and intimate physical and psychological contact with its students.”
Whatever the full truth, the revelations about Father Keith have landed Lakefield—one of the country’s most esteemed private schools—among the institutions now stained by sexual abuse, from church-run residential schools to elite preparatory colleges. At LCS (as at Toronto’s Upper Canada College, which endured its own abuse scandal in the early 2000s), neither the reputation of the academy nor the socio-economic status of parents and alumni proved enough to protect every student in its care.
“When he started at LCS, Eddy had been a happy and gregarious child who was eager to please and had a promising future ahead of him,” reads Edward’s statement of claim, which seeks $2.25 million. After Gleed sexually assaulted him, his life became “chaotic and crisis-ridden”—a downward spiral of substance abuse, petty criminality and crippling flashbacks. Edward is now 53. “[He] has above average intelligence,” his claim continues. “But because of the childhood sexual abuse he experienced at LCS and the lack of meaningful support he received while attending LCS…he has never achieved his full educational, vocational or earnings potentials and goals.”
Lakefield has filed statements of defence in both lawsuits, denying the allegations, denying it is liable for Gleed’s behaviour, and describing the damages sought as “excessive, exaggerated and remote.” The school also launched third-party claims against the Anglican dioceses of Toronto and Niagara, where Gleed was variously licensed after his ordination in 1960. Both dioceses “endorsed Father Gleed as chaplain” and held him out “as a suitable and respectable Anglican priest,” Lakefield alleges, “when they knew or ought to have known that he was not suited for the position.” (In their own statements of defence, both dioceses also deny wrongdoing—in particular, that church officials may have been alerted to Gleed’s abuse. Maclean’s contacted the lawyers representing the dioceses; both declined comment, citing the active litigation.)
Along with defending itself in court, Lakefield has retained the services of Profile Communications, a boutique Toronto public relations firm that specializes in crisis management. “We are the 911 of communications,” says the company’s website. Via the firm’s principal, Caroline Spivak, Lakefield answered a list of written questions from Maclean’s.
The school says “it had no knowledge of any alleged impropriety on the part of Father Gleed” in the years before Andrew presented the baptismal font. “Once the allegations were brought forward, LCS immediately put in place the necessary resources to support the victims and the independent third-party investigation it initiated,” Lakefield says. “Counselling was made available to all who came forward, and continues to be provided. The school also communicated broadly and openly with its community, encouraging all parties to participate fully in the independent third-party investigation. The safety and well-being of its students is always the school’s highest priority.”
Four of Gleed’s victims, including Gregory, shared their stories with Lakefield’s investigators. Edward did not, but his lawsuit brings to five the number of Gleed’s known accusers (another alumnus also came forward to allege he’d been sexually abused by a different school employee, a teacher named Colin F. Pickering, who died in 2011).
“Following the conclusion of the investigation, LCS acknowledged the tremendous courage it took for them to speak to the investigators and apologized for the harm inflicted by Father Gleed and for the pain they have endured,” the school says. “The investigators’ detailed findings have not been released in order to protect the deeply personal information disclosed by the victims.”
Prince Andrew, who has previously served as a Lakefield trustee, is now honorary chair of the school’s charitable foundation. How he reacted to the truth about his friend—or hearing that the memorial font he helped create was removed from the chapel—is not clear. “We decline to comment,” said a Royal spokesperson, referring all questions to Lakefield.
One of Canada’s oldest private schools, Lakefield was founded in 1879 as Mr. Sparham Sheldake’s Preparatory School for Boys. Though renamed Lakefield College School in the 1960s, the sprawling waterfront campus—315 scenic acres on the shore of Lake Katchewanooka—remains affectionately known as “The Grove.” The high school became co-ed in 1989, and annual fees currently range from $32,000 for a day student to $57,000 for a boarder (international boarders pay $63,500).
Lakefield’s motto is mens sana in corpore sano—“a sound mind in a sound body”—and its mission statement embraces seven core values, including individuality, environmental stewardship and trust. Along with Andrew, notable alumni include Felipe VI, King of Spain; Emmy-nominated actor Will Arnett; Kenneth Irving, the former CEO of Irving Oil; David Miller, the former Toronto mayor; retired Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie; Ottawa Senators defenceman Cody Ceci; and Anna Gainey, president of the Liberal Party of Canada.
When Gleed first arrived in 1974, Lakefield was still an all-boys academy, with approximately 250 students. Then in his early 40s, the veteran priest had already worked as a chaplain for other institutions: Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ont., the Anglican Young People’s Association, and the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets Corps Vanguard. He’d also been assigned to numerous parishes in his home city of Toronto, including St. James Cathedral downtown. In 1960, the Toronto Star interviewed him for an article about new priests. “I have a photograph taken at the age of two with a Bible,” Gleed told the reporter. “Ever since I can remember I have wished to become a minister.”
A prominent figure on campus, Gleed led chapel service every morning and acted as a residence supervisor. Funny and charismatic, he was well-liked by faculty and students; in one yearbook photo from the 1970s, Father Keith is seen walking down a hallway, surrounded by smiling boys patting his back and shoulders. As Gleed himself would later write of his six years at Lakefield: “Nowhere else have I found such a warm, relaxed, friendly, uncluttered milieu. It nurtures the whole person well!”
Father Keith was beginning his fourth year at Lakefield when Gregory enrolled in September 1977. He was in Grade 9, and eager for the opportunity. “I was excited,” says Gregory, who agreed to speak to Maclean’s via email. “I started at Lakefield with hopes about academic success, developing friendships, and being part of a community. The school’s emphasis on educating the whole person fit for me.”
As happy as he was in his new surroundings, Gregory’s home life was in tatters. His parents separated after he left for high school, and when his dad drove him back to campus at the end of Christmas holidays, his father specifically asked Father Keith to keep a close eye on his son, given their family troubles. Gleed agreed—and throughout that winter, 1978, the chaplain invited Gregory to his private residence nearly every day after classes.
Gregory’s statement of claim describes, in agonizing detail, what happened next.
“During these visits, Greg was alone with Father Keith,” the document reads. “Father Keith gave Greg alcohol (sherry) to drink and sat with Greg on the couch in his living room. Father Keith hugged and embraced Greg, touched and stroked Greg’s head, kissed Greg, and pulled Greg’s head against his chest. While doing these things, Father Keith spoke to Greg in a soothing and reassuring manner, but offered Greg little support with respect to his family problems. While Father Keith was hugging Greg, he also patted and squeezed Greg’s upper and inner thighs. Greg was uncomfortable and felt confused, uneasy and trapped during these encounters.”
During one visit—which would prove to be his last—Gregory woke up on the floor, disoriented. “Father Keith was on his back and Greg was lying across him, face down,” the lawsuit says. “Greg’s head was on Father Keith’s chest and Father Keith was holding Greg in an embrace. Father Keith asked Greg if he could hear his (Father Keith’s) heart beating.” The boy immediately jumped up, insisting he had to leave for supper.
“As Greg walked back to his residence building, Greg could feel that his clothes were no longer on properly,” his statement of claim continues. “His underwear were pulled up tight and twisted and his trousers were askew. His anus was uncomfortable and he knew Father Keith had penetrated him. He felt dirty and that he had been drawn into doing something shameful. When he returned to his residence, he went straight to [the] shower and stood there, frozen, for a long time.”
In that moment, Gregory’s entire life was altered. Though he managed to graduate from Lakefield in 1982, he grew increasingly introverted and despondent during his remaining years on campus, turning to alcohol to numb the anguish. By Grade 13, he was drinking constantly—a coping mechanism he would cling to in the decades to come. Rarely has a day passed without Gregory wrestling with suicidal thoughts.
“Being abused by Father Keith fundamentally changed who I am,” he says. “When I was young, I believed I could make a difference in the world and that I had an obligation to do so. Those dreams gradually disappeared over the years. Since the abuse, I have felt there was something intrinsically wrong with me. I have felt ashamed. I thought that I’d be blamed and no one would believe me.”
For more than 30 years, he told no one. “I knew my pain was there, but it was too large, too all-consuming and too all-defining to confront,” Gregory says. “It was safer for me to avoid the pain by accepting myself as being a failure, as always screwing up.”
Father Keith left Lakefield in June 1980, going on to serve at different Anglican parishes in the greater Toronto area. By 1985, he was once again working as a chaplain, this time at the University of Waterloo’s Renison College. “I’m having a ball,” he told the campus newspaper. “It’s the excitement of living in a community of students, the neat little things that happen.” Two years later, Gleed took a job at St. John’s College at the University of Manitoba.
He remained on the move over the next 15 years, transferring in and out of parishes in Willowdale, Mississauga and Oakville. He also kept in touch with Andrew, and when the Prince married the Duchess of York in July 1986, Gleed was among the Lakefield contingent that travelled to Westminster Abbey for the wedding. (To this day, Andrew remains close with a core group of fellow Lakefield “old boys.” Five times, he has joined former classmates for a reunion canoe trip in the Northwest Territories.)
Father Keith passed away on Feb. 3, 2001, two weeks before his 69th birthday. At his funeral, one nurse recalled how the dying priest appeared to be at complete peace—“almost joyfully ready for his next journey.” Gleed’s death notice appeared in both The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star, highlighting “his joyous faith, his wonderful smile and his infectious laugh.”
By 2010—more than 30 years after he was sexually assaulted inside the chaplain’s private residence—Gregory decided the time had finally come to confront his abuser. He emailed the Niagara Diocese in the hopes of tracking down Father Keith, only to be told he had died nine years earlier. When a subsequent internet search turned up a news article about Andrew and the baptismal font, Gregory was devastated. “This reinforced ideas in me that no one would believe me, that I was insignificant, and that the abuse of me would not matter,” he says.
A year later, Gregory briefly separated from his wife. During counselling sessions aimed at repairing their relationship, he says he delved deeper into the abuse he experienced—and the pain of discovering that his alma mater had paid tribute to his tormentor. By August 2013, Gregory worked up the strength to start crafting a letter to Struan Robertson, then the head of school. Another year (and multiple revisions) later, he sent it, determined to have Gleed’s font removed from the chapel.
“I am a Grove Old Boy,” his letter began.
“Father Keith’s abuse is allowed to continue with each child that is baptized,” Gregory wrote. “I am certain there are other Old Boys in my position, who also find the commemoration of an abusive, manipulative pedophile contrary to the ideals of the Grove. I recognize that other Old Boys may have had a different experience of Father Keith. Despite this, Father Keith’s true nature sullies any positive experiences or benefit others may have derived.”
After removing the font, Lakefield sent a letter of its own to parents of alumni—“to share some important information regarding our past.” Dated Oct. 20, 2014, the letter laid out the basics of Gregory’s disclosure (without naming him) and encouraged anyone with information about Gleed to contact Lakefield’s third-party investigators: John Callaghan, a senior partner at Gowling WLG; Patrick LeSage, former chief justice of the Ontario Superior Court; and retired Toronto police detective Thomas Klatt, then a managing director of the private-investigations firm MKD International.
Signed by Nick Lewis, then the chair of Lakefield’s board of directors, the letter also contained a further revelation: that another former student had advised Lakefield in 2010—four years earlier—of a separate allegation involving the chaplain. But because that incident occurred after Gleed and the student had left LCS, and because the alumnus was adamant he did not want Lakefield to conduct a comprehensive investigation, the school honoured his wishes. “In light of the recently received allegation, however, it is clear to us that we must now take further action,” Lewis wrote. “These allegations are disturbing and heartbreaking, and we are taking them very seriously.”
Among those who received the school’s letter in the mail was Edward’s elderly mother. When she showed it to her adult son, he broke down—then proceeded to disclose, for the first time, what Father Keith did to him as a Grade 6 student in the mid 1970s.
“After lights were turned out in the junior residence, Father Keith frequently sat on the side of Eddy’s bed, spoke reassuring words to Eddy and rubbed Eddy’s body, including his neck and back,” reads his statement of claim. “Initially, he did so over Eddy’s bed covers and then, after Eddy became accustomed to this routine and the physical contact, he moved his hands under Eddy’s covers and below Eddy’s waist.”
On weekends, when fewer students slept in the residence, Gleed’s groping grew more intrusive. “Under Eddy’s covers, Father Keith stroked and fondled Eddy’s bottom, anus, inner thighs and scrotum, both over and under Eddy’s pyjama pants,” his lawsuit continues. “While touching Eddy in these ways, Father Keith spoke softly, encouraging Eddy to fall asleep. As his bed was against a wall, Eddy felt trapped and unable to escape from Father Keith’s unwanted touching.”
When Edward moved to a different house in Grade 7, the abuse stopped. One day, however, Gleed invited the boy to his private residence, supposedly to discuss Eddy’s behaviour problems. “When Eddy arrived, Father Keith was dressed only in a short bathrobe,” the claim reads. “When Father Keith sat down on his couch, his bare genitals were exposed. It was only when Eddy responded with unease that Father Keith made light of his exposure and covered himself with a pillow. Father Keith invited Eddy to come back and see him, and said he would answer any questions Eddy had about sexual matters. Eddy did not return to Father Keith’s residence.”
By Grade 8, Edward says he was so damaged by Gleed’s earlier molestations that he transformed into a different kid. He became withdrawn, confused, irritable and racked with self-doubt; he also began to smoke, steal and bully fellow students. His misbehaviour reached a boiling point near the end of 1977, when he and his mother were summoned to a meeting with Lakefield officials—including Gleed.
“Eddy was told he had to leave the school,” his statement of claim says. “The experience of being expelled in this way, with Father Keith sitting in judgment of him and without Eddy ever feeling able to speak about Father Keith’s abuse and betrayal of his trust, was devastating to Eddy.”
***
Gregory launched his lawsuit more than a year ago, in September 2016. Edward’s was filed in March. “My clients are determined to get justice and accountability, and will not be deterred by the prospect of a long court battle,” says Elizabeth Grace, their Toronto lawyer. “However, they are hopeful Lakefield will do the right thing by resolving their cases sooner than later.”
Grace credits the academy for agreeing to pay for counselling—and allowing Gregory and Edward to choose their therapists. “Otherwise, Lakefield has acted like any other defendant in these circumstances,” she continues. “The school is trying to defend itself against serious allegations of sexual abuse of its students by what appears to have been a prolific abuser, and so far it is requiring my clients to go through the rigours of a court process that can often be re-traumatizing.”
For its part, Lakefield says it responded to the revelations about Gleed in a manner “guided by the school’s values, its responsibility to the school community, as well as to the alumni who came forward.” That included communicating “openly and broadly” with all LCS stakeholders while the third-party investigation unfolded. (As Lewis, the board chair, wrote in one edition of Lakefield’s newsletter: “Never has there been a more significant demand on the board’s time than with this issue.”)
Father Keith Gleed (center), as seen in the 1979 Lakefield yearbook.
Lakefield also conducted an in-depth review of its policies and procedures, concluding that although they “were consistent with best practices,” there was room for improvement. Says the school: “LCS strengthened its procedures for reporting abuse and amended its policies relating to sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and sexual assault.”
For Gleed’s victims, that is hardly much comfort. The school’s present-day guidelines, no matter how robust, can never erase the damage done. “The expectation was that Eddy was going to be given an exemplary education,” says Edward’s older sister, Kathryn. “The minimum was that he would be safe—and he wasn’t safe. They had in their care an innocent little boy and they didn’t take care of him.”
“His childhood was stolen from him,” she continues. “If this had happened to me, I don’t know that I would have had the courage that Eddy has had to try and live a normal life.”
Like Edward, Gregory has endured so much misery over the years, from depression to anxiety to a paralyzing fear of crowds. He even struggled with bulimia. “I can’t experience joy or happiness,” Gregory says. “I distrust everyone.” Father Keith robbed him of something else, too: a sense of connection to his prestigious alma mater. “I lived there for five years, and was supposed to form relationships, both with the school and my peers, that would last a lifetime,” he says. “However, my wish and expectation of being part of the school community became impossible because I carried the secret of Father Keith’s abuse.”
At the very least, Gregory takes some solace in knowing Gleed’s baptismal font was hauled out of the chapel—though he, too, has no idea where it is now.
Two other friends of Father Keith helped Prince Andrew devise the commemorative font. Terry Guest, who was headmaster of LCS when Gleed was chaplain, carved the font’s wooden base, while Lakefield alumnus Al Pace, a prominent Canadian studio potter, created the basin to hold the holy water. Both men’s contributions to the project were publicized in the school newsletter and in local press coverage of Andrew’s 2008 visit.
Now retired, Guest did not return phone messages seeking comment for this article. Pace replied to Maclean’s with a written statement via Profile Communications, the public relations firm working for Lakefield. “I’m extremely disappointed by the situation and my heart goes out to the victims,” Pace said. “I wish that Keith was here to have the opportunity to respond to the allegations against him.”
Now that the baptismal font is gone, Edward’s sister thinks Lakefield should consider commissioning a new memorial. “How about they put up a monument to the boys who were hurt, as opposed to the priest who hurt them?” Kathryn says. “And how about every year, they take the student body down to that place and say: ‘These are the boys who were not protected—and it will not happen again.’ ”
In the end, Grace says it will be up to Lakefield students and parents—former, current and future—to judge how genuinely committed the school is to confronting a dark chapter in its history. “Unfortunately, Lakefield as a boarding school is not the first to face allegations of this nature,” she says. “I have no doubt parents and prospective students will be watching carefully what happens with these cases.”
Wikipedia is the front line in the battle to misinform the masses
The rule of thumb tends to be that the victorious rewrite history. At least that’s what we are told by those who we suppose to have been the winners. However, nowadays our history is written through collaboration and each example of this is an independent skirmish which makes up the wider global war. Wikipedia is on the front line of these daily battles. The modern encyclopedia is a one stop shop for knowledge on most subjects. Wikipedian’s are well aware that they are strange creatures, who often revel in their own obsessive compulsive natures. They argue with each other over details that would bore the majority of normal folk. But hidden amongst the millions of pages of Wikipedian’s conversations are many arguments over neutrality.
An article which I wrote about UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s father, Reverend Hubert Brasier, led to me investigate Wikipedia. Hubert Brasier’s Wikipedia page had vanished just after Theresa May became PM in July 2016. Two days after my story went viral Mr. Brasier’s Wikipedia page was reinstated under the pretence that it was of importance as Theresa May was now running for PM. If that was so then why would you decide to delete, or merge the page, when she had already become PM a year earlier? The battle over the Hubert Brasier Wiki page is still being fought. The page was soon re-merged with Theresa May’s page and information about Hubert’s work placements was again hidden away in the archives.
There was some backlash to my questions. One man suggested that I just didn’t understand how Wikipedia worked and I took that as a challenge. I wanted to find error in my reasoning but what I discovered instead was confirmation of corruption. I read thousands of conversations between Wikipedian’s who went into detail about the most mundane of semantics. I studied all the pages of interest, checking the controversial conservative and right wing figures of history. Enoch Powell, Oswald Moseley, Lord Sudeley, Margaret Thatcher, Ted Heath, all of them had a long history of page edits and numerous patterns began to emerge.
Wikipedia ‘Sock Puppets’ are Wikipedian’s who are using multiple accounts to force through edits and deletions. Once they are discovered to be suspected sock puppets they are banned from any further edits. But the damage they do before they are caught effects the history that we read. The agenda of a sock puppet is often to undermine pages by slowly taking away information from articles until they are eventually disjointed and full of errors. Then the pages are put forward for deletion or to be merged with other Wikipedia articles. On any page history, you can witness Wikipedian user names highlighted in red who have left, been banned for vandalism, or discovered to be a sock puppet for a different account. Their former profile pages usually show some detail of their punishment and gives you access to all their previous conversations leading to the account being suspended or banned.
Neve Selbert was the first active Wikipedia username to be written down in my little note book on multiple occasions. The account has been actively editing pages about senior UK Conservatives, and others connected with conservative politics, since 21st July 2015, nearly 2 months after the UK Conservatives won the 2015 General Election. Neve Selbert describes himself as a secret monarchist and his account has been suspended on numerous occasions. On his Wikipedia profile page he says that he is sorry for things he has done before on Wikipedia and promises to make it right. It isn’t long into my investigation of the Neve Selbert user account before I stumbled across a group that he is a member of on Wikipedia. The group is the Wikiproject Conservatism and states their intentions as ‘a group dedicated to improving Wikipedia’s coverage of topics related to conservatism’. The group is large, organised and global. It’s quite difficult for anyone on the left of politics to imagine an impartial conservative, let alone a group of impartial conservatives. It is clear that the right wing of politics is using every possible tool to rewrite history in a way that suits their narrative. They wish to erase all evidence that points to the average conservative being manipulative, false, incompetent, and out of touch.
There are groups who oppose these attempts to rewrite a conservative history of the world. But it seems that for every one person fighting for truth and impartiality, there are two more fighting to hide facts. It is obvious that the real history will be written by those who organise. For now the global war of information trundles onward. We most all fight disinformation, not only in the future but also in the present.
The report of Dame Moira Gibb into the Church of England’s handling of the abusive bishop Peter Ball makes shocking reading. It reveals a concern for appearance over reality, for the institution over the individual and, most of all, for the strong and powerful over the weak and vulnerable. From the moment the first victims came forward, the response of the church up to the highest level was one of institutional self-protection.
The complaint was not reported to the police, but only to the archbishop of Canterbury, then George Carey, who persisted long past the point of reason in hoping that his colleague was innocent. The police were not told until after the first victim to come forward, Neil Todd, had attempted suicide twice – and even then it was his parents and not the church who made the complaint. The diocese of Gloucester hired a former policeman to investigate, and if possible discredit, the witnesses.
After news of Bishop Ball’s arrest broke, Lambeth Palace received seven independent accusations about his earlier behaviour. Two were seen by Archbishop Carey, who replied to them personally. Only one of the seven, though, was passed to the police, and that the least damning. Lord Carey’s message to the diocese after Bishop Ball was arrested urged prayers for the bishop and said nothing about victims. After Bishop Ball had retired on spurious grounds of ill health and accepted a caution – though remaining in denial about his crimes – Lord Carey worked to have him rehabilitated. True, he did so with less ingenuity than Peter Ball’s identical twin Michael, himself a bishop, who has admitted allowing his twin to deputise for him at “one or two events”, even after his disgrace.
Lord Carey nevertheless gave Peter Ball £12,000 from church funds, leading to loud complaints from the brothers, who had wanted £20,000. He deliberately kept Peter Ball’s name off the Lambeth blacklist of unemployable clergy; he had the disgraced bishop to stay at Lambeth Palace twice; he attempted to find him work in South Africa (writing to Desmond Tutu for this scheme) and in prisons; he wrote to an American parish that “Peter was possibly the victim of a plot but that, of course, cannot be proved”. Lord Carey’s only objection to a full rehabilitation of Bishop Ball as a retired bishop was that it might provoke unfavourable publicity.
This was disgraceful, and the result has been a deserved disgrace. But it was part of a culture of privilege, power and make-believe that corrupted more than one bishop. Lord Carey’s successor, Rowan Williams did nothing to help Bishop Ball but very little and very slowly to hinder him either.
There is evidence of sexual abuse and improper conduct by Ball during the 1970s and 1980s. Whilst prior of the CGA Peter Ball combined those duties with several other roles, including three
years as a vicar in Staffordshire. While there he established another CGA community and we have heard evidence of an incident
involving one of the community members being beaten by Ball. That account was given to us by someone who went on to be abused by B
all himself and to make a statement about this in the prosecution of Ball in 2015.
Another man who was a member of Ball’s community for more than thirteen years told us of an incident in 1977 when Ball, complaining of phlebitis, asked the man to massage his legs. The
man started to do so but stopped when he realised that Ball, unclothed below the waist, was sexually aroused.
3.2.8
As well as meeting boys and young men through the Give a Year to God scheme, Ball was a frequent visitor to some public schoo
ls and was a governor of several schools. He had a reputation as an entertaining and charismatic speaker and, having been invited into schools, he went on to form associations with a number of individual boys, sometimes offering intensive one to one “counselling”. Of the 18 victims cited when Ball was sentenced in 2015, five had encountered Ball while they were still at school. At least one abusive encounter took place on school premises.
3.2.9
Ball also had associations during the 1970s and 1980s with other priests in the Diocese of Chichester, who we now know were involved in abusive behaviour.
These matters are considered below, in the section of this report which considers the extent to which Ball may have been part of a network of abusive priests.
3.2.10
Ball’s career and influence in the Church continued to thrive throughout the 1980s, though there is also evidence of rumours and rumblings of disquiet about his activities. In 1985 he was a candidate for the position of Bishop of Norwich but diocesan representatives opposed his appointment. They are noted to have reported that ‘…we needed someone married and that Norwich really could not take a group of young men living with the bishop in the bishop’s house – nor was this pastorally wise for the bishop.’
3.2.11
Ball was appointed as Bishop of Gloucester in April 1992. Records indicate that the appointment process deviated in part from standard practice – he was chosen despite being the second of two options considered . There was initially a measure of resistance within the Gloucester Diocese, linked to Ball’s Anglo-Catholicism.
Ball was also opposed to the ordination of women whereas the Synod in Gloucester supported this change.
3.2.12
Former members of the CGA told us that Ball’s lifestyle at that time was not consistent with his avowed austerity. We have similarly heard from former staff at Bishopscourt, the official residence of the Bishop of Gloucester, of an extravagant
way of life.
Household expenditure on food and alcohol increased significantly
following Ball’s arrival and the house was expensively decorated and furnished.
The exception was Ball’s bedroom which was small and sparsely furnished but contained three mattresses. Unlike his predecessors Ball chose a bedroom at the far end of the residence, away from the staff. Ball received many visitors, usually young men, some of whom resided at Bishopscourt for some time
3.3.2
Neil Todd and others subsequently reported that Ball repeatedly encouraged him to engage in ‘spiritual’ exercises involving nakedness and cold showers. In September 1992 Ball suggested that Todd should agree to be beaten while naked so that his body should ‘ bear the marks’. This beating did not take place because of the
intervention of a member of domestic staff at Bishopscourt, Mr J,
who had become increasingly concerned at Ball’s lifestyle and specifically his treatment of Neil Todd.
3.3.3
Neil Todd told Mr J that Ball intended to whip him and that he did not want this to happen. In order to avoid a confrontation with Ball,
Mr J and his wife took Todd away with them on holiday. When they returned Neil Todd did not come back with them but is believed to have gone to London. They have told us that Ball behaved as if nothing had happened.
3.3.4
They remained worried and, later that year, came to London to share their concerns with Bishop John Yates. He was well known to them as he had been Bishop of Gloucester immediately before Ball’s appointment. He was now the Bishop at Lambeth, the head of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s staff, and was to play a
significant part in subsequent events. They have told us that they set out their concerns in detail, referring specifically to the proposed flagellation.
3.3.5
Bishop Yates is said to have listened but did not commit himself to any action. He suggested that if they remained concerned they might speak to another bishop they knew locally, the suffragan Bishop of Tewkesbury, Bishop Jeremy Walsh.
Bishop Yates subsequently wrote to the staff in December 1992, thanking them for their concern but expressing regret that
“confidences had been broken possibly by police here in London”.
(No further clarification of this comment has emerged from our
enquiries).
3.3.6
Neil Todd returned to Bishopscourt in October 1992 and there was a further encounter involving explicitly sexual activity with Ball. Todd was very distressed by this, left Bishopscourt and went to Crawley Down and then to Brixton to stay with the LBSC. In mid-
November Neil Todd attempted suicide. Then, apparently
because he had learned of another young man going to stay at Bishopscourt and feared for his welfare, Todd decided that he should disclose what had happened to him.
3.3.7
He spoke to Mr A who contacted a local vicar in Brixton (where Mr A lived). That led to contact with Bishop Roy Williamson, Bishop of Southwark.
Bishop Williamson told us that he remembered that they told him about Ball being involved in naked prayer. He spoke to Bishop Kemp, as Ball’s superior when he had been in Sussex. On 25th November Mr A spoke directly to Bishop Kemp and told him of Neil Todd’s disclosures, and of his suicide attempt.
3.3.8
Bishop Kemp immediately contacted Ball, who denied any sexual relationship with Todd. Ball then spoke to a superintendent in Gloucester Police, a friend of his, who gave him some advice about his situation. Ball faxed Bishop Kemp a statement stating that he had not had a sexual relationship with Todd but then asked him
to destroy the fax. Bishop Kemp did so.
3.3.9
On 4th December Bishop Kemp met Mr A and the local vicar, and offered to see Neil Todd himself. That meeting took place on 10th December. Todd confirmed that there had been sexual contact between him and Ball at Ball’s request. Todd was very upset, and said that Ball should admit what he had done and should no longer
be a bishop. Bishop Kemp said that he would reflect on what he had been told.
……
3.4.4. Bishop Michael Ball wrote to Lord Carey at the end of the year referring to the support his brother was receiving from prominent figures including, he claimed, two Cabinet Ministers and the Prince of Wales
3.5.4 In mid-January Bishop Michael Ball wrote to a senior
official at Lambeth Palace.
His letter begins:
“Thank you for all your help over this …and thank you too for going back today to try to make some preliminary overtures to the Home Office”.
…..
Mr D recorded being told by Mr F that the police investigation had revealed ‘very serious allegations….from all over the country, covering many years of [Ball’s] life in the ministry. Statements
had been obtained from young men in Cambridge, Oxford, Durham and Newcastle, and many other allegations had come to light ‘.
The monk had also heard from Mr C, then a student at Westcott House Theological College in Cambridge, that there were allegations of mutual masturbation involving Ball and ‘
various boys up at Cambridge at this time’
(implying that these relationships started before the youths went to Cambridge).
From mid-1993 the emphasis of concern at Lambeth Palace was on
whether, when and how Ball should be rehabilitated. Various initial steps were considered and discussed with Ball. The Archbishop of Cape Town, The Rt Revd Desmond Tutu, and Lord Carey corresponded about an invitation to Ball to minister
in a diocese in South Africa. There was a suggestion that Ball might minister in prisons. These options were not acceptable to Ball. The energies of the Ball brothers were channelled into a drive to
secure Peter Ball’s return to public ministry.
Peter Ball spent two days at Lambeth Palace in the first week of September 1993 as a guest of the Archbishop. This was followed by two letters from Bishop Michael Ball in the same week asking that Lord Carey do more to progress Ball’s return to ministry. Lord Carey wrote to Bishop Michael reminding him that he had not placed
Peter Ball’s name on the List, and that he had considered this carefully.
The bishop presciently felt that Ball would “use any limited permission as a lever to extort more and more out of you, and perhaps other bishops, and you will have no peace”.
During 1995 Ball’s gradual return to ministry and the erosion of the Church’s opposition continued. In January Lord Carey gave permission for Ball to go to the USA to lead Holy Week and Easter services in a parish there.
In his correspondence with that parish the Archbishop wrote that
“Peter was Bishop of Gloucester but was deprived of his
episcopal ministry two years ago because of a criminal act against a minor…Peter was possibly the victim of a plot but that, of course, cannot be proved”.
In January 1996 Lord Carey agreed that Ball should be permitted to preach at a public school, provided that the school were made aware of possible hostile press interest. He further agreed in March that Ball could conduct confirmations and preach at two more schools. Ball was still the President of the Anglican Fellowship in Scouting and Guiding and the Archbishop agreed that he could attend their Annual General Meeting and celebrate the Eucharist at their headquarters in Gilwell Park.
3.7.17
In April 1996 Ball, who had not seen Lord Carey face to face since November 1994 asked for a meeting, ostensibly to hand over correspondence between Ball and the Prince of Wales with a view to it being held for posterity in the Lambeth Palace Library.
(The Prince himself was not involved).
Bishop Kemp was to retire in 2001. Shortly before his retirement, following correspondence from Bishop Michael Ball, Bishop Kemp appointed Peter Ball as Emeritus Canon of Chichester–an award usually made in recognition of long and honourable service.
The CPO in Bath and Wells became involved in setting up the forensic assessment but experienced a great deal of opposition. She has reported that Ball began a campaign of telephone calls and letters disputing the decision. He threatened to involve the Prince of Wales.
The CPO was contacted by a number of senior establishment figures who supported Ball’s resistance, including a member of the House of Lords and a senior cleric.
Ball’s connections with Pritchard and Cotton are well – evidenced. An account of Ball abusing a 13 year old boy in the presence of Pritchard and Cotton led to one of the charges which he did not admit when imprisoned. This connection and others prompt a consideration of whether Ball’s activities extended to involvement in some sort of organised abuse.
…there had been an organised “ring” of abusive priests. However some felt that there had been particular issues relating to the Chichester diocese, where the conditions were right for “like minded” people to come together.
There has been public speculation that the response of the Church (and of public authorities) to the allegations against Peter Ball, his caution and his subsequent requests to return to active public ministry, was improperly influenced by Ball’s connections with prominent and influential figures, and that he was able to use those
connections to obtain preferential treatment by the Church (as well as by public authorities). There is no doubt that Ball did have such connections. There is also evidence that he sought to use his connections to his advantage in his dealings with the Church authorities. For example, in a letter to Lord Carey in August 1998 he said “I get more and more invitations….to let you know some of them I have spoken to 400 voluntary workers in Eastbourne with the Lord Lieutenant…I am shortly to preach to the Grenadier Guards in their Chapel; preach at Wellington College, confirm at Radley College and next year preach at Dartmouth to what looks like a full turn out of the Royal Family “.
Ball clearly intimates on many occasions, to Lord Carey and others, that he enjoys the status of confidant of the Prince of Wales. He ensured that Lord Carey was aware that he corresponded with the Prince (see paragraph 3.7.17 above) and that he visited Highgrove House. There are frequent references in Ball’s letters to Lord Carey and others to his attending royal functions and to meeting members of the Royal Family.
The CPS has publicly stated that it had neither received nor seen any correspondence from a member of the Royal Family when Ball was under investigation in 1992/93. It has disclosed in slightly redacted form eleven supportive letters received at that time from other prominent people in society. Those people were Lord Carey (as discussed above) , another former Archbishop of Canterbury
–Lord Donald Coggan, one diocesan bishop, two MPs, two public
school headmasters, one former headmaster, senior staff members from another public school and Lord Justice Lloyd.
6.1.6
Lord Lloyd continued to support Ball after his caution.
In late 1994 Ball was considering trying to persuade the police or the DPP that the handling of his case had been flawed because publicity had prevented his mounting a proper defence. Lord Lloyd
reminded Ball that he had admitted the offence by accepting the caution.
6.1.7
Lord Lloyd subsequently went to see Bishop Sargeant who had by then succeeded Bishop Yates as Bishop at Lambeth. According to
Bishop Sargeant’s note of the meeting, Lord Lloyd disagreed with the policy of barring Ball from public ministry, and was suggesting a way in which that might be reversed. Bishop Sargeant’s notes
describe this as an ‘old boy arrangement’ , where a ‘powerful group of friends (were)…coming to Peter’s aid’.
Ball’s links with public schools
6.2.1
We have noted the links between Ball and public schools, and have been reminded by a number of survivors of the extent to which Ball had connections with such schools. We have found specific references to ministry in seventeen public schools. He was a governor of at least one school for many years and that school has
confirmed that he had unsupervised contact with pupils there
after he had been cautioned . He continued to have links with that school until at least 2007.
6.2.2
Ball’s connections with schools often arose from his personal relationships with the heads of those schools. Some of them championed his cause when he was under investigation in 1992/93, and continued to support him publicly following his resignation.
6.2.3
In the course of this review we contacted every school with which Ball is known to have had any connection. None has reported any concerns about his conduct.
6.2.4
However we know of instances where troubled teenagers from
some of these schools were directed towards Ball for advice and help. That is what happened to one of the complainants whose letter to the Church was not passed to police in 1992.
This boy was subjected to an improper approach from Ball. We have heard directly from one man who, at the age of 15, was seen on school premises by Ball and asked to masturbate in front of him. That man had also contacted the Church about this in 1992.
We now know of five public schools whose pupils were abused by Ball.
6.2.5
We have not seen evidence of Ball abusing boys in school after his caution. But one of the first ways in which he sought to rest
ore his good standing was by re-establishing links with schools. There seems to have been no coherence in the Church’s control over such activities. We have seen that in 1996 Lord Carey agreed
to Ball carrying out priestly duties in schools. Some years later he raised concerns about Ball’s presence in schools, apparently forgetting that he had already sanctioned this. There is evidence that Ball then sustained his connections with some public schools for many years–he himself claimed to have been involved
with between 20 and 25 schools after he had been cautioned.
Church knew about allegations before Cornish preacher went on to abuse boys, investigation reveals
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling
25 MAY 2018
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009
A leading figure in the Church of England in Cornwall went on to commit child sex offences for several years after allegations about his behaviour with young boys were raised with the diocese and not acted upon, an official investigation has revealed.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released today, says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
After the first allegations of Dowling abusing boys at a North Cornwall school where he taught were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions – because of a lack of corroborative evidence – the then Bishop of Truro Maurice Key wrote: “I suppose the problem will now be to find him some other work”.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
The report’s author said the lack of action by the diocese allowed Dowling to gain credibility and authority.
“Because they didn’t take it any further it enabled Jeremy Dowling to reach a position where he made up his own rules, and his position within the church lent him credibility and authority,” said Dr Andy Thompson, an academic, magistrate and member of the Diocesan Council.
The Bishop of St Germans, Rt Revd Dr Chris Goldsmith, apologised for the lack of action and the suffering that resulted.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released on Friday (May 25), says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
One of the leaders who was named in the report was Michael Ball, 86, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997. The Right Reverend Ball told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations about Dowling but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
His identical twin, Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences dating back to the 1970s against 18 young men at his home in East Sussex.
His sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault. The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Last year the brothers decided they wanted to become Catholics so they could live in anonimity. Peter Ball asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol and both said they wanted to switch faith from the Church of England so they could “live and worship in anonymity” within the Catholic Church.
Former Bishop of Truro was Michael Ball, twin brother of convicted paedophile/friend of the royal family and Jimmy Savile – Bishop Peter Ball.
Jeremy Dowling
The Right Reverend Michael Ball – Bishop of Truro from 1990-97 – told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
BIG SOCIETY: Pictured above, with Prime Minister David Cameron and North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson, are Co-founder of Community Action Through Sport (CATS) and volunteer Denise Jane May, CATS trustee and volunteer Jeremy Dowling, CATS Project Development Manager Karen Hemmings, CATS Project Development Assistant Louise Anne Harris and CATS trustee and volunteer Sharon Caroline Marshall.
Ex Truro Diocese worker Jeremy Dowling sexually abused boys
5 June 2015
An ex-Diocese of Truro press officer has admitted sexually abusing boys over a period of more than 10 years.
Jeremy Dowling, 76, carried out the assaults on five children, aged between 12 and 15, from 1959 to 1971.
Truro Crown Court heard Dowling abused the boys at sporting events and in toilets while working as a teacher in Devon.
The Bishop of Truro described Dowling’s offences as “deeply shocking” and said his thoughts were with the victims.
Sentencing was adjourned until July 10 for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.
Dowling, of Church Path, Bude, retired from the Diocese of Truro in 2009 after 25 years of service.
‘Damaging impact’
He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault on boys aged 12 to 15 and two counts of indecency with a child.
The court heard one assault was carried out on a boy at a cricket match. Others took place in an attic, in storage rooms at a sporting pavilion and in outside toilets.
The Right Reverend Tim Thornton, Bishop of Truro, said many people would have known Dowling as a reader at St Michael’s Church and St Genny’s Church in Bude and as a member of the Diocesan and General Synods.
Bishop Thornton said: “Offences like this will have a damaging and lasting impact on people’s lives.
Former Cornwall preacher Jeremy Dowling ‘assaulted boy’
The assaults happened when Jeremy Dowling was a lay preacher at two churches in the Bude area of Cornwall, Truro Crown Court was told.
Mr Dowling met the boy when he was 10 through church activities and “took him under his wing”.
He has denied six counts of indecent assault on a child and two counts of gross indecency with a child.
The assaults happened in the 1970s before Mr Dowling became a press spokesman for the Diocese of Truro, the court heard.
‘Long time ago’
Jo Martin, prosecuting, said some of the assaults took place at Mr Dowling’s house after the boy had been invited for dinner and on one occasion he was taken to a church on the north coast.
She said Mr Dowling took him up a tower and showed him the view, then took him to a room and assaulted him.
The alleged victim did not tell anyone when he was a child but later, when he was married, told his wife about the assaults.
He said when his wife rang up Mr Dowling, accusing him of being a paedophile, Mr Dowling replied “that was a long time ago”.
He said he eventually went to the police after reading in news reports that Mr Dowling had admitted abusing five boys when he was a teacher at a private school in the 1960s.
Mr Dowling is currently serving a jail term for those offences.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
18 October 1977
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Donald Coggan at St Paul’s Cathedral in London with The Rt Rev Peter Ball, right, who was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of Lewes.
The new bishop is the former Prior of the Community of the Glorious Ascension, whose mother house is at Cleeve Priory, Watchet, Somerset.
Archbishop Doogan defended paedophile Bishop Ball and also came to the defense of another paedophile church leader and friend of the royal family –
Patrick Nigel Geoffrey Gilbert
This church sex pervert abuses lad and doesn’t go to prison 1993
(15.06.93)
Patrick Gilbert, friend of royalty, top church official,
Athenaeum Club (chairman executive committee 1985-1989)
alun
The Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall was where Cardinal Hume introduced Savile … and where Terry Woods, Proctor’s lover, was a member.
Testimonials to Gilbert included one from former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Donald Coggan
charity – Promoting Christian Knowledge
Patrick Gilbert often met the Queen, who is patron of the SPCK, at Palace garden parties.
He also discusses the charity’s affairs with Princess Alexandra’s husband Sir Angus Ogilvy, one of its governors.
Questions over churchman’s charity trip: Andrew Brown reports on a leading Anglican’s visit to South Africa with a homosexual friend
4 December 1992
THE MOST powerful layman in the Church of England took his homosexual companion around South Africa on a trip for an Anglican charity, the Independent has learnt. He later repaid to the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge the extra costs involved.
The bills, showing the two men shared a room on the trip in 1990, were approved by Patrick Gilbert, the society’s then managing director, who resigned suddenly last year and is now facing charges of indecent assault.
The Rev Sir Derek Pattinson, as he now is, was secretary-general of the Church of England’s General Synod for 18 years, until 1990, when he was knighted on retirement and embarked on training for ordination.
He was also chairman of the executive committee at the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, a 300-year-old missionary society and publishing house, currently being investigated by the Charity Commissioners after revelations about the extravagance of Mr Gilbert, its last managing director.
Sir Derek set off on a prolonged fact-finding trip around southern Africa at SPCK’s expense in the autumn of 1990, while he was still secretary-general of the Synod.
In Johannesburg he was joined, by pre-arrangement, by Barnaby Miln, a homosexual activist who had been the one of the youngest Justices of the Peace in England.
For most of the years when Sir Derek, 62, was training for the priesthood, he lived with Mr Miln in a flat in Westminster owned by the Diocese of London.
Dr Graham Leonard, the traditionalist who has now announced he plans to leave the Church of England in protest against women priests, was then Bishop of London. He agreed to Sir Derek’s ordination without the customary investigation of his suitability by the Church’s Advisory Council on Ministry.
‘It’s perfectly true that (Sir Derek) never went to a selection conference, because technically he was the employer of the staff who were arranging it,’ Dr Leonard said.
Mr Miln claims that Dr Leonard knew the set-up. ‘The Daily Mail chap, Tony Doran, had got through the outer door on the morning of the deaconing and accused (Sir Derek) to his face of being a homosexual. And Derek sent him away,’ he said.
‘The telephone then started ringing, and Graham Leonard decided to go ahead . . . The organist was told to play full blast, should there be a protest; and at the private do afterwards. Graham Leonard came up to me and said: ‘I did you a favour, Barnaby.’ ‘
Dr Leonard attended a packed General Synod debate in 1987 when Sir Derek was on the platform and Mr Miln, then a lay member, announced that he was a homosexual.
The Synod went on to pass by an overwhelming majority, a motion condemning ‘homosexual genital activity’.
Before Sir Derek could become a priest, Dr Leonard retired, and was replaced by the Rt Rev David Hope, the former bishop of Wakefield. He compelled Sir Derek to return to the theological college at Mirfield, Yorkshire, for an extra term, which he had hoped to skip. But he did ordain him.
Dr Hope said: ‘I knew that they were sharing rooms or a flat. But it was put to me that Barnaby Miln was looking after Derek, caring for or about him. I would presume that their domestic arrangements were satisfactory and wholesome because I was not told otherwise.’
Sir Derek serves as a curate in St Gabriel’s, Warwick Square, central London, whose rector is David Skeogh. Mr Skeogh, a ‘high’ Anglo-Catholic, is a former schoolteacher who served as Dr Leonard’s domestic chaplain both in Truro and London.
While Sir Derek was away at Mirfield last spring Mr Miln began a relationship with David O’Reilly, a young Irishman. He had previously been attracted to a handsome Australian teacher, whose athletic interests led him to take up an exercise programme, which resulted in a knee injury.
Mr Miln said he was due for a cartilage operation at the end of March and ‘needed somebody to get me around. And Derek was due back from Mirfield for the ordination and so forth. So we needed somebody to drive us around.’
David O’Reilly was Mr Miln’s chauffeur and lover from April until he died in mysterious circumstances behind King’s Cross railway station, north London, on 6 August this year.
On 20 May, for reasons which are still unclear, two police cars pulled over Mr Miln’s car as Mr O’Reilly was driving him along the Westway in London. The two men were taken separately to police stations, and interrogated for six hours. The car was searched, but nothing unusual was found except some leaflets promoting the Anglican Centre in Rome.
Mr O’Reilly introduced Mr Miln to hard drugs very soon after their relationship began. Mr Miln said that in very little time he was spending hundreds of pounds a week on heroin and cocaine.
On 6 August, Mr Miln’s 45th birthday, Mr O’Reilly drove him to King’s Cross. He parked there, left Mr Miln in the car, and went to buy some cocaine. What happened next is unclear. Mr Miln believes it was murder: the Crown Prosecution Service found no case to answer, when police passed on papers of the case. In any case, Mr O’Reilly fell, or was pushed, under the wheels of a lorry and died.
Sir Derek collected Mr Miln from the police station where he had been questioned for hours by officers wanting to know why he was in the car and what Mr O’Reilly had been doing. He denied everything, but admitted on two separate occasions afterwards that Mr O’Reilly had in fact been buying cocaine for him.
The relationship between Sir Derek and Mr Miln deteriorated, though the two men continued to live together.
Since Mr Gilbert’s forced retirement last year from the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, the new managing director, Paul Chandler, has completely revised its financial controls. He said yesterday that none of the society’s travel budget came from contributions made by the public.
Sir Derek, when challenged over the allegations, replied that he had paid by cheque for Mr Miln’s share of the hotel bills in South Africa immediately after his return. But he could not produce a record of this.
He has disappeared and cannot be contacted. Dr Hope has ordered him to take medical leave for six weeks, and will review his position at the end of that time.
Sir Derek Pattinson and Barnaby Miln JP photographed in 1986. Sir Derek is wearing the insignia of Master of the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks.
PTTINSON – a Freemason and a member of the Athenaeum Club and the Savile Club.[1] He became a Freeman of the City of London in 1973 and was a member of the Woolmen’s Company and of the Parish Clerks’ Company, of which he was Master 1986/7.
Patrick Nigel Geoffrey Gilbert, religious organization administrator. Decorated Lord of Manor of Cantley Netherall, Norfolk, Order of St. Vladimir; recipient awards for civic and professional service
Gilbert, Patrick Nigel Geoffrey was born on May 12, 1934. Son of Geoffrey and Evelyn (Miller) Devon.
Educated, Cranleigh School, Merton College, Oxford. Doctor of Letters (honorary), Columbia Pacific University, 1982.
Lecturer further education South Berks College, 1959-1962. Personal assistant to Sir Edward Hulton, 1962-1964. With Oxford University Press, 1964-1969, managing director in Westinghouse group, 1970.
General secretary Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1971-1992. Consultant Three Georges Development Company, 1994-1997, Saga Travel, 1994-1998
Membership
Board directors Surrey Building Society, 1988-1993. Chairman Camden Arts Council, 1970-1974, vice president, 1974-1990. Steward Artists’ General Benevolent Institution, 1971-1993.
Trustee Overseas Bishoprics Fund, 1971-1992, Richards Trust, 1971-1992, Buxton Trust, 1973-1992, chairman, 1983-1992. Trustee World Association Christian Communications, 1975-1987. Governor, vice-chairman St. Martins in Fields School, 1971-1972.
Fellow Corporation of Saints Mary and Nicholas-Woodard Schools), 1972-1992, trustee, corporation executive, 1981-1992. Chairman board trustees, honorary treasurer Art Workers Guild, 1976-1986. Chairman, founder National Association Local Arts Council, 1976-1980, vice president, 1980-1993.
Governor body SPCK Australia, 1977-1992, New Zealand, 1988-1992, India, 1971-1992. Governor Ellesmere College, Shropshire, 1978-1987, St. Michael’s School, Petworth, 1978-1988, Roehampton Institute Higher Education, 1978-1992, Pusey House, Oxford, Contemporary Dance Trust, 1981-1990. Active All Saints Educational Trustee, chairman finance and investment committee, 1978-1992.
Active Partnership for World Mission, 1979-1992, Church Public Committee, 1980-1984, Executive Anglican Consultative Council Research Project, 1982-1984, Court of City University, 1987-1993. Board directors SPCK, United States, 1983-1992. Chairman academy disciplinary appeals tribunal Roehampton Institute, 1983-1989, chairman audit committee, 1989-1992.
Chairman Concord Multicultural Arts Trust, 1980-1989. Trustee Dancers Resettlement Fund, chairman finance committee, 1982-1990, Dancers Resettlement Trust, 1987-1990. Member Greater London Arts Association (honorary life, chairman 1980-1984), Master Worshipful Company of Woolmen, Publications Association (council member 1990-1992), Athenaeum Club (chairman executive committee 1985-1989), Nikaean Club (chairman 1984-1992)
Adopted – parents: Geoffrey Devon and Evelyn (Miller) Devon
When I was Chairman of the Athenaeum Club Executive, the Secretary and I had a run-in with the Westminster EHO. He said there was a … in his own club. Yours sincerely, PATRICK GILBERT P.O. Box 118, Udon Thani 41000, Thailand …
Patrick Nigel Geoffrey Gilbert: Testimonials to Gilbert included one from former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Donald Coggan
Patrick Nigel Geoffrey Gilbert Obituary
Published in The Times on Dec. 3, 2009
Patrick Nigel Geoffrey Gilbert.
A Memorial Service conducted by the Bishop of Guildford will be held at St Magnus the Martyr Church, Lower Thames Street, London…
Bishop of Guildford in 2009 was Christopher Hill
Hill – a member of th Athenaeum Club and he served as the Clerk of the Closet in the Ecclesiastical Household of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom from 2005 to 2014.
From 1987 to 1996 he was a chaplain to Elizabeth II.
MR PATRICK NIGEL GEOFFREY GILBERT is a Retired General Secretary Of The S P C K from London. This person was born in May 1934, which was over 83 years ago. MR PATRICK NIGEL GEOFFREY GILBERT is British and resident in United Kingdom. This company officer is, or was, associated with at least 6 company roles.
Their most recent appointment, in our records, was to COLLEGE OF ALL SAINTS FOUNDATION (THE) on 1992-05-22, from which they resigned on 1992-08-31.
The Holy Trinity Church in Marylebone, Westminster, built specifically to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon, hasn’t been used as a place of worship since the 30’s, but that didn’t stop artist Paul Fryer from making a religious statement by hanging this terrifying statue of Satan inside.
The piece, titled “Lucifer (Morningstar)” is a wax sculpture depicting the devil snared in a set of power lines.
In 1937 Penguin moved out to Harmondsworth, and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), an Anglican missionary organization, moved in. It was their headquarters until 2006, when they relocated to Tufton Street, Westminster (they have since moved again to Pimlico); the church is currently used as an Events space operated by One Events and known as One Marylebone.
The Church can’t be allowed to carry on marking its own homework
25 Jun 2017
The Church concealed evidence of criminality and colluded to protect an abusive bishop. Only external oversight will guarantee that church safeguarding practices comply with secular standards, argues Richard Scorer.
With the publication of the Gibb report the Church of England has finally admitted what Ball’s victims have long believed – that senior figures in the church, in particular former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, concealed evidence of Ball’s criminality and colluded to protect him. Where do we go from here?
At the heart of the Ball scandal, as I explained on this site in July last year, is that in early 1993, when Ball was under police investigation for a single offence, against a young man called Neil Todd, Lambeth Palace was aware of no fewer than 6 other allegations against Ball, but failed to pass these to the police. Worse still, in full knowledge of these other allegations, Carey wrote to the police to tell them that the Todd allegation was “most unrepresentative” of Ball’s behaviour.
When I raised the spectre of cover up at a hearing of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in March 2016, Lord Carey told the media that he had “no knowledge of the matters” I was referring to. But the Gibb report now lays bare Carey’s intimate involvement in the maneouvres by which Ball escaped justice for a further 22 years, and concludes that Carey’s failure to pass evidence to the police “must give rise to a perception of deliberate concealment”.
Self-evidently, the Ball case involves more than a “perception” of concealment; it involves concealment, pure and simple, so one wonders whether Gibb’s wording here was softened during the process of “Maxwellisation”, by which those criticised in a report are given the opportunity, pre-publication, to challenge the report’s conclusions. Of course, the church’s “Abuse of Faith”, as Gibb calls it, went well beyond concealment. Even after Ball’s caution and resignation in 1993, senior church leaders denigrated his victims. They allowed Ball to regain much of his standing within the Church, and many of his preaching privileges. They allowed him to carry out priestly duties in schools. Knowing full well that he was the subject of multiple allegations of sex abuse, they sought to rehabilitate him. And then under Rowan Williams, Carey’s successor, progress in tackling sex abuse generally within the Church was “lamentably slow”.
An unavoidable question is whether, in concealing evidence of Ball’s criminality, senior figures in the Church of England, including Carey, may have committed criminal offences, the most obvious one being misconduct in public office. The Ball case itself established that a Church of England bishop is a public official. Misconduct in public office is defined as “a public officer wilfully neglecting to perform his duty and/or wilfully misconducting himself to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder, without reasonable excuse or justification”. Plainly, there is a case to answer.
Some will say that police resources are better spent on contemporary challenges than on prosecuting failings which occurred over 20 years ago. But this would be to ignore the gravity of what occurred, and its long lasting consequences, which included the suicide of Neil Todd, who over two decades was vilified by the Church as a liar and a gold-digger. According to Gibb, Carey decided that Ball was “basically innocent”. The Archbishop of Canterbury decided, in other words, that he was entitled to act as judge and jury and substitute his own view for that of the criminal courts. But the law is not just for little people; it applies to Archbishops as well. So the question of criminal offences has to be addressed.
What of the wider implications of the report? In its forensic analysis of the factual detail of this tawdry cover up, Gibb is a pretty strong piece of work. In its analysis of the church culture which led to this scandal, and especially in terms of recommendations for change, the report is much weaker.
On religious culture, and the manifold ways in which it can be misused by abusers, the report certainly makes a number of pertinent observations. It notes that Ball’s abuse was “charged with religious intensity” and that in committing his offences Ball “exploited the significance of ritual, particularly in the Anglo-Catholic tradition”. For Ball religious rites became “a mask for abuse, and theology was used as a way of justifying abuse”. The evil of what he did was “compounded by his message that this made the victims more special and more holy”.
Gibb also acknowledges that religious communities of the type established by Ball, which purport to offer support and spiritual guidance, are peculiarly likely to attract vulnerable people who may be troubled and seeking direction, and for that same reason are also likely to attract perpetrators who seek to use the respect and faith attaching to religion as a cover for abuse. As Gibb notes, such communities are also often closed communities, lacking the external oversight so crucial for preventing abuse.
Finally, Gibb reiterates that in Christian organisations abusers can sometimes be protected from accountability by a distorted concept of forgiveness. All these points are well made, and help to explain why it is that although many secular institutions have also suffered from abuse scandals, religious institutions seem to be particularly susceptible to such scandals and ill-equipped to confront them. However, in my view the report fails to acknowledge something even darker in the Church of England – a culture of bullying and intimidation of against those who speak out. This culture has been powerfully described by Rev Graham Sawyer, a Ball survivor who is also a Church of England vicar, and who has experienced the church’s treatment of whistleblowers at first hand. For the public, who increasingly tend to regard the Church of England as slightly ridiculous but largely benign, this aspect of the church’s culture may come as a surprise, but it certainly exists, even if it is hidden under a veneer of English politeness.
In terms of proposals for change, the report’s 12 recommendations are astonishingly anodyne, and seem to be grounded in an assumption that all is now basically well with safeguarding practice in the Church, although also buried in the report is an acknowledgement that diocesan safeguarding work has often been inadequately resourced.
Most extraordinary, however, is the absence of any insistence that abuse allegations be reported to external authorities under a mandatory reporting regime. This is the obvious and undeniable lesson from Ball – the Church of England cannot be allowed to carry on marking its own homework. Of course, Gibb may be assuming, as I also find many journalists now do, that reporting of allegations to external authorities is already the norm. But because child abuse often takes many years, even decades, to come to light, and given the history now exposed, we cannot presume this with any confidence. The main lesson of Gibb, although the report does not say so, is that only external oversight will guarantee that church safeguarding practices comply with secular standards. We need mandatory reporting.
Richard Scorer is a solicitor who acts for some of Peter Ball’s victims, and is an NSS council member. You can follow him on Twitter @richard_scorer. The views expressed in our blogs are those of the author and may not necessarily represent the views of the NSS.
Television parson Reverend Simon Phipps checking a script before recording an episode of the show ‘About Religion’, circa 1955.
Rev Simon Phipps of the Chichester diocese (close friend and confidant to Princess Margaret) and Rev Mark Kiddle (deputy priest to Queen Elizabeth)
Pervert vicar who was convicted of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy then quietly moved to another parish was offered an honour by the Queen
Reverend Mark Kiddle was given a 15-month suspended sentence in 1985
The vicar admitted indecently a boy aged 15 at St Andrew’s church, Lincolnshire
In 1993, Kiddle was promoted by the Queen to be part of her Chapel Royal
31 October 2018
The Queen honoured a pervert vicarwho had been convicted of abusing a child by offering him a place in her Chapel Royal, it has been revealed.
Reverend Mark Kiddle was given a 15-month suspended sentence in 1985 after admitting two offences of indecent assault.
His victim claimed he abused him up to twenty times.
But instead of being defrocked for abusing the 15-year-old boy he was instead moved to another parish.
Just eight years later, in 1993, Kiddle was promoted by the Queen to be part of her Chapel Royal.
A public notice in the London Gazette announced: ‘The Queen has been graciously pleased to appoint the Reverend Mark Brydges Kiddle, to be a Deputy Priest in Ordinary to Her Majesty.’
Now, for the first time, the vicar’s victim has spoken out about the culture of ‘protecting and promoting’ convicted child abusers in the church.
Mark Kiddle was handed a suspended sentence for the abuse of a 15-year-old boy but was later given an honour by the Queen
The man, now in his 50s, said: ‘I think the Queen would be disgusted to find out about his past.’
‘The church has protected the guilty and let the innocent be abused. I’m angry that the person who did this to me was just moved to another diocese.
‘He was protected and promoted and I don’t think the church even now acts equitably.’
The abuse happened when Kiddle was vicar at St Andrew’s in Kirton-in-Lindsey in Lincolnshire.
His victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, says he was groomed by Kiddle who molested him ’18-20 times over a two-year period’ including when he was at his most vulnerable, following the death of a close family member.
He said: ‘I suppose when I was younger I was naïve, I thought he was just being kind.
‘He would take me on trips, he would give me alcohol and it got to the stage where I would stay over at the vicarage quite regularly.
‘We always slept in the same room and he would always sleep naked. It was a big old building and he said it was haunted but that ghosts couldn’t see you if you had nothing on.
‘I can’t say exactly when the abuse started. I completely blocked it out. I never told anyone, not even my parents.’
The abuse continued for two years but eventually a parishioner who suspected Kiddle of inappropriate behaviour tipped off police.
He was prosecuted at Grimsby Crown Court and in his defence the then Bishop of Lincoln, Simon Phipps, described Kiddle in court as an ‘extremely diligent, imaginative and energetic priest’.
Kiddle received two 15-month sentences to run concurrently, suspended for two years and was moved to another parish.
He was eventually posted to St Clement’s Church, Eastcheap in the City of London.
The 84-year-old, who is now retired from the church, is understood to have later declined the Queen’s honorary role in the Chapel Royal
His victim has launched legal action against the Church of England over the abuse he suffered.
The abuse happened when Kiddle was vicar at St Andrew’s in Kirton-in-Lindsey (pictured)
His solicitor, Richard Scorer, at Slater and Gordon, said: ‘Kiddle waged a calculated campaign of abuse against a vulnerable young boy and even exploited tragic family circumstances to his own advantage so he could continue to satiate his own sick desires.
‘It is reprehensible that someone who was convicted of such a crime should be allowed to continue working in the church and in a role which presumably gave him unfettered access to other youngsters.’
A spokesman for the Diocese of London said Kiddle was not paid by the Church of England and had a limited at two churches.
He said: ‘From 2002, he was barred from all ministry. Under today’s procedures, anyone convicted of such offence would immediately be removed from their role and barred from ministry.
‘The Church has made significant changes in its approach to safeguarding since the 1980s, but we recognise that more needs to be done to ensure a safe culture, where abuse has no place, and where survivors of abuse can flourish.’
A Palace spokesperson said Kiddle never took up the honorary position and was never active in the Royal household.
Vicar Kiddle admitted indecently assaulted a boy aged 15.
Simon Wilton Phipps
Bishop of Lincoln Simon Phipps tells court indecent assault vicar Mark Brydges Kiddle to be given another parish. He had been “an extremely diligent, imaginative and energetic priest”.
The Rt Rev Simon Phipps
Confidant of Princess Margaret
Bishop of Lincoln Rev Simon Phipps – Bishop of Lincoln from 1974 to 1986
His father, a naval officer, had been appointed to the Royal Victorian Order.
Simon hipps and the Princess (Margaret) were close friends, having met frequently through his father’s position as a Gentleman Usher to King George VI.
Captain William Duncan Phipps VIII (1856 to 1925 United Kingdom)
William Duncan Phipps VIII (b.1882) was a distant cousin of Sargent, and he is listed at some length in ‘Epes Sargent of Gloucester (Massachusetts) and his Descendants’, Boston 1923, pp. 70-1. Sargent painted the American mother Jessie Percy Butler Duncan VII, wife of William Phipps, an Englishman, in a stunning portrait of 1884 that belonged to Joyce Grenfell (also a Phipps).
William the son was educated at Eton and on HMS Britannia and during the Great War served on the Iron Duke under Jellicoe and later under Beatty.
He got his own command in 1917 on HMS Pagasus. He married Pamela Ross in 1917 and had two sons, one of whom, Simon William it is believed became Bishop of Lincoln, and who was a great friend of Princess Margaret
Simon Phipps was educated at Eton and, while still a young subaltern, was picked out by the then Queen Elizabeth (now the Queen Mother) as a suitable escort for her younger daughter, Princess Margaret. He went on, in 1968, to be appointed Suffragan Bishop of Horsham, and, in 1974, to become Bishop of Lincoln.
He became a star turn in the Footlights review, and, in 1949, was elected the club’s president. His amateur theatricals appealed to Princess Margaret, herself no mean mimic, and, on one memorable visit to Balmoral, he was roped in to play charades by the then Queen Elizabeth, the future bishop being obliged to march around ahead of King George VI carrying an umbrella in imitation of a crozier.
After training for the ministry at Westcott House, Cambridge, Phipps was ordained in 1950, and served his title as assistant curate at Huddersfield parish church. In 1953, he was invited back to Trinity College as chaplain. This was the year when Princess Margaret fell in love with the divorcé Peter Townsend, and it was to Phipps that, during the next three years, while struggling with her conscience and the constitutional issues, the princess turned for spiritual advice. At one time, they were in almost daily contact.
Later, he became godfather to her son, Lord Linley, after her marriage to Anthony Armstrong-Jones.
While still at Trinity College, Phipps also forged, with Mervyn Stockwood, one of his warmest episcopal friendships. He and his wife, Mary, remained loyal and loving friends to the future Bishop of Southwark throughout his lonely years in retirement.
He also became involved in a row with a retired Guards colonel over the sale of some church land, and in 1980 his thoughts in the Diocesan Letter on the subject of homosexuality caused widespread shock.
May 23, 1968 – Alamogordo Daily News from Alamogordo, New Mexico
In 1965, Phipps was made an honorary canon of Coventry, and three years later, with Princess Margaret in the congregation at Southwark Cathedral, he was consecrated as Suffragan Bishop of Horsham.
It was in 1973, while still in the Chichester diocese, aged 52 and seemingly a confirmed bachelor, that Phipps surprised and delighted his friends by getting married. His wife, Mary Welch, was a daughter of Sir Charles Palmer, of the biscuit manufacturers, Huntley & Palmer, the widow of a clergyman, and a practising psychiatrist.
He retired to his wife’s enchanting Sussex home, with views to Chanctonbury Ring, being invited, most unusually, to act as an honorary assistant bishop in two dioceses, Southwark and Chichester.
Simon Wilton Phipps, clergyman, born July 6 1921; died January 29 2001
Following the war, having read History at Trinity, he studied for the priesthood at Westcott House, Cambridge. A talented writer of lyrics, he was President of Footlights in 1949.
In 1953, after a short spell as a curate in Huddersfield, Phipps was appointed Chaplain at Trinity. That appointment was followed by ten years at Coventry as an Industrial Chaplain, during which time he lived in a small council flat on a new housing estate. The modesty of his surroundings did not prevent him fromentertaining his long-time friend, Princess Margaret, “to the great interest of his neighbours”.[1]
Not long after his ordination, when he was chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge, his gifts were put at the service of Princess Margaret during the crisis that arose out of her relationship with the divorced Group Captain Peter Townsend. Phipps and the Princess were close friends, having met frequently through his father’s position as a Gentleman Usher to King George VI.
He often accompanied her to hunt balls and other social events, and it was sometimes suggested that they were involved romantically, but this was never the case, and his role was always that of counsellor.
His wife Mary, whom he married in 1973 and who predeceased him, was a psychiatrist and the widow of James Welch, a former Head of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC.
Included in the group were: The Lord Bishop of Lincoln (Rt. Rev. Simon Phipps), Mrs. Phipps, the Dean of Lincoln (V. Rev. The Hon. O. W. Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes), the leader of the Lincoln City Council (Cclr. Mrs. Bates) and officers of the Central Council.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln (Guild Patron) said it gave him very great pleasure to be present at the gathering of so many bellringers from different parts of the country and he wished them well in their deliberations at their Conference next day.
In 1985 a vicar from Kirton in Lindsey, Humberside, pleaded guilty to the indecent assault and gross indecency of a 15 year old boy.
Despite his guilty plea for a heinous crime, the Bishop of Lincoln, the Right Rev Simon Phipps, described Mark Brydges Kiddle as “an extremely diligent, imaginative and energetic priest” and told the court that Kiddle would eventually be given another parish.
This is a typical example of how the church has always dealt with it’s nonce clergy. They simply move them on as if that will somehow rehabilitate them and stop them reoffending. We know full well from Anthony McSweeney’s example that it doesn’t work like that. A paedophile is a paedophile is a paedophile, it doesn’t matter what surroundings you put them in, and if you’ve ever seen the film ‘Spotlight‘ it reinforces this issue.
Kiddle Timeline:
1963-66: St Luke, Scarborough – Curate
1966-71: St Savior’s, Walthamstow – Curate
1971-76: St Bede, Nelson, Lancs – Vicar
1976-79: Perry Common, Birmingham – Vicar
1979-84: Grayingham, Lincs – Rector
1979-84: Kirton, Lincs – Vicar
1979-84: Manton, Lincs – Rector
1980: Lived in Warwick
1985: Pleaded guilty to abusing a 15 year old boy.
1985-91: St Botolph, Aldgate w H Trin Minories, London – Honorary Curate
1991-08: St Clement’s, Eastcheap w St Martin Orgar (used by a number of charities) – Honorary Curate
1991: Kiddle can be found at St Bartholemew The Great in Smithfields, London EC1, and in December of that same year he became involved in a charity called ‘Foundation for Public Service Interpreting‘ based near the Barbican in London, finishing as a Trustee. It claimed to be ‘specialists in providing a interpretation service to the public sector’.
He also became company secretary/director to LL Shell Ltd until 1996.
June 1993: Rev Kiddle seemed to bag himself a cushy number. According to church appointments listed in The Independent, he was made ‘Deputy Priest in Ordinary to HM The Queen‘. However, there is no mention of this within Crockford’s Directory.
2000: He was at St Bride’s, EC4 – Fleet Street.
2003: He becomes company secretary for ‘Beyond Mind Ltd‘ which claimed to be some sort of further education outfit and ‘specialist medical services‘. It was eventually struck off in 2015.
5 Feb 2015: He becomes a director for Michael Voysey Theatre Ltd. Interestingly, according to company information sites, the name of this company was originally ‘Love Tag Greetings Ltd’ from 2014-2015. Voysey worked for the BBC writing dramas for a number of years. He died in 1984.
Rt Rev Simon Wilton Phipps:
Born in 1921, Phipps was a former Coldstream Guard who spent time as Aide-Du-Camp for his uncle who was General in India, Phipps was originally the chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge where he became President of Footlights, before taking holy orders.
In 1970 he caused controversy after expressing his views on homosexuality. He spoke in the House of Lords and General Synod, and also became a support/counsellor to Princess Margaret during her divorce from Captain Peter Townsend, often accompanying her to social occasions such as balls and hunts etc. They had known each other for many years owing to the fact his father was usher to King George VI.
Article on ‘Princess Margaret’s Favourite Men’ (Phipps on right)
1965-68: Honorary Canon of Coventry Cathedral.
1968-75: Suffragan Bishop of Horsham, Sussex (Chichester diocese).
1973: Married his wife, Mary, who was widowed following the death of her husband, James Welch, former head of religious broadcasting at the BBC. The service was in Chichester.
1975-1986 he became Bishop of Lincolnshire.
1977: His home was burgled and a number of paintings were stolen.
1986: Assistant Bishop of Chichester
1986: Assistant Bishop of Southwark
He lived in Shipley, Sussex during his retirement, where he became an honorary assistant bishop and pastor to clergymen throughout the country until his death in 2001.
Lincolnshire and the General Synod:
In 2016, a man named David came forward to speak out about the abuse he suffered at the hands of Gordon Dawson, a landed farmer and well-connected member of society, who lived at Dalby House in Lincolnshire.
David at Dalby House
David recounts horrific incidents of abuse at the hands of Dawson, both in Lincolnshire and on weekend trips to London, where he was taken by Dawson to Dolphin Square and meetings of the General Synod.
In the evenings Dawson would take him to restaurants – most frequently to Motcombs, an upscale establishment in Belgravia – where a table of men would be waiting.
“He would tell me there were people there [at the table] who had big military careers, people from the church – he would say that some are from the Synod – and then [also] MPs. There always seemed to be a parliament connection. They’d always be talking about something that had come up that day in the House [of Commons].” David would be introduced to them but, still only 15, would never be told their names.
“He [Dawson] was very cut and dried about that. He would say, ‘You need to stop asking so many questions. You just need to remember these people are really important and you need to not tell anyone about this.’”
As they ate, Dawson would give David red wine, he says.
“Sometimes at the dinners there was someone else my age,” he says – boys accompanying other men there. They wouldn’t be sat together.
When David eventually reported his abuse, Dawson was tipped off by the police that he was about to be arrested and he subsequently committed suicide by shooting himself with one of his own guns.
Dawson was a director of Lincoln Diocesan Trust + Board of Finance Ltd (which also bought + sold real estate). Not sure for how long this has been the case, the Lincoln Diocesan Registry address is 1 The Sanctuary SW1 which is a walkable distance, a few mins away from Dolphin Sq
Dawson left the Trust in ’92, 10 years after meeting D, so those ‘meetings’ in London, could have been related to his ‘work’ at the Trust.. Property at Dolphin Sq may have been related to the Trust and their cronies in some way, being the Limited company dealt with property.
Historic child abuse panel member: “I was silenced by Theresa May’s advisors to ensure she became PM”
Sharon Evans, a former journalist and the founder of Dot Com Children’s Foundation, said that the panel were “promised the child abuse inquiry would be open”, but after a short while she saw that it was ‘so obvious that everything was about the control and suppression of information” and that the supposedly independent inquiry had absolutely “no independence’.
Ms Evans claimed that the contracts panel members were made to sign by the Home Office were used to stop them from speaking openly about “very serious allegations about very public figures” – allegations which she says were taken back to the inquiry leaders, but ‘nothing was being done about” them.
Twitter photo of James Saville (CSA Inquiry PR man)
Odd ? Coincidence ?
The Mail reported that a James Saville is representing one of the CSA Inquiry panel members, Sharon Evans and claiming to be working with the Home Office and that this person tried to dissuade The Mail from uncovering the truth about Fiona Woolf’s appointment as chair of the inquiry.
A Mail on Sunday journalist trying to uncover the truth about Fiona Woolf’s appointment to the child abuse inquiry received unwarranted threats from a PR man claiming to be working with the Home Office.
This newspaper was warned it would be reported to the new press complaints watchdog for simply arranging an interview with another panel member who could shed light on the controversy.
The threat was made by James Saville, a spokesman for Sharon Evans, a third person on the abuse inquiry. She runs a charity which includes Strictly Come Dancing star Kristina Rihanoff and Tony Blair’s daughter Kathryn among its trustees.
After a reporter had agreed last week to meet abuse survivor Graham Wilmer, who is on the inquiry panel, Mr Saville rang the journalist five minutes before the agreed interview time to say it had been called off.
But what is in a name ? There can’t really be any connection between this James Saville and the serial paedophile Sir Jimmy Savile…
Could there ?
Journalist James Saville with Paedophile Sir Jimmy Savile.
I just wonder if this James Saville currently undertaking PR work for a CSA Inquiry member and working with the Home Office is the same James Saville, a journalist, who wrote this glowing tribute to the beknighted child abuser on his death.
Warning: Get your sick bag ready.
Jimmy Savile dead: Sir Jim fixed it for me – a tribute by James Saville (No Relation)
He was one of the most colourful, eccentric and brilliant celebrities in history – and someone I’m proud to say turned out to be a friend.
I first met him when working as a local reporter for the Bucks Herald while he was doing charity work at Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
And when he found out there was a journalist with the same name as him, his eyes lit up like Christmas.
He grabbed me round the arm, hoiked me towards him, stuck a big fat cigar in my face… and the image was plastered embarrassingly on the front page of that week’s edition.
It is the same James Saville (friend of Jimmy Savile) who it a spokesperson for a panel member on the CSA Inquiry and supposedly working with the Home Office.
Savile used threats of links with IRA to silence enemies and victims
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 23:13, 20 October 2012 | UPDATED: 10:17, 22 October 2012Reporter James Saville recalled the time he met the star in 2000, who he said was ‘raging’ over the death of a friend and demanding details of anyone involved so he could on his friends in the IRA to ‘get them done’.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti…se-school.html
In reference to James Saville’s own Mirror tribute to Vile (posted in full a few posts earlier)…
Quote:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news…sir-jim-276277
By Mirror.co.uk
29 Oct 2011 17:01Jimmy Savile dead: Sir Jim fixed it for me –a tribute by James Saville (No Relation)I first met him when working as a local reporter for the Bucks Herald while he was doing charity work at Stoke Mandeville Hospital….He also once told me that if I ever got in any trouble, then he knew “some very bad people who should be able to put whoever it is in hospital”.
Okay, so we have established that it was yourself, James Saville, who first met Vile in 2000 while working at the Bucks Herald.
12 years ago = 2000.
‘Our journalist’ = James Saville
Written by James Saville
Clearly one and the same person.
Quote:
contd…Savile was a volunteer helper at nearby Stoke Mandeville Hospital and was upset about the death of a local figure who he had known for several years.
There was a rumour the man had died after being mugged in the street.
The TV bigshot demanded the names of the thugs responsible.
We have omitted the name of the deceased out of respect for his family.
Arrogant Savile summoned our journalist to his office and raged: “I want you to tell me what happened with **** *****. If you hear that someone has done this then I want you to tell me who straight away.
“I want to know names and I can have them waking up in hospital with every bone in their body broken.
“If someone has done this to **** ***** that makes them my enemy. And you don’t want to be my enemy.”
When asked to explain he then made his boasts of his IRA connections. Savile added: “You don’t get blessed by the Pope for nothing.”
Again;
Our journalist = James Saville.
In this 2012 article [also posted in full a few posts ago, as well as originally on the thread a year ago] James refers to himself as our journalist. This is a trick. Remember James is NEWS EDITOR, so if he says ‘our reporter’ he gives the impression that he is protecting the name and integrity of one of his reporters, which is an editor’s job; he is in fact covering for himself.
Why?
Well, James tells us himself.
Quote:
[2011]
On the plus side, he became the best contact I could wish for, almost using me as a way to get his wacky latest projects or views on the local health services[relating to Stoke Mandeville? – WH] into the press.He even put a good word in for me with a national newspaper reporter, to start me on the way to Fleet Street.
So you voluntarily allowed yourself to be used as a patsy.
And SaVile buttered you up at the Bucks Herald, and then he got you into the Mirror/Sunday People?
And you allowed yourself to be his mouthpiece despite
Quote:
[2011]
I was often unsure whether some of the weird and wonderful things he would come out with were fact or fiction.
James Saville was at the Bucks Herald in 2000 when Vile promised him his big break, getting him into Fleet Street, in return for easy access to free column inches in the red top press (Sunday Mirror/Sunday People). On the suspicious death of Vile’s friend in/around Aylesbury James Saville was summoned to Vile’s office, presumably Vile would be aware that often the press would know the identity of suspects with their dealings with the Police but be unable to publish for legal reasons.
So despite having enough points to form an investigative vector, already knowing Savile’s threats about IRA links (made to the journalist himself) and being aware of the Theroux docu where Vile off-guardedly spoke about beating people up in the basement of his nightclub, James Saville never thought anything of it, but happily plodded along, thankful to Vile for the leg up and mindful that he owes Savile, being voluntarily HOODWINKED.
He fondly remembers him.
Quote:
Long live Sir Jim.
Did he not also think about how easily Vile got him a post in Fleet Street, where did that connection come from?
Quote:
Originally Posted by wakingthedead
Do we know where this “James Saville” is now???
According to some he is Head of News at the Sunday Mirror:
Although his Twitter says he is
Head of News at The Sunday People.
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/node/49559
Senior editorial shake-up at Mirror and People
Andrew Pugh 27 June 2012
Sunday Mirror news editor James Saville becomes head of content at the People.
So I suppose the Sunday People and the Sunday Mirror are basically the same thing. link
Theresa May ‘s close friend Damian Green
Mr Green, who was appointed Secretary for Work and Pensions by Mrs May has been an MP for 20 years and has known the Theresa May for around 40 years.
(his) friendships across the spectrum of the party, including Andrew Lansley, Tim Collins, David Willetts and even John Bercow.
invited to join John Major’s policy unit, specialising in the affairs of the Department for National Heritage, the precursor to today’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Theresa May’s university matriculation photo taken while she was at St Hugh’s College in 1974 with Alicia Collinson
Theresa May …her close friend Alicia Collinson – is an eminent barrister, married to Damian Green, whom Mrs May promoted to the Cabinet as Work and Pensions Secretary.
May and Green go back a long way, to the Oxford days in the 1970s when his girlfriend, (now wife) Alicia Collinson, was then Theresa Brasier’s tutorial partner.
Alicia and Mrs May studid geography together at St Hugh’s College, sharing the same tutor.
Friends recall that for the first two years of undergraduate life, Mrs May had “many male friends but nobody who was special”.
She was part of a high-flying set that also included Alan Duncan, the former international development minister, and Damian Green, who answered to Mrs May when a Home Office minister and who is married to Miss Collinson.
The address linked to former Police Minister Damian Green was apparently used from a computer in Parliament in 2007 to register with the cheaters’ site
The address linked to former Police Minister Damian Green was apparently used from a computer in Parliament in 2007 to register with the cheaters’ site.
Whoever enrolled with Ashley Madison typed in the maiden name of Mr Green’s mum – Lyons – for the security question and appealed for a woman who “aches for good sex”.
Last night Mr Green, 59, said he had never used the notorious website.
He added he could not remember whether the aol.com address was his.
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson Policing Minister Damien Green and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howes
Thousands of pornographic images on Damian Green’s computer, says detective
Pressure grows on Theresa May’s deputy amid further pornography revelations from former Scotland Yard detective
1 Dec 2017
Pressure is mounting on Theresa May’s effective deputy, Damian Green, after a detective who examined his computer said it contained thousands of pornographic images.
The former Scotland Yard officer Neil Lewis said the internet history on the device, which was seized in 2008 while Green was an opposition spokesman, showed pornography had been viewed extensively.
Lewis, who retired from the Metropolitan police in 2014, claimed the device contained thousands of thumbnail images of legal pornography.
In his first broadcast interview about the investigation, Lewis was asked by the BBC how he could be sure it was Green, now the first secretary of state, who accessed the images. He said: “The computer was in Mr Green’s office, on his desk, logged in, his account, his name.
“In between browsing pornography, he was sending emails from his account, his personal account, reading documents … it was ridiculous to suggest anybody else could have done it.”
Lewis said he was shocked by what he found: “The shocking thing as I was viewing it, I noticed a lot of pornography – thumbnails, which indicated web browsing. There was a lot of them. I was surprised to see that on a parliament computer. I had to take a step back because I wasn’t expecting that.”
He said the images were not extreme, as earlier reports claimed, and featured no images of children or sexual abuse.
Green is the subject of a cabinet office inquiry by its head of propriety and ethics, Sue Gray, into allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards a young Conservative activist, Kate Maltby.
Green’s office would not be drawn on Lewis’s claims. In a statement, it said: “It would be inappropriate for Mr Green to comment on these allegations while the cabinet office investigation is ongoing, however, from the outset he has been very clear that he never watched or downloaded pornography on the computers seized from his office.
“He maintains his innocence of these charges and awaits the outcome of the investigation.”
Labour’s Jess Phillips, the chair of parliament’s women and equalities committee, said Green should resign if pornography was found on his computer.
“If what is being said, which I hope is being submitted to the proper investigation, is believed to be true on the balance of probabilities, then yes it does change things and Damian Green cannot stay in his position,” she said.
“The pressure is mounting on him. There is no illegality but would you be fired if you looked at pornography on your work computer? The problem for me in all of this is how people use their power to not live by the same rules that everybody else has to.”
She conceded that Lewis may have be wrong in publicising confidential information about Green, but she added: “Both people can be in the wrong and there still has to be a case to answer.”
The Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell accused Lewis and Quick of trying of blacken the name of his friend.
He told Today: “Mr Green has been absolutely emphatic repeatedly that he never downloaded nor viewed this material. And I think that Mr Green is entitled to be believed. You are not guilty until proven so in this country. I think the hounding of Mr Green over information which everyone is clear was entirely legal, and which he has emphatically denied either downloading or viewing his completely wrong.”
Mitchell, who lost a libel case against the Sun newspaper over a report that he called a police officers “fucking plebs”, added: “Nine years later, after a pretty contentious raid of a senior politicians office, entirely legal information is now leaked to blacken the name of a serving cabinet minister. And I think that is wrong.”
He added: “The police need to explain why there was any record kept of entirely legal activity. He [Lewis] says he is doing it to back up his friend Bob Quick. I don’t think it is proper for retired police officers to behave in this way. I don’t think it is giving Mr Green natural justice.”
Lewis said he had not been contacted by Gray, but the cabinet office was aware of his role in examining Green’s computers.
The search of Green’s computer was made when he was shadow immigration minister, as part of Operation Miser, an investigation into Home Office leaks.
Lewis said: “When I left the police I kept one notebook and that was the notebook for Operation Miser, because that was the case that I was uncomfortable with.”
Lewis said he was motivated to come forward when he read Green denying claims by his superior, Bob Quick, the former Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, who told the Sunday Times that pornography had been found on the politician’s computer.
“His outright denial of that was quite amazing followed by his criticism of Bob Quick,” Lewis said.
He added: “I contacted Bob Quick to offer my support.”
Asked if it was possible for anyone else to access Green’s machine, Lewis said: “It was so extensive, whoever had done it would have had to push Mr Green to one side to say ‘get out, I’m using your computer’.”
He also dismissed a suggestion that a mistake could have been made. Lewis said: “I was the one who seized it from Portcullis House. I was the one who examined it, photographed it. I deal with computer forensics. That’s what I do, I produce digital evidence to court in relation to terrorists at the Old Bailey.”
The senior Labour MP Hillary Benn said the cabinet office should examine Lewis’s claims, but he stopped short of calling for his resignation.
Benn told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are all waiting for the outcome of it and clearly it should look at all available evidence in reaching a decision. All evidence that is relevant to the inquiry should be considered by the cabinet office. There is a process and we should let it do its work.”
Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality party, accused Conservative politicians of double standards by defending Green after staying silent about allegation of sexual harassment, calling their backing for the minister “extraordinary”.
Sophie WalkerVerified account@SophieRunning
Extraordinary story of @DamianGreen even more extraordinary that colleagues will defend him to the hilt, but were silent or dismissive when their female colleagues spoke of sexual harassment in Westminster.
What was originally known as the Zambia and Overseas Group became the World Mission Group in 1996, and incorporated the two separate Sub-Groups: the Zambia Sub-Group and the World Mission & Development Sub-Group. In 2017 the Zambia Sub-group became the Zambia Champions group.
The link grew and prospered with regular exchange visits by priests, doctors, school staff, students, diocesan staff and members of congregations. Visits to Zambia have been made by Bishop Nigel McCulloch, Bishop Jim Thompson, Bishop Peter Price, Bishop Andrew Radford, Bishop Peter Maurice, Bishop Peter Hancock and Assistant Bishop John Neale.
DISCLAIMER: THE POSTING OF STORIES, COMMNTARIES, REPORTS, DOCUMENTS AND LINKS (EMBEDDED OR OTHERWISE) ON THIS SITE DOES NOT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE, NECESSARILY EXPRESS OR SUGGEST ENDORSEMENT OR SUPPORT OF ANY OF SUCH POSTED MATERIAL OR PARTS THEREIN.
The Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey with his son Rev Mark Carey (right)
The son of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has been suspended by the Diocese of Leeds after a complaint was filed with the Durham Constabulary alleging that over 30 years ago he abused a young girl.
Now the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is discussing with Scotland Yard detectives whether to pursue criminal charges against Lord Carey, the Telegraph understands.
The Metropolitan Police said it had not launched an official criminal investigation into Lord Carey. A spokesman for the Carey family declined to comment.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury could face police probe into whether he broke the law by covering up for a paedophile bishop
Police are considering a formal inquiry into Church of England’s former leader
Lord Carey, 82, could face being interviewed under caution in investigation
Rev Peter Ball indecently assaulted 18 boys and young men from 1977 to 1992
Former leaders could face criminal charges for not passing on abuse complaints
25 November 2017
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, could face a police investigation into whether he broke the law by covering up for a paedophile bishop.
Officers are understood to be considering a formal inquiry to determine whether the former leader of the Church of England and other senior church officials should face criminal charges over their failure to pass on sex abuse complaints made against ex-bishop Peter Ball.
Such an investigation would be highly controversial and may involve 82-year-old Lord Carey being interviewed under caution.
Sources say police are collecting evidence and scrutinising a scathing Church of England report commissioned by the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
It concludes that senior church figures ‘colluded’ to protect Ball and says the decision by Lambeth Palace not to pass the complaints to police ‘must give rise to a perception of deliberate concealment’.
Lawyers representing victims of Ball, who have called for a police investigation, believe the former Archbishop could face a charge of misconduct in a public office, for which the maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
Ball, a friend of the Prince of Wales, (and other members of the royal family) was jailed for 32 months in 2015 after indecently assaulting 18 boys and young men between 1977 and 1992 in one of the biggest scandals ever to rock the Church of England.
It has been claimed, however, that he might have been convicted more than 20 years earlier had Lord Carey and his staff at Lambeth Palace not withheld from the police six letters making other claims about his behaviour. The letters were sent in by members of the public after allegations against Ball surfaced in the 1990s. Ball was arrested and subsequently resigned as Bishop of Gloucester in 1993.
But his only punishment at that time was a caution for gross indecency for molesting a teenage monk and he was later allowed a licence to work as a retired priest.
Peter Ball, pictured with Prince Charles, was jailed for 32 months in 2015 after indecently assaulting 18 boys and young men between 1977 and 1992
Last year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Anglican officials who had privately reviewed the case suggested that had the letters been given to detectives in 1993, Ball may have been convicted of serious sexual offences.
The report commissioned by Archbishop Welby, published this summer, concluded that the ‘greatest failure’ of the handling of the case was the ‘management’ of the correspondence, in which Lord Carey was ‘significantly involved’.
Lord Carey strongly denies any cover-up or collusion. His supporters have also argued that Ball could still have received a caution in 1993 even if Lambeth Palace had handed the letters to the authorities.
David Greenwood, the head of the child abuse department at Switalskis solicitors and who represents a number of victims of Peter Ball, said the failure to pass them on provided ‘reasonable grounds’ for the Metropolitan police to open a formal investigation.
The Met and Lord Carey both declined to comment.
Lord Carey is already facing questioning next year by the Government’s independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.
A review by Dame Moira Gibb found he had failed to pass on information about abuse carried out by Bishop Peter Ball.
Ms Racine’s abuser, Michael Walsh, was convicted of five indecent assault charges and confessed to sexual relationships with a further eight children.
He was sent to prison in 1990.
He had been a teacher, a lay vicar at Chichester Cathedral and also ran a choir at a church in Chichester.
Child abuse ‘inevitable’
After his release in 1992, Walsh returned to the same church to be part of the choir.
Concerned for the safety of other girls, in July of that year Ms Racine wrote to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, requesting his help.
Speaking after Lord Carey’s resignation, Ms Racine, 54, said: “I was very concerned that my abuser had just come out of prison and it appeared that he’d just gone straight back into the parish church where he’d originally worked, and was again in a position of authority in the choir there where young children – specifically girls – sang.
“I was really worried that these girls were at a huge risk. I felt it was inevitable that children would be abused.”
Three months after writing her letter she was told Lord Carey had been unable to consider her concerns because he was “committed to a series of visits overseas, together with his summer break”.
‘Duty of forgiveness’
She was informed one month later that the “Archbishop had been assured that there was no question of Michael Walsh being reinstated in the choir,” but nine months after raising her concerns she received a letter from the Archbishop’s chief of staff confirming her abuser was back in the choir.
Lambeth Palace wrote to Ms Racine saying the parish authorities had taken “great care” in coming to their decision to allow Walsh’s return to his position “weighing carefully the risk of re-offending against… the Christian duty of forgiveness”.
Michael Walsh, seen here in the 1990s, was allowed to return to the same church choir after his release from prison
The letters revealed Lord Carey regretted the decision which allowed Alesha’s abuser back into churches and offered her his sympathies.
Ms Racine said: “I thought his response was deeply hurtful, in that it had taken me a lot of courage to write to him at all.
“Most of what he said was in defence of the Church and the people in it, rather than try to reach out to me as a victim.
“I do feel it was a complete failure on his part.”
A spokesman for the former Archbishop of Canterbury said the correspondence with Ms Racine had been conducted on Lord Carey’s behalf by his chief of staff.
He said: “Lord Carey has absolutely no memory of this chain of correspondence or these events. He cannot therefore comment.”
In no way would I wish to influence the decision about Bishop Ball. No? But you did so pull the other one next time!
Moira Gibb Report on the Church of England – convicted paedophile Bishop Ball:
In 1993 the CPS agreed to issue Ball with a caution, rather than prosecute, after the personal intervention of then-Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.
Alun:
I have only 2 explanations for this: 1) Carey condones abuse, or 2) he was protecting a friend of Bishop Ball.
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
for Ball was an honorable man. They are all honourable men. Including yourself Mr Carey!
Bishop Ball was given special treatment because he was mates with Prince Charles!
Tory MP Tim Rathbone
Alun:
Rathbone was not only David Cameron’s godfather; he was also a relative. David Cameron is related to Queenie. Is that the secret to the support to Ball?
Establishment figures who helped disgraced bishop avoid prosecution for sex abuse revealed
Lord Chief Justice Anthony Lloyd helped Bishop Ball with character ref
Alongside Bishop Ball, Harvey Proctor and Bea Carthew, Enoch Powell also corresponded with Nicholas Soames, Proctor’s most ardent defender.
Former Lord Justice Anthony Lloyd and David Cameron’s late godfather Tory MP Tim Rathbone among figures who wrote in support of former Bishop of Gloucester, Peter Ball, one said he was a “saint”
Prince Charles denies trying to help sex crimes bishop escape jail
Unnamed member of the Royal Family sent a letter of support for Peter Ball as prosecutors considered putting him on trial
Goddard inquiry: Outrage as bishop Peter Ball jailed for sex offences given public funding for legal team
30 July 2016
A lawyer close to the inquiry said: “I was really surprised Ball was given funding. The issue is about how he was allowed to get away with it by the Church not about his offending. He has already been investigated and pleaded guilty.”
He’s one of the gatekeepers I’ve seen campaigning in Lords to clear name of another Bishop Bell from 1950s. Children don’t feature at all
We cannot allow the Bishop Ball story to be put to bed! Ball’s links to paedophiles and royalty with links to paedos warrants scrutiny!
terryfletcher@terry45336188
If he declined to pass on evidence to the police, doesn’t that make him culpable?
Alun:
Not passing on information re. Bishop Ball was a criminal act on the part of ‘Lord’ Carey. What are the consequences?
How did ‘Lord’ Carey, a man who actively protected an evil paedophile bishop, make it to the top of CoE? Or have I answered my own question?
The case of Hubert Brasier, Theresa May’s father, must be revisited after Carey’s evil coverup of Bishop Peter Ball
Bishop Peter Ball, convicted, to Enoch Powell, fascist and alleged satanist and child abuser:
Oh, just remind me again who were Enoch’s two aides and buddies! Ah, yes. Proctor and Denby!
Peter Ball sending the love of God to Enoch and Pam! What a mistake!
Further evidence of close relationship between godly convict Bishop Ball and ‘Rivers of Blood’ Enoch:
Interesting that Enoch Powell corresponded both with Ball and Montagu who were both let off the hook by Skelhorn.
Can you see what it is yet?
Rev Peter Ball was one of many to correspond with Enoch. Others included Atkinson friend Tonypandy, another alleged abuser.
22 June 2017
Church of England colluded with bishop who abused boys, says Welby
Report about bishop Peter Ball, finding collusion over 20 years, is ‘harrowing reading’
Collusion: Secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy
HRH Crafty Muvva@craftymuvva
Prince Charles gave him a grace & favour cottage. Like the church, did he also overlook Ball’s abuse of young boys?
Senior figures in the Church of England colluded for a period of 20 years with a disgraced former bishop who sexually abused boys and men, a damning independent report has found.
The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said the report on the church’s handling of former bishop Peter Ball made “harrowing reading”.
“The church colluded and concealed rather than seeking to help those who were brave enough to come forward. This is inexcusable and shocking behaviour,” he said.
“To the survivors who were brave enough to share their story and bring Peter Ball to justice, I once again offer an unreserved apology. There are no excuses whatsoever for what took place and the systemic abuse of trust perpetrated by Peter Ball over decades.”
Two former archbishops of Canterbury, George Carey and Rowan Williams, apologised to the victims of Peter Ball after being criticised for their failures in relation to him.
Ball, the former bishop of both Gloucester and Lewes, was jailed in October 2015 for the grooming, sexual exploitation and abuse of 18 vulnerable young men aged 17-25 who had sought spiritual guidance from him between 1977 and 1992. He was released from prison in February after serving 16 months.
His trial heard that after Ball was first accused in 1993, a string of senior establishment figures – including Carey, an unidentified member of the royal family, cabinet ministers and a high court judge – came forward in his support, writing letters to the police and Crown Prosecution Service.
Ball was cautioned by police. He resigned his post as bishop and retired to a rented cottage on the Prince of Wales’s Duchy of Cornwall estate butcontinued to officiate in 17 public schools until 2007. A fresh investigation was opened in 2012 which led to his conviction.
One of Ball’s victims, Neil Todd – the first to come forward with allegations of abuse – attempted suicide three times before killing himself in 2012.
Welby ordered an independent review of the church’s handling of the case, chaired by Dame Moira Gibb, former chief executive of Camden council.
The report said Ball’s case was dealt with at the highest levels within the church. He “was seen by the church as the man in trouble who the church needed to help”.
Ball was portrayed as a victim, and the review found “little evidence of compassion for Neil Todd even though from the outset it was clear that he was a vulnerable young man who had come to harm”.
It added: “The church appears to have been most interested in protecting itself.”
In the foreword to her report, An Abuse of Faith, published on Thursday, Gibb said the serious sexual wrongdoing of Ball “is shocking in itself but is compounded by the failure of the church to respond appropriately to his misconduct, again over a period of many years”.
“Ball’s priority was to protect and promote himself and he maligned the abused. The church colluded. The church colluded with that rather than seeking to help those he had harmed, or assuring itself of the safety of others.”
The report added, “progress has been slow and continuing, faster improvement is still required”.
Gibb made 11 recommendations in her report, including improving support to survivors of clerical abuse and taking steps to “demonstrate the individual and collective accountability of bishops”.
Peter Hancock, the C of E’s lead safeguarding bishop, who received the report on behalf of the church, said it had failed Ball’s survivors. “Having read the report I am appalled and disturbed by its contents … As a church we colluded, we failed to act and protect those who came forward for help. There are no excuses. We accept all the recommendations and are working to action them.”
( Lauren Alder@LaurenAlder –
Bishop Ball given a license to abuse from the police and CPS to ‘save the Church embarrassment.’)
Rowan Williams: ‘It is clear I did not give adequate priority to sorting out the concerns and allegations surrounding Peter Ball.’
He added: “For the survivors, it may feel this is all too late.”
According to the report, Ball intimated “on many occasions, to Lord Carey and others, that he enjoys the status of confidant of the Prince of Wales” and “sought to exploit his contact with members of the royal family in order to bolster his position”.
Bishop Ball with Prince Charles and Camilla. Ball gave the homily at the funeral of Camilla Parker Bowles’s father, Major Bruce Shand, in 2006
Moira Gibb is made a Dame CBE by the Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace back in 2012
However, Dame Moira Gibb’s report went on, it “found no evidence that the Prince of Wales or any other member of the royal family sought to intervene at any point in order to protect or promote Ball”.
( CharlieBoab@VanCharleston
Is “found no evidence” a bit like 114 files disappearing?)
Carey was criticised in the report, which said he “set the tone for the church’s response to Ball’s crimes and gave the steer which allowed Ball’s assertions that he was innocent to gain credence”.
In a statement responding to the report, Carey said it made “uncomfortable reading” and he accepted its criticisms of him. “I apologise to the victims of Peter Ball. I believed Peter Ball’s protestations and gave too little credence to the vulnerable young men and boys behind those allegations.”
Carey said he regretted not putting Ball’s name on the Lambeth List – names of people whose suitability for ministry is under question – after he was cautioned.
Under the leadership of Williams, the church began reviewing past cases, a move which ultimately led to the criminal case against Ball being reopened, the report said. However, he was criticised as being “lamentably slow” in making change.
In a statement, Williams said: “Having read the report and reflected on its details, it is clear I did not give adequate priority to sorting out the concerns and allegations surrounding Peter Ball at the earliest opportunity. I recognise such a delay is likely to have increased the pressure and distress experienced by the survivors of his abuse and I am sincerely sorry for this.”
It’s quite simple: Lord Carey is a paedophile enabler and sympathiser.
Justin Welby has asked a former Archbishop of Canterbury to step down from his current role after a report found that he and other senior figures in the Church of England “colluded” with a disgraced paedophile bishop to prevent him facing criminal charges.
George Carey, currently an honorary Assistant Bishop in the diocese of Oxford, has been urged to “carefully consider his position” by Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury.
A damning report by former social worker Dame Moira Gibb, the result of an 18-month long enquiry, found that the Church of England had failed to protect the victims of Peter Ball, who abused 18 vulnerable men and boys over a 20-year period.
Ball, a former bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester, was jailed in October 2015 for indecent assault and misconduct in public office. He was released from prison earlier this year.
He had initially been investigated by police in 1993 after Neil Todd, a young man who had stayed with him, told Church figures there had been “sexual activity” between the two. Mr Todd killed himself in 2012.
That investigation ended when Ball accepted a caution for gross indecency and resigned as Bishop of Gloucester.
Former Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball arriving at the Old BaileyCredit: John Stillwell/PA
The report, published on Thursday, found that Lord Carey, then the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to Ball’s twin brother, Bishop Michael Ball, in 1993, after the caution, saying he believed Ball was “basically innocent”.
At that stage Lord Carey was already aware of six letters which had been sent to Lambeth Palace by members of the public, making further allegations about Ball’s behaviour.
These included parents who said their children had been sexually propositioned by Ball and a man who said he had been asked to masturbate in front of him at the age of 15.
The letters were never passed on to police.
Following the caution Ball retired to a rented cottage on the Prince of Wales’ Duchy of Cornwall estate and started to draw a pension. The report also criticises the “unusual degree of financial support from the Church” that he received in retirement, authorised by Lord Carey.
He was also allowed him to carry out services including baptisms and confirmations, as well as speaking at 17 public schools, some until as late as 2007, the report said, a decision in which Lord Carey “played the lead role”.
The former Archbishop also decided not to add him to the “Lambeth List”, which identifies clergyman about whom there are questions as to their suitability for ministry.
Justin Welby: report makes for “harrowing reading”Credit: Christopher Pledger
The report said Lord Carey “set the tone for the Church’s response to Ball’s crimes and gave the steer which allowed Ball’s assertions that the was innocent to gain credence”.
In a statement, Lord Carey said the report “makes deeply uncomfortable reading” and apologised to Ball’s victims.
He added: “I believed Peter Ball’s protestations and gave too little credence to the vulnerable young men and boys behind these allegations”.
In a statement the Rt Revd Dr Steven Croft, the Bishop of Oxford, said: “The Archbishop of Canterbury has written to Lord Carey and asked him to carefully consider his position as honorary Assistant Bishop.
“As I hold responsibility for granting him a licence to enable him to carry out his duties, Archbishop Justin has asked Lord Carey to talk to me and we have agreed to meet in the coming days for that conversation.
“In the meantime he has voluntarily agreed to step back from public ministry.”
Victims called for the former Archbishop to face criminal proceedings.
Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, who represents a number of Ball’s victims, said: “Given what’s in the report, there is now a clear case for the police and CPS to consider criminal charges against senior figures, including Lord Carey, for offences of misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice.
“This report bears out our clients’ complaint that the Church of England deliberately concealed evidence of Ball’s criminality, and they are appalled by the true extent of collusion in abuse.”
In a foreword to the report, Dame Moira Gibb said: “Ball’s priority was to protect and promote himself and he maligned the abused. The Church colluded with that rather than seeking to help those he had harmed, or assuring itself of the safety of others.”
Archbishop Justin Welby said the report, titled Abuses of Faith, made “harrowing reading”.
“The Church colluded and concealed rather than seeking to help those who were brave enough to come forward,” he said.
Lord Carey steps back from ministry after ‘harrowing’ report on Peter Ball case
22 June 2017
BOTH the Archbishop of Canterbury’s predecessors have issued personal apologies, and the Archbishop has asked Lord Carey to consider his position as an honorary assistant bishop in the diocese of Oxford, after the publication of an independent report on the Peter Ball case and the Church’s part in it.
Lord Carey has been strongly criticised in the report of the review group, chaired by Dame Moira Gibb, which was published on Thursday, almost two years after the review was announced by Archbishop Welby (News, 7 October 2015).
The 81-page report, Abuse of Faith, sets out in detail the events and circumstances leading up to, surrounding, and following the arrest and imprisonment of Ball, who received a three-year sentence in October 2015, having admitted to a series of indecent assaults and the abuse of 18 young men aged 17-25. One of his victims took his own life. Ball, who is 85, was released in February after serving 16 months of his sentence.
The report criticises the conduct of several senior Church of England figures — in particular, Lord Carey, who, it says, failed to respond to repeated expressions of concern and allegations against Bishop Ball — most notably those of the late Neil Todd, who was repeatedly abused by the bishop during the 1980s and ’90s.
In a statement on the report, which he described as “harrowing”, Archbishop Welby said that the Church had “colluded and concealed” rather than acted to help survivors to come forward; and he repeated an “unreserved apology” for this.
“This is inexcusable and shocking behaviour, and, although Dame Moira notes that most of the events took place many years ago, and does not think that the Church now would conduct itself in the ways described, we can never be complacent: we must learn lessons.”
A copy of a letter to Lord Carey, requesting that he “carefully consider” relinquishing his title as honorary assistant bishop, was leaked online on Thursday morning. The existence of the correspondence was later confirmed in a statement from the Bishop of Oxford, Dr Steven Croft, who said that he had agreed to meet Lord Carey in the coming days. “In the mean time, he has voluntarily agreed to step back from public ministry.”
Receiving the report on behalf of Archbishop Welby, on Thursday, however, the Bishop of Bath & Wells, the Rt Revd Peter Hancock, who is the lead bishop on safeguarding, said that news of the leaked letter was “very disappointing”, since the focus should have been on the survivors.
“Having read the report, I am appalled and deeply disturbed by its contents. . . Today is a reminder of how we have failed, and this report provides robust recommendations for how we can improve our safeguarding practice.”
Ball had continued to abuse young boys and men sexually and physically for his own gratification, under the pretence of providing spiritual enlightenment, for the duration of his ministry as monk, priest, and, later, bishop, the report says. He had been involved in founding and running monastic religious communities since 1960, when concerns were first raised about his behaviour — including reports of praying naked on the chapel floor, self-flagellation, and the physical and sexual harassment and abuse of others, including schoolboys.
The Church’s “trivialisation” of such allegations, together with its naïve, prescriptive, and prejudiced attitude towards homosexuality, were in part to blame for its repeated failure to acknowledge and conduct a proper investigation into the exploitation carried out by Ball throughout his ministry, the report says.
It describes how, in October 1992, Mr Todd, after attempting to take his own life, disclosed the abuse to a “Mr A”, who passed on the allegations to the Bishop of Chichester at the time, the late Dr Eric Kemp, who subsequently briefed Lord Carey. It was not until Mr Todd attempted to take his life for a second time, however, that his worried parents contacted Gloucester Police. This eventually led to a Metropolitan Police investigation into the allegations.
Lambeth Palace later issued a press statement acknowledging the investigations. It stated that Lord Carey had instructed Bishop Ball to “rest” from his official duties, and was praying for him. There was no mention of survivors, and it said: “It must be emphasized that no charges have been brought against the Bishop, and the allegations about him are unsubstantiated. Moreover, the Bishop has a proven record of outstanding pastoral work, particularly amongst young people.”
In 1993, Ball stood down as Bishop of Gloucester after his arrest and caution for gross indecency. In the December, Lambeth Palace received seven letters containing “potentially disturbing information” about Ball, but did not release them during the police investigation. Lord Carey chose not to place Ball on the Lambeth list — naming clerics of questionable suitability, and during a CRB check of Ball in 2004, no evidence of the police caution had been recorded.
“Only one of those letters was handed over,” Dame Moira said on Thursday. “It is perfectly possible that the course of events would have been altered had those letters been handed over. It was deeply inappropriate that the Church did not hand them over at that time.”
Bishop Hancock said: “It was disgraceful that the Church consistently and completely failed those survivors at that time.”
Mr Todd took his own life in 2012, after the allegations against Ball resurfaced. This led to an investigation by Sussex Police, Operation Dunhill. Lord Carey had played down previous concerns, allowed Ball to continue his ministry, and even provided funds to assist Ball during this time, the report says.
Both Lord Carey and Lord Williams, who was Archbishop when the police investigation into Ball was conducted in 2012, have apologised.
Lord Carey states: “I accept the criticisms made of me. I apologise to the victims of Peter Ball. I believed Peter Ball’s protestations and gave too little credence to the vulnerable young men and boys behind those allegations. I regret that after Peter Ball was cautioned I did not place his name on the Lambeth list.”
While Lord Williams had “inherited a confused situation” from his predecessor, and started the process that led to Ball’s arrest and imprisonment, he had been too slow, and “missed the opportunity to review and clarify” the case, the report says.
Lord Williams acknowledged this in his apology. “It is clear that I did not give adequate priority to sorting out the concerns and allegations surrounding Peter Ball at the earliest opportunity. I recognise that such a delay is likely to have increased the pressure and distress experienced by the survivors of his abuse and I am sincerely sorry for this.”
The report also criticises other senior church figures, including Ball’s predecessor as Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd John Yates, as well as Peter Ball’s idenitical twin brother, the Rt Revd Michael Ball, who conducted a “manipulative” campaign to allow his brother to continue his ministry.
Concerning one aspect of the twins’ relationship, it concludes: “It appears to us extraordinary that a bishop should, at best, be so careless as to allow himself to be impersonated, and particularly to be impersonated by a former bishop who had resigned in the circumstances detailed above. However, the Church has considered these matters and has taken no further action. That may be appropriate in the light of Bishop Michael Ball’s age, and status as a retired bishop.”
The report dismisses allegations that any member of the royal family intervened on Peter Ball’s behalf. “Ball himself, both in his correspondence and in his public statements, sought to exploit his contact with members of the Royal Family in order to bolster his position, particularly in the eyes of Lord Carey and others from whom he hoped to receive sympathetic treatment.
“We have reviewed all the relevant material including the correspondence passing between the Prince of Wales and Ball held by the Church and found no evidence that the Prince of Wales or any other member of the Royal Family sought to intervene at any point in order to protect or promote Ball.”
The report also notes of Peter Ball: “His decision to withhold his co-operation with this review does not sit well with [his] declarations [of remorse].”
Presenting the report, Dame Moira said: “Peter Ball abused his faith and his Church, appearing outwardly as a good and holy man while actively harming others. He abused the faith that people rightly had in him as a leader in the Church, and most importantly he abused the faith of those who sought spiritual guidance from him, and instead found hurt, deceit, and manipulation.”
These “shocking” acts were compounded by the failure of the Church to “respond appropriately” to numerous concerns raised by survivors and others, including those who had known and worked with Ball, she said.
Her report sets out 11 recommendations for the Church, both to support the complex needs of survivors properly, and to prevent further abuse. This includes reviewing its safeguarding procedures, as well as the responsibilities of the National Safeguarding Team and the Lambeth, Bishopthorpe, and Archbishops’ lists.
Bishop Hancock said that a copy of the report had been sent to all the Bishops, and that survivors would be invited to tell of their experiences, including the family of Mr Todd. He also referred to new safeguarding legislation and updated guidance from the House of Bishops.
“For the survivors, it may feel this is all too late. I am personally aware from my meetings with individual survivors in the course of my work that they live with the effects of this abuse for their whole life. I once again offer them my wholehearted apology.”
Former Bishop of Truro Michael Ball and his paedophile ex-bishop twin Peter want to become Catholics so they can live in anonymity
8 DEC 2017
Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, has asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol, a spokesman for the Church confirmed.
His identical twin brother Michael Ball, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997, also sent an email to friends telling them of the idea.
From the email…”The events of the last years and rightly or wrongly the battering by the Church have totally wearied and reduced us.
“We will probably be joining the Roman Catholic Church soon.
…Michael Ball’s complaint of taking a “battering” from the Church was “flippant” and it was “disgusting” the pair were acting as though they were the victims.
A spokesman for the Roman Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton said: “We confirm that Peter Ball has been in contact with the Roman Catholic diocese of Clifton, in which diocese he now lives, expressing an interest in becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“This matter is subject to discussions between Clifton diocese and the statutory authorities, who are the lead with regards to Peter Ball’s risk management in the community.
Disgraced paedophile former bishop Peter Ball with close friend Prince Charles
Peter Ball’s sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault.
The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey resigned as honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford after the public inquiry into child sex abuse last year heard he delayed a “proper investigation” into Peter Ball’s crimes for two decades by failing to pass information to police.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Now it has emerged the Archbishop of Canterbury’s headquarters received at least six letters from other alleged victims detailing “potentially criminal” and “totally inappropriate behaviour” by Peter Ball in the early 1990s but did not pass them on to police until years later.
“The Church appears to have resorted to staggering levels of deceit in order to prevent the true extent of Ball’s offending coming to light,” said Richard Scorer, a solicitor who is representing victims of Peter Ball.
Details of the letters, all sent to the Church between December 1992 and February 1993, reveal that Peter Ball encouraged victims to pray naked, perform sex acts in front of him and share his bed.
Anglican officials who reviewed the letters in 2009 suggested that, had such evidence been given to detectives in 1993, Peter Ball may have been convicted of serious sexual offences rather than merely cautioned.
But instead of being made public, the letters were kept in confidential files at Lambeth Palace.
It was not until 2012, after several internal inquiries, that the Church finally released documents to police.
An independent review is also currently under way into the way the Church of England responded to the case involving Peter Ball.
Church knew about allegations before Cornish preacher went on to abuse boys, investigation reveals
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling
25 MAY 2018
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009
A leading figure in the Church of England in Cornwall went on to commit child sex offences for several years after allegations about his behaviour with young boys were raised with the diocese and not acted upon, an official investigation has revealed.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released today, says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
After the first allegations of Dowling abusing boys at a North Cornwall school where he taught were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions – because of a lack of corroborative evidence – the then Bishop of Truro Maurice Key wrote: “I suppose the problem will now be to find him some other work”.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
The report’s author said the lack of action by the diocese allowed Dowling to gain credibility and authority.
“Because they didn’t take it any further it enabled Jeremy Dowling to reach a position where he made up his own rules, and his position within the church lent him credibility and authority,” said Dr Andy Thompson, an academic, magistrate and member of the Diocesan Council.
The Bishop of St Germans, Rt Revd Dr Chris Goldsmith, apologised for the lack of action and the suffering that resulted.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released on Friday (May 25), says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
One of the leaders who was named in the report was Michael Ball, 86, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997. The Right Reverend Ball told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations about Dowling but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
His identical twin, Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences dating back to the 1970s against 18 young men at his home in East Sussex.
His sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault. The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Last year the brothers decided they wanted to become Catholics so they could live in anonimity. Peter Ball asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol and both said they wanted to switch faith from the Church of England so they could “live and worship in anonymity” within the Catholic Church.
Former Bishop of Truro was Michael Ball, twin brother of convicted paedophile/friend of the royal family and Jimmy Savile – Bishop Peter Ball.
Jeremy Dowling
The Right Reverend Michael Ball – Bishop of Truro from 1990-97 – told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
BIG SOCIETY: Pictured above, with Prime Minister David Cameron and North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson, are Co-founder of Community Action Through Sport (CATS) and volunteer Denise Jane May, CATS trustee and volunteer Jeremy Dowling, CATS Project Development Manager Karen Hemmings, CATS Project Development Assistant Louise Anne Harris and CATS trustee and volunteer Sharon Caroline Marshall.
Ex Truro Diocese worker Jeremy Dowling sexually abused boys
5 June 2015
An ex-Diocese of Truro press officer has admitted sexually abusing boys over a period of more than 10 years.
Jeremy Dowling, 76, carried out the assaults on five children, aged between 12 and 15, from 1959 to 1971.
Truro Crown Court heard Dowling abused the boys at sporting events and in toilets while working as a teacher in Devon.
The Bishop of Truro described Dowling’s offences as “deeply shocking” and said his thoughts were with the victims.
Sentencing was adjourned until July 10 for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.
Dowling, of Church Path, Bude, retired from the Diocese of Truro in 2009 after 25 years of service.
‘Damaging impact’
He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault on boys aged 12 to 15 and two counts of indecency with a child.
The court heard one assault was carried out on a boy at a cricket match. Others took place in an attic, in storage rooms at a sporting pavilion and in outside toilets.
The Right Reverend Tim Thornton, Bishop of Truro, said many people would have known Dowling as a reader at St Michael’s Church and St Genny’s Church in Bude and as a member of the Diocesan and General Synods.
Bishop Thornton said: “Offences like this will have a damaging and lasting impact on people’s lives.
Former Cornwall preacher Jeremy Dowling ‘assaulted boy’
The assaults happened when Jeremy Dowling was a lay preacher at two churches in the Bude area of Cornwall, Truro Crown Court was told.
Mr Dowling met the boy when he was 10 through church activities and “took him under his wing”.
He has denied six counts of indecent assault on a child and two counts of gross indecency with a child.
The assaults happened in the 1970s before Mr Dowling became a press spokesman for the Diocese of Truro, the court heard.
‘Long time ago’
Jo Martin, prosecuting, said some of the assaults took place at Mr Dowling’s house after the boy had been invited for dinner and on one occasion he was taken to a church on the north coast.
She said Mr Dowling took him up a tower and showed him the view, then took him to a room and assaulted him.
The alleged victim did not tell anyone when he was a child but later, when he was married, told his wife about the assaults.
He said when his wife rang up Mr Dowling, accusing him of being a paedophile, Mr Dowling replied “that was a long time ago”.
He said he eventually went to the police after reading in news reports that Mr Dowling had admitted abusing five boys when he was a teacher at a private school in the 1960s.
Mr Dowling is currently serving a jail term for those offences.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
Theresa May has held private PRAYER sessions with the Archbishop of Canterbury
PM and Justin Welby have met for private sessions since May entered No 10
Lambeth Palace is on the South Bank just a short drive from 10 Downing Street
18 June 2017
The Prime Minister, who is regularly pictured at church, is said to find the meetings with Justin Welby a ‘great comfort’
…she has had meetings and held prayers with the Archbishop of Canterbury.’
Justin Welby lives at Lambeth Palace, which is just minutes from Downing Street
Elders of Cape Town church expel alleged abuser John Smyth
09 June 2017
JOHN SMYTH, the Evangelical Christian camp leader accused of savagely beating young men during the 1970s and ’80s in his garden shed (News, 13 April), has been formally expelled from his church in South Africa, where he now lives.
In a lengthy statement, the elders of Church-on-Main, Cape Town, where Mr Smyth and his wife, Anne, have worshipped since 2013, announced that the Smyths would be “excommunicated, with all its scriptural implications”, because of Mr Smyth’s refusal to engage with the church leadership about the allegations.
The statement explains that the church was aware that some had criticised Mr Smyth’s holiday-camp ministry in Zimbabwe when he first joined Church-on-Main, four years ago, but had been assured that this was nothing more than jealousy at the ministry’s success.
Last September, however, the church elders found out that Mr Smyth was regularly meeting young men from Church-on-Main at a sports club, playing squash before showering together and then questioning them about “pornography, masturbation, and other sexual matters”.
They then discovered that Mr Smyth’s Zimbabwe camps had been involved in a court case. The elders’ statement said, however, that whenever they attempted to discuss the matter with Mr Smyth, he became defensive, and attacked the elders’ leadership of the church.
After the allegations first surfaced in the UK in February (News, 10 February), the elders said that they had urged Mr Smyth to return to the UK to work with the police, and told him not to attend Church-on-Main meetings or contact any other church members.
Because he has refused to engage with the leaders, or follow their advice, he has now been excommunicated from the church, the statement says.”
Our counsel has always been for John to present himself to the UK authorities for whatever consequences he could face, admitting, if necessary, to any accusation that holds substance, and to apologise, asking for forgiveness and mercy,” it says.”
If our having had John as a leader of a discipleship group, or his role in any form of ministry has led to hurt or risk to anyone, or to bringing the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ into disrepute in any way; for this we apologise.”
Channel 4 News, which first broke the story in February, has broadcast new details that appear to suggest that the Archbishop of Canterbury continued to be involved with Iwerne Trust camps at the same time as Mr Smyth.
Archbishop Welby was a dormitory officer at the holiday camps in the late 1970s, when Mr Smyth was one of the leaders. A statement from Lambeth Palace, issued after the Channel 4 programme, said that the Archbishop had worked with Mr Smyth, but that no one had discussed the allegations with him.”
I was completely unaware of any abuse,” the Archbishop told LBC radio in February. “I never heard anything at all, at any point. I never had the slightest suspicion that there was anything going on.”
Last week, Channel 4 News reported that the Archbishop’s name appeared on a speaker roster for an Iwerne Trust camp in 1979, as did Mr Smyth’s, and he remained on the camps’ mailing list, despite then living in France.
Archbishop Welby denied that these documents implied that he was connected to Mr Smyth. “I left to work and live in Paris in 1978 — as I understand it, a year before the abuse was to begin — and did not return to work in the UK until 1983,” he said in a statement this week.”
As I have previously stated, I was not one of the inner circle of people surrounding John Smyth, or in the leadership of the camps. A talk on reading the Bible, which I did as a one-off in 1979, does not make anyone a member of an ‘inner circle’.”
A spokeswoman for the Archbishop declined to comment on Mr Smyth’s expulsion from Church-on-Main.
Very Curious...only two sites reporting this news on Mark Carey – Christian Today.com -& Anglican Ink and not one of the major newspaper sites that published the original arrest news??
Were they instructed not to??….
Son of former Archbishop of Canterbury cleared of sex abuse charges
The son of former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey has been cleared of sex abuse charges against a young woman.
Rev Mark Carey was suspended from ministering by the Diocese of Leeds after he was arrested in October 2016 for allegedly sexually attacking a young woman in the 1980s.
He was later released on bail but has since reported the case has been dropped and no further action will be taken, according toAnglican Ink.
A source close to Mr Carey told Christian Today that both he and the diocese of Leeds had been informed by the police that the allegations were ‘unfounded’.
The incident was said to have taken place while his father, now Lord Carey, was vicar at St Nicholas’, Durham, between 1975 and 1982.
Mark Carey, now 51, would have been in his teens at the time. Carey Senior then became Archbishop of Canterbury between 1991 and 2002. He has maintained a high profile since as a media commentator and campaigner.
‘Woke up with a sense of freedom for first time in 5 months. Accusation & condemnation wiped out,’ Mark Carey wrote on Facebook last month. ‘Now in recovery mode.’
Carey describes himself as a ‘pioneer minster’ in the Church of England. He is involved in the Kairos Christian fellowship which is a Christian community movement that meets in pubs, cafes and homes.
Christian Today has requested a comment from the Leeds diocese.
The son of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has been cleared of charges that he abused a young girl. The accusations against the Rev. Mark Carey led to his suspension by the Diocese of Leeds and questioning by police. However, on 8 March 2017 he reported: “Just heard that police have dropped case & no further action.”
On 19 Oct 2016, Mr Carey was arrested at his home in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, by officers of the Durham Constabulary accused of having sexually abused a young women in the 1980s. He was released after posting bail, pending further inquiries. The incident is alleged to have occurred during Lord Carey’s tenure as vicar of St Nicholas’ Church in Durham between 1975 and 1982. Mark Carey, now 51, would have been no more than 17 years old at the time.
Supported by family, friends and his parishioners, Mr. Carey maintained his innocence throughout his five month ordeal and was grateful for his vindication. Friends of the Harrogate vicar told AI they were shocked by the accusations and considered them “absurd”. Following his vindication from the false charges of abuse, Mr. Carey wrote on his On his Facebook: “Woke up with a sense of freedom for first time in 5 months. Accusation & condemnation wiped out. Now in recovery mode.”
For six years Mr Carey has served as the “pioneer minister” of the Kairos Christian fellowship that meets in homes, pubs, and cafes. At its launch in 2010, Mr. Carey told the BBC “Kairos focuses on releasing communities of followers to live out the mission of Jesus.”
“While it is one church it is also six smaller network churches, small to mid-size groups of up to thirty people known, officially, as ‘mission-shaped communities’ (MSCs).”
“With a variety of imaginative titles, each MSC is treated as a church in its own right, meeting not in a church building but in homes, cafes, pubs, or even outdoors”.
Disclaimer: While the author of this report has never met the Rev. Mark Carey, he was a colleague of the brother of the accused, Andrew, for several years at the Church of England Newspaper.
In reading coverage of various rape and/or sexual assault accusations, I’ve been struck repeatedly by the bizarre conflation of the term “unfounded” with the words “false”, “false accusation”, and “proven innocent” to describe accusations that never made it to court.
Mark Carey, now 51, would have been no more than 17 years old at the time.
(Mark Carey was born in 1965. He was 17 in 1982. If the woman is in her 30s, now, she would have been born between 1977-1986; so in 1982, the oldest she would have been was 5 years old.)
Rev Carey was released on police bail and has since been suspended by the Church of England pending inquiries.
Father of three Rev Carey, who followed his father into the church in 1995
He was joined at his home in Harrogate, North Yorks, yesterday by his father and mother Eileen. His wife Penny, 53, whom he married in 1988, refused to comment.
The alleged victim approached Durham Police to make the complaint. Officers from North Yorkshire police arrested him.
The former social worker– was ordained in 1995 at Wakefield Cathedral, witnessed by his father.
He had previously been curate of Christ Church in South Ossett, West Yorks and went on to be a parish priest in Sheffield and then Harrogate in 2007.
Last night, a Church of England spokesman said: “A 51-year-old priest in the Diocese of Leeds has been suspended by the Bishop following his arrest by Durham Constabulary concerning allegations of historical abuse.
His brother Andrew, who works at the Christian charity Barnabas Fund, told the Sunday Telegraph that his family did not wish to comment on the allegations against Rev Carey.
I used to work with children and young people as a Residential Social Worker in Bristol before becoming a C of E Vicar. I now lead Kairos Church, formerly St Mary’s Harrogate with All Saint’s, Harlow Hill.
Ordained in 1977, His first parish job was as Curate to George Carey, when he was Vicar of St Nicholas, Durham and he was an Islington Labor councillor 1982-1990.)
A NEW vicar at St Mary’s and All Saints Church has been welcomed with open arms to a congregation displaced after their church building was made redundant. Rev Mark Carey, who is the son of former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey, was delighted at his reception.
Since 2006 when their building was declared unsafe, the congregation have been worshipping at Harrogate Grammar School where Mr Carey was licensed as Priest in Charge during a ceremony at the beginning of this month. The Bishop of Leeds and Ripon was there to lead the ceremony.
Mr Carey was previously vicar at St Mark’s Church Grenoside, Sheffield, where he had been for eight years. His wife Penny, and three children joined him at the vicarage in September as they embarked on their new life in Harrogate.
Lord Carey ‘may face explicit criticism’ from abuse inquiry
21 Oct 2016
THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has been granted core-participant status at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) after Professor Alexis Jay, who chairs it, ruled that he “may be subject to explicit criticism by the Inquiry in due course”.
Core participants are entitled to legal representation at the Inquiry and to receive advance disclosure of evidence. They may also cross-examine witnesses when the public hearings begin, something that is expected to happen next year.
In his application for core participant status, lawyers for Lord Carey explained that, as a retired office-holder, he was led to be believe that he would be represented at the Inquiry by lawyers for the Archbishops’ Council, which also has core-participant status. “Once the Archbishops’ Council indicated to Lord Carey that there might be some conflict between their interests and those of Lord Carey, he made contact with alternative legal representatives,” Professor Jay said.
In granting core-participant status, Professor Jay said that “Lord Carey was Archbishop of Canterbury at the time when [the former Bishop of Lewes, then of Gloucester] Peter Ball’s sexual abuse came to light in 1992, and when he received a police caution in 1993, and it is stated in Lord Carey’s application that he had a pastoral and disciplinary role in relation to Peter Ball at that time.
I also understand that Lord Carey was involved in deciding on Peter Ball’s further officiation within the Church of England after he received that caution.
”The Inquiry will consider the extent to which any failings identified in relation to the diocese of Chichester and Peter Ball are representative of wider failings within the Church of England and/or the Anglican Church in general, and the nature and extent of any failings of institutions to protect children from abuse.
A lawyer representing victims of an abusive Church of England bishop has called for an investigation into the ‘misconduct’ of former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton.
According to this report, David Greenwood, representing several of Peter Ball’s victims, said he was sure the Church had covered up evidence and urged Scotland Yard to:
Consider opening an investigation into perverting the course of justice by church officials.
Greenwood spoke out after the release of documents that suggest the head of the Church of England knew about the abuse allegations but failed to act.
Sussex police documents, released under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act last week, reveal that Lambeth Palace, the residence of the head of the Church, received six letters and a number of verbal reports detailing allegations of abuse shortly after the initial investigation into Ball in 1992.
In the letters, Ball is accused of encouraged victims to pray naked, perform sex acts in front of him and share his bed.
Lord Carey, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, became Chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham after he retired.
Lord Carey – correspondence with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) -a cover-up
The files indicate the Church failed to pass this evidence on to police. In February 1993, Lord Carey wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions and a chief constable in support of Ball.
Last October, current Archbishop Justin Welby launched an independent review into the Church of England’s response to the allegations.
A spokesperson for Lord Carey declined to comment but said Carey was cooperating fully with Welby’s inquiry.
The newly released documents also suggest Ball associated with other known sex offenders in the clergy and was investigated in 2008 for being part of suspected pedophile ring.
The documents show Ball covered for and helped priests accused of sex abuse.
In England his time saw notable national events: he took part in the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997,
led worship for the nation in the Dome for the new Millennium;
quoted at the Service commemorating the victims of the 9/11 attacks;
led the tributes at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 2001 and
preached memorably at Golden Jubilee of the Queen in 2002
He retired in 2002 at the age of 66 and was made a life peer, taking the title Lord Carey of Clifton, reflecting appreciation of his time as Bishop of Bath and Wells.
Carey left school at age 15 and served as a radio operator in the Royal Air Force from 1954 to 1956. By 20 he had undergone a religious conversion—not Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus, he admitted, but the simple conviction that he had found something special. He was then admitted to King’s College, London University, from which he received a bachelor of divinity degree in 1962. Beginning his clerical career as a curate in Islington (1962–66), Carey was also a lecturer at Oakhill College in Southgate (1966–70) and at St. John’s College in Nottingham (1970–75). He was vicar of St. Nicholas Church in Durham (1975–82) and principal of Trinity College, Bristol (1982–87). In 1987 Carey was made bishop of Bath and Wells, and in 1990 he was named to succeed as archbishop of Canterbury.
Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie announced that Queen Elizabeth II had just officially appointed Dr. George Carey to succeed him when he retires next January 31.
The appointment came as a surprise to many who were following the nomination process. In his prepared statement, Runcie said the appointment was “imaginative…
Some observers were surprised because Carey was not mentioned on the lists of possible choices circulating in the press. At 54 years of age, Carey is also considered comparatively young for such an appointment — and he has been bishop of Bath and Wells only since 1987.
2001 Her Majesty the Queen greets members of the Carey family at the Lambeth Palace Garden Party – sharing a special handshake with Carey family member. 2001
Lord George Leonard Carey director at same company as Chris Patten’s wife LADY MARY LAVENDER ST LEGER PATTEN OF BARNES
United Learning Trust – To advance, for the public benefit, education in the United Kingdom by establishing, maintaining, operating and developing schools. A charity, limited by guarantee
Peter Alan “Pete” Broadbent is a British Anglican bishop. He is the current Church of England Bishop of Willesden, an area bishopric in the Diocese of London. He was also the acting area Bishop of Stepney
He was 15 when he became a committed Christian through the Crusaders youth organisation. He studied English at Jesus College, Cambridge and then studied theology at St John’s College, Nottingham before being ordained.
Broadbent’s first parish job was as Curate to George Carey, the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, when he was Vicar of St Nicholas, Durham
Broadbent moved to the Diocese of London in 1980 to be curate of Emmanuel Church, Holloway and theBishop of Stepney‘s Chaplain for Mission.
In 1983 he became Anglican Chaplain to the Polytechnic of North London (now London Metropolitan University) as well as honorary curate of St Mary’s, Islington. He moved to the Willesden Area in 1989 to become Vicar of Trinity St Michael, Harrow and was made Area Dean of Harrow in 1994. The following year he was appointed as Archdeacon ofNortholt, working with the former Bishop of Willesden.
Broadbent is a member of the Labour Party and was a councillor for the London Borough of Islington from 1982 and 1990, being the chair of their Development and Planning Committee.
Jeremy Corbyn was elected as the Member of Parliament for Islington North in 1983.
Horrific crimes against children in the care of Islington Council were committed while Margaret Hodge was council leader (1982-1992).
When a shocking catalogue of abuse was exposed by the Evening Standard in 1992, Hodge accused the paper of “sensationalist gutter journalism”. Tony Blair later appointed her as the first Minister for Children.
George Carey’s wife, Eileen, was won over by Billy Graham Crusade
When Eileen was sixteen the young American preacher, Billy Graham, was conducting his London Crusade and once a week Eileen took a chartered bus to London.
Later she welcomed Billy Graham to Canterbury Cathedral for the enthronement of her husband.
Jun. 20, 1967 – Evangelist Billy Graham visits the set of the new Cliff Richard film ”Two a Penny”: Evangelist Billy Graham today paid a visit to the set at Goldhawk studies, London W. C. where he met pop star Cliff Richard, actress Dora Bryan and Ann Holloway, stars of his film ”two a penny”, which has a religious theme. The film is financed by the Graham organisation and the profits will go to help their work. Cliff Richard, who is quitting show business at the end of the year, is working in the film without pay.
Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey made a personal and pastoral visit to the Revd Dr Billy Graham today.
Archbishop George and Eileen Carey are close friends of Dr and Mrs. Graham.
Billy Graham and George Carey
Dr Graham was present at the Archbishop’s enthronement 10 years ago and met together several years ago during a meeting at Kanuga Episcopal Conference Centre in North Carolina.
…the panel secured for the debate was equal in caliber to any TV current affairs programme. Chaired by Sky News presenter Gillian Joseph, the panel of six was drawn from the world of Westminster politics, journalism, medicine and the Church: Keith Vaz (MP for Leicester East), Danny Finkelstein (political columnist at The Times), Dr. Ellie Cannon (GP The Mail, journalist & author), Oliver Dowden (MP for Hertsmere), Matthew Parris (political columnist at The Times & former MP), and Pete Broadbent (Bishop of Willesden).
George Carey blasts Trump protesters in London over ‘hysterical’ attacks on President
Feb 5 2017
FORMER Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey has called for the world to give Donald Trump a chance.
In an extraordinary intervention, he accused the new US President’s critics of a “hysterical overreaction that poses a danger to the kind of constructive relationship we should have with the President”.
it is one of the key characteristics of those who consider themselves progressive to reserve condemnation for America, ‘the West’, or Israel and ignore much greater evil-doers.”
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When I went up to Cambridge in October 1960, I found myself, for the first time, in the company of public schoolboys. My college, Corpus Christi, boasted – if that’s the word – a higher proportion of them than most, about 90 per cent, I would say, all appearing to fit in naturally to the ethos of the place, which I, at first, found strange and rather wonderful. They were all very pleasant to me, despite my ‘Estuary’ accent and the fact that I had lived at home during my school years, and I made close friends with a number of them. But there was always this barrier – of adolescent experience – between us. They knew things that I didn’t (and vice versa? perhaps).
One thing was the proclivities of one of the fellows, the Rev. E. Garth Moore, notorious in public school circles as a sexual predator: they felt they needed to warn me, as a comparatively plebbish ingénu. ‘If Garth invites you to tea in his rooms,’ one of them told me on my first day, ‘don’t go. We know about him. You won’t understand.’ I think they were trying to protect me from embarrassment more than anything. It was kind of them. Anyhow, I did get the invitation, and politely turned it down.
I was filled in on what had gone on. The conversation had turned to art, in particular the art of the nude. Moore had a theory that the ideal of the male body had different proportions in Greek and medieval times. He got his guests to strip to the thighs and measured each of them ‘from nipple to nipple, and nipple to crutch’, to determine whether they conformed to the Greek or the Gothic ideal. My new friends were right; I would have been embarrassed. Moore also used to walk naked in our college gardens, among the students there.
Moore was a tutor in law before he was ordained in the Church of England. His main published academic work – possibly his only one – was a slim guide to Canon Law. Later, when I became a fellow of the college, I got to know him better, and instinctively took against him. He had extreme right-wing views; but it was his general air of pleasant corruption which alienated me. He was one of the reasons – though not the main one – that I resigned my fellowship two years later, to take up a lectureship at Hull, where I felt far more comfortable.
Moore died in 1990. This week the Guardianouted him on its front page as the perpetrator of a ‘sadistic sexual assault’ on a 16-year-old boy known as ‘Joe’ in 1976. (The Church Timesnamed him in December.) That’s in connection with the church hierarchy’s covering up of complaints such as Joe’s. But I’d have thought responsibility rested with my college, too, acting – as universities did then – in loco parentis. Garth had young men in his care. I was only three years older than ‘Joe’ when I came across him.
Interesting question here about Chancellor Briden. As protege of my abuser – Briden might have known the Cambridge stories that entered public domain after my story went public
Mr. Timothy Briden Member of Lamb Chambers – Barristers.
Timothy has a background in personal injury and clinical negligence litigation. He has also developed an additional specialist practice in ecclesiastical law. He is Chancellor for the Diocese of Truro (Bishop Peter Ball) and for the Diocese of Bath and Wells. He is also Vicar-General of the Province of Canterbury.
From a successful background in personal injury and clinical negligence litigation, Timothy Briden has developed an additional specialist practice in ecclesiastical law leading to his appointment as a Diocesan Chancellor and Vicar-General of the Province of Canterbury.
Richard Scorer: My clients accept the PoW has many interactions with Church of England clergy. However our clients do not accept that he claims he was not aware that a caution means an acceptance of guilt.
Scorer claims senior leaders in the Church knew of Peter Ball’s offending but Lambeth Palace did not hand over letters to police:http://ow.ly/M5yK30l4wJe
Mr William Chapman: There’s a reluctance to trust the secular authorities to handle the matter and a willingness to forgive and reintegrate Peter Ball, no matter what he’d done
Elizabeth Hall, Nat Safeguarding Advisor, recommending a further review of Peter Ball information which should involve trying to find all files/documents
Both Michael Ball and brother Peter Ball were not shy about using the name of the Prince of Wales to seek to influence others. Bishop Michael Ball wrote to Lord Carey in Dec 1992 saying that his brother was receiving support from 2 Cabinet Ministers and Prince Charles Peter Ball often mention their friendship.
On 8 March 1993 Peter Ball received a caution for one count of gross indecency against Neil Todd. He resigned immediately. Peter Ball alleged to the Church of England shortly that he either did not wish to resign, and accepted a caution to avoid a trial.
“This Inquiry has been provided with details of allegations made by a total of 32 individuals. These all relate to an alleged abuse of power by Peter Ball for the purposes of his sexual gratification.”
The former Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball was convicted of two offences of indecent assault, and an offence of misconduct
Peter Ball admitted when pleading guilty that he received sexual gratification from the deliberate manipulation of vulnerable young men, that the contact was consistent with grooming and that he abused his position as a Bishop in the Church of England
In January 1996, Ball was permitted by Archbishop Carey to preach at a particular public school and, to conduct confirmations at other specific schools later on in that year
(1) Why he was permitted to return to ministry in this fashion? (2) Why did no-one think to carry out some kind of risk assessment? (3) Whether or not senior clergy simply thought that Peter Ball’s pleas of innocence should be believed?
“I really appreciate your sympathetic understanding in preventing a scandal with a trial which would have affected the Royal family and establishments in this crucial time of turmoil within the Church of England.” Bishop Kemp comments on a 1990s investigation into Peter Ball
A risk assessment carried out by the Church in 2009 identified that Peter Ball could be identified as a sexual predator given the length and scale of his offending
Prince Charles gives evidence to inquiry into Peter Ball
The Prince of Wales says he was aware that Peter Ball, who lived in Aller, near Langport, had been given a police caution, but claims he did not realise it amounted to an admission of guilt.
Details of Prince Charles’s relationship with Ball will be revealed at an inquiry into the case on Friday.
The next in line to the throne had “decades of correspondence” with Ball and occasionally sent him “small gifts of money”, according to the draft copy of his statement to the inquiry, The Times has reported.
The statement will add that Ball confided in him in 2009 that he had been involved in an “indiscretion” years previously, which he blamed on a person with a grudge.
Peter Ball abuse inquiry requests statement from Prince Charles
Wed 06 Jun 2018
By Press Association
The Prince of Wales has been asked to give a witness statement to a public inquiry about a paedophile bishop who was jailed after abusing young men.
Peter Ball was sentenced to 32 months in 2015 for a string of offences between the 1970s and 1990s, and the handling of allegations against him is now being examined by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
At a hearing on Wednesday, counsel to the inquiry Fiona Scolding QC said that statements had been requested from the prince and his principal private secretary.
According to a transcript posted on the inquiry website, she said: “We have also requested a witness statement from both His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and his principal private secretary.
“The Prince’s solicitors have indicated their client’s willingness to assist us and have raised a number of important issues for us to consider.
“This has led to lengthy and complex discussions and we are currently considering the latest points they have raised. We hope to be able to provide an update to core participants on this in the next couple of weeks.”
Charles had exchanged a series of letters with Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester, whose diocese covers Highgrove, the prince’s country home.
A spokesman for the prince told the Daily Mail last year that the correspondence contained nothing of relevance to the clergyman’s offending.
Lawyer Richard Scorer from Slater and Gordon, who is representing complainants at the IICSA, said: “It is imperative that the inquiry leaves no stone unturned in its efforts to establish how Peter Ball was able to evade justice for two decades.
“If this means calling Prince Charles and other prominent establishment figures as witnesses then the inquiry should do so without fear or favour.”
Now the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is discussing with Scotland Yard detectives whether to pursue criminal charges against Lord Carey, the Telegraph understands.
The Metropolitan Police said it had not launched an official criminal investigation into Lord Carey. A spokesman for the Carey family declined to comment.
Sex abuse bishop Peter Ball and brother seek Catholic switch
06 December 2017
A former bishop jailed for sex offences and his twin brother have said they are looking to join the Catholic Church to “live and worship in anonymity”.
Peter Ball, who is now 85, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences against 18 teenagers and men.
The former Bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester carried out the abuse between the 1970s and 1990s.
Ball’s identical twin and former bishop Michael Ball said in an email events had “wearied and reduced us”.
In the email, mistakenly sent from Michael Ball to BBC South East’s Colin Campbell among others, the brothers said having been “battered by the Church” they would be looking to join the Roman Catholic Church.
They said they would like to “end our days in a church where we can live and worship in anonymity and without constant fear”.
The BBC contacted Michael Ball about the email and he said a move to the Catholic Church was “a possibility”.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton said in a statement: “We confirm that Peter Ball has been in contact with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton, in which diocese he now lives, expressing an interest in becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“This matter is subject to discussions between Clifton Diocese and the statutory authorities, who are the lead with regards to Peter Ball’s risk management in the community.”
Dame Moira said he had received seven letters from families and individuals following the arrest and cautioning of Ball in 1992 for gross indecency – when he stood down as Bishop of Gloucester – but failed to pass six of them to the police.
Lord Carey had also failed to put Ball on the the “Lambeth List” which names clergymen whose suitability for ministry had been questioned.
Dame Moira also heard Bishop Michael Ball allowed his brother to attend functions in his place, even after his resignation, and on one occasion Peter Ball had introduced himself as his brother.
In 1994 Michael Ball campaigned to Lord Carey to return his brother to the ministry, with one bishop calling the brothers’ activities “manipulative”, Dame Moira reported .
Between 1995 and 1997, with Lord Carey’s backing. Peter Ball returned to church ministry, eventually undertaking duties such as confirmations.
After a series of investigations Balls’ ministry ceased in 2011, Dame Moira reported.
Former Bishop of Truro Michael Ball and his paedophile ex-bishop twin Peter want to become Catholics so they can live in anonymity
8 DEC 2017
Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, has asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol, a spokesman for the Church confirmed.
His identical twin brother Michael Ball, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997, also sent an email to friends telling them of the idea.
From the email…”The events of the last years and rightly or wrongly the battering by the Church have totally wearied and reduced us.
“We will probably be joining the Roman Catholic Church soon.
…Michael Ball’s complaint of taking a “battering” from the Church was “flippant” and it was “disgusting” the pair were acting as though they were the victims.
A spokesman for the Roman Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton said: “We confirm that Peter Ball has been in contact with the Roman Catholic diocese of Clifton, in which diocese he now lives, expressing an interest in becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“This matter is subject to discussions between Clifton diocese and the statutory authorities, who are the lead with regards to Peter Ball’s risk management in the community.
Disgraced paedophile former bishop Peter Ball with close friend Prince Charles
Peter Ball’s sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault.
The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey resigned as honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford after the public inquiry into child sex abuse last year heard he delayed a “proper investigation” into Peter Ball’s crimes for two decades by failing to pass information to police.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Now it has emerged the Archbishop of Canterbury’s headquarters received at least six letters from other alleged victims detailing “potentially criminal” and “totally inappropriate behaviour” by Peter Ball in the early 1990s but did not pass them on to police until years later.
“The Church appears to have resorted to staggering levels of deceit in order to prevent the true extent of Ball’s offending coming to light,” said Richard Scorer, a solicitor who is representing victims of Peter Ball.
Details of the letters, all sent to the Church between December 1992 and February 1993, reveal that Peter Ball encouraged victims to pray naked, perform sex acts in front of him and share his bed.
Anglican officials who reviewed the letters in 2009 suggested that, had such evidence been given to detectives in 1993, Peter Ball may have been convicted of serious sexual offences rather than merely cautioned.
But instead of being made public, the letters were kept in confidential files at Lambeth Palace.
It was not until 2012, after several internal inquiries, that the Church finally released documents to police.
An independent review is also currently under way into the way the Church of England responded to the case involving Peter Ball.
Former Bishop of Truro Michael Ball and his paedophile ex-bishop twin Peter want to become Catholics so they can live in anonymity
8 DEC 2017
Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, has asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol, a spokesman for the Church confirmed.
His identical twin brother Michael Ball, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997, also sent an email to friends telling them of the idea.
From the email…”The events of the last years and rightly or wrongly the battering by the Church have totally wearied and reduced us.
“We will probably be joining the Roman Catholic Church soon.
…Michael Ball’s complaint of taking a “battering” from the Church was “flippant” and it was “disgusting” the pair were acting as though they were the victims.
A spokesman for the Roman Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton said: “We confirm that Peter Ball has been in contact with the Roman Catholic diocese of Clifton, in which diocese he now lives, expressing an interest in becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“This matter is subject to discussions between Clifton diocese and the statutory authorities, who are the lead with regards to Peter Ball’s risk management in the community.
Disgraced paedophile former bishop Peter Ball with close friend Prince Charles
Peter Ball’s sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault.
The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey resigned as honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford after the public inquiry into child sex abuse last year heard he delayed a “proper investigation” into Peter Ball’s crimes for two decades by failing to pass information to police.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Now it has emerged the Archbishop of Canterbury’s headquarters received at least six letters from other alleged victims detailing “potentially criminal” and “totally inappropriate behaviour” by Peter Ball in the early 1990s but did not pass them on to police until years later.
“The Church appears to have resorted to staggering levels of deceit in order to prevent the true extent of Ball’s offending coming to light,” said Richard Scorer, a solicitor who is representing victims of Peter Ball.
Details of the letters, all sent to the Church between December 1992 and February 1993, reveal that Peter Ball encouraged victims to pray naked, perform sex acts in front of him and share his bed.
Anglican officials who reviewed the letters in 2009 suggested that, had such evidence been given to detectives in 1993, Peter Ball may have been convicted of serious sexual offences rather than merely cautioned.
But instead of being made public, the letters were kept in confidential files at Lambeth Palace.
It was not until 2012, after several internal inquiries, that the Church finally released documents to police.
An independent review is also currently under way into the way the Church of England responded to the case involving Peter Ball.
Church knew about allegations before Cornish preacher went on to abuse boys, investigation reveals
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling
25 MAY 2018
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009
A leading figure in the Church of England in Cornwall went on to commit child sex offences for several years after allegations about his behaviour with young boys were raised with the diocese and not acted upon, an official investigation has revealed.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released today, says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
After the first allegations of Dowling abusing boys at a North Cornwall school where he taught were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions – because of a lack of corroborative evidence – the then Bishop of Truro Maurice Key wrote: “I suppose the problem will now be to find him some other work”.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
The report’s author said the lack of action by the diocese allowed Dowling to gain credibility and authority.
“Because they didn’t take it any further it enabled Jeremy Dowling to reach a position where he made up his own rules, and his position within the church lent him credibility and authority,” said Dr Andy Thompson, an academic, magistrate and member of the Diocesan Council.
The Bishop of St Germans, Rt Revd Dr Chris Goldsmith, apologised for the lack of action and the suffering that resulted.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released on Friday (May 25), says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
One of the leaders who was named in the report was Michael Ball, 86, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997. The Right Reverend Ball told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations about Dowling but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
His identical twin, Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences dating back to the 1970s against 18 young men at his home in East Sussex.
His sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault. The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Last year the brothers decided they wanted to become Catholics so they could live in anonimity. Peter Ball asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol and both said they wanted to switch faith from the Church of England so they could “live and worship in anonymity” within the Catholic Church.
Former Bishop of Truro was Michael Ball, twin brother of convicted paedophile/friend of the royal family and Jimmy Savile – Bishop Peter Ball.
Jeremy Dowling
The Right Reverend Michael Ball – Bishop of Truro from 1990-97 – told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
BIG SOCIETY: Pictured above, with Prime Minister David Cameron and North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson, are Co-founder of Community Action Through Sport (CATS) and volunteer Denise Jane May, CATS trustee and volunteer Jeremy Dowling, CATS Project Development Manager Karen Hemmings, CATS Project Development Assistant Louise Anne Harris and CATS trustee and volunteer Sharon Caroline Marshall.
Ex Truro Diocese worker Jeremy Dowling sexually abused boys
5 June 2015
An ex-Diocese of Truro press officer has admitted sexually abusing boys over a period of more than 10 years.
Jeremy Dowling, 76, carried out the assaults on five children, aged between 12 and 15, from 1959 to 1971.
Truro Crown Court heard Dowling abused the boys at sporting events and in toilets while working as a teacher in Devon.
The Bishop of Truro described Dowling’s offences as “deeply shocking” and said his thoughts were with the victims.
Sentencing was adjourned until July 10 for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.
Dowling, of Church Path, Bude, retired from the Diocese of Truro in 2009 after 25 years of service.
‘Damaging impact’
He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault on boys aged 12 to 15 and two counts of indecency with a child.
The court heard one assault was carried out on a boy at a cricket match. Others took place in an attic, in storage rooms at a sporting pavilion and in outside toilets.
The Right Reverend Tim Thornton, Bishop of Truro, said many people would have known Dowling as a reader at St Michael’s Church and St Genny’s Church in Bude and as a member of the Diocesan and General Synods.
Bishop Thornton said: “Offences like this will have a damaging and lasting impact on people’s lives.
Former Cornwall preacher Jeremy Dowling ‘assaulted boy’
The assaults happened when Jeremy Dowling was a lay preacher at two churches in the Bude area of Cornwall, Truro Crown Court was told.
Mr Dowling met the boy when he was 10 through church activities and “took him under his wing”.
He has denied six counts of indecent assault on a child and two counts of gross indecency with a child.
The assaults happened in the 1970s before Mr Dowling became a press spokesman for the Diocese of Truro, the court heard.
‘Long time ago’
Jo Martin, prosecuting, said some of the assaults took place at Mr Dowling’s house after the boy had been invited for dinner and on one occasion he was taken to a church on the north coast.
She said Mr Dowling took him up a tower and showed him the view, then took him to a room and assaulted him.
The alleged victim did not tell anyone when he was a child but later, when he was married, told his wife about the assaults.
He said when his wife rang up Mr Dowling, accusing him of being a paedophile, Mr Dowling replied “that was a long time ago”.
He said he eventually went to the police after reading in news reports that Mr Dowling had admitted abusing five boys when he was a teacher at a private school in the 1960s.
Mr Dowling is currently serving a jail term for those offences.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
There has been no apology from Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, to whom Joe reports writing 18 letters after the church began examining his case. He had one reply, from a correspondence secretary, assuring him that “the archbishop would hold him in his prayers”.
Dozens of Church of England officials ignored sex abuse victim ‘for decades’ despite being told of horrific abuse at hands of paedophile clergyman Revd Garth Moore
‘I told so many bishops‘: survivor tells of system that protected priest
15 March 2016
For almost 40 years, Joe has struggled to be heard by the Church of England over the sexual abuse that has blighted his life. The depression, anxiety and occasional suicidal thoughts that have dogged him since he was a teenager were, he says, as much the product of the church’s failure to listen to and act on his anguish as the original assault in 1976.
One of the earliest senior members that he told about the abuse was Michael Fisher, the highly regarded leader of the Society of St Francis and later the suffragan bishop of St Germans in Cornwall.
Bishop Michael Fisher, who was then in his 60s and died in 2003, was acquainted with Bishop Garth Moore and was a close associate of Peter Ball, the former bishop of Lewes, who was jailed last October for sexual abuse.
According to Joe, then aged 18, Fisher “drew the full story out of me in confession. Immediately afterwards, he led me into an intensely romantic friendship with him”…kissing and caressing …This was not the right response to a young man who was seeking help,” says Joe.
When Joe was 15, RevGarth Moore, the chancellor of the dioceses of Southwark, Durham and Gloucester and the vicar of St Mary’s Abchurch in the City of London, was a family friend. According to Moore’s obituary, published in 1990 in the Ecclesiastical Law Journal, he was “the foremost canonist of his generation in the Church of England”.
Rev Garth Moore was a very senior figure in the establishment.
Archbishop Carey accused of failing to refer to police detailed ’92 allegations against Peter Ball.
George Carey, who was archbishop of Canterbury at the time when police were investigating claims of sexual abuse by Ball, wrote in support of Ball to the director of public prosecutions and the chief constable of Gloucester police in February 1993.
Diplomat Robert Alston (right – brother of convicted paedophile, Richard Alston – left- partner of PIE’s Peter Righton and friend of PIE’s Charles Napier), was on the staff of Archbishop George Carey…
Robin Peverett OBE, former adviser to the Thatcher government, Ofsted inspector and headmaster of Dulwich College preparatory school, in Cranbrook, Kent
SOPHIE’S LETTER SAVES SEX SHAME HEAD FROM PRISON; EXPOSED: PERVERT TEACHER PREYED ON HIS YOUNG PUPILS.
A PERVERTED headmaster who preyed on boys and girls escaped jail yesterday after the judge read a glowing letter from ex-pupil Sophie Rhys-Jones.
Robin Peverett, 65, sexually assaulted a string of underage children at the top-notch prep school, Dulwich College, in Cranbrook, Kent.
The head – who pupils called “Peverett the Perv” – smacked and stroked the bottoms of children aged between 10 and 13 on the pretext he was helping them with their work.
He was caught after he appeared in a TV documentary following Sophie’s engagement to Prince Edward. Some of his victims were horrified by his appearance and one of them went to the police.
The victim, who is now in her 30s, told Maidstone Crown Court Peverett called her into his office, pulled down her underpants and rubbed her bottom.
Detectives believe Peverett could have assaulted more than a thousand pupils.
He told police it was “an expression of power” and “self-indulgence”.
Serious
Sentencing him, judge David Griffiths said the offences were very serious.
However, he said he also took into account the glowing testimonies from former pupils, including Sophie Rhys-Jones.
After leaving the school, Sophie, 35, had written to her head telling him she loved her time there.
Peverett admitted nine charges of indecent assault on six girls and one boy between 1969 and 1977.
The judge handed out nine jail sentences, ranging from nine months to 18 months to run concurrently. But the sentences were suspended for two years.
A detective involved in the case said afterwards: “He was an arrogant pervert who is lucky to escape jail.”
But Peverett’s barrister Geoffrey Cox continued to defend his behaviour.
He said: “What’s a little buttock fondling after all? It was all such a long time ago.”
This ex-head teacher abused these women when they were his pupils. So why didn’t he go to prison?
Sally Weale meets the victims of Robin Peverett OBE, the man who ran Sophie Rhys-Jones’s preparatory school
21 June 2000
Jo Evans has not seen her ex-headmaster’s study for almost a quarter of a century, but she can remember it as clearly as if she had been summoned there this morning. It’s the smell that comes back most vividly – leather, and the sharp scent of polish rising from Mr Peverett’s mahogany table. She remembers the slip-on shoes he wore and his perma-crease trousers. And she remembers how he routinely sexually abused her there. Day after day. Again and again.
She was 10 years old when the abuse began. She was shy and quiet, and in the academic shadow of her three elder siblings who were also at the school. Mr Peverett (she still uses the polite title like a schoolgirl responding to the class register) called her to his study after she had a poor report and told her she needed some extra tuition. The abuse began gradually – taking her out of class perhaps once a month for some one-to-one tuition in his office. Then he began to summon her daily.
“Pervert Peverett” as he was known by his pupils (he was always twanging girls’ bra straps and knicker elastic) chose victims who were pretty, physically well developed and easily intimidated. Each time Evans was called to his study, she knew exactly what to expect. She never came out of that room without being abused.
The more he abused her, the worse her work became and the more reason he had to summon her for “extra coaching”. She couldn’t talk to anyone, least of all her parents, who were friends with the headmaster. She was not even safe at the weekend. Peverett told her parents she needed extra coaching on a Saturday, so she was taken to her abuser kicking and screaming and begging not to go.
She felt frightened, powerless, and utterly under his control. If he had told her to walk on hot coals she would have done it. And her life has never been quite her own since.
It was not until years later that Evans, now 35 with three children of her own, learned she was not Peverett’s only victim. An unknown number of children who were in his care were abused by him in the same way. They were called to his office for so-called punishments. They were made to lie across his knee either naked or with their clothes and underwear pulled down and he would rub their bare buttocks in a circular motion and spank them.
The consequences of his actions will last a lifetime for Evans and others like her. Yet on June 8, Robin Peverett OBE, former adviser to the Thatcher government, Ofsted inspector and headmaster of Dulwich College preparatory school, in Cranbrook, Kent, was sentenced to 18 months in prison suspended for two years. He admitted nine charges of indecently assaulting seven pupils – six girls and one boy – between the ages of 10 and 13, dating back to the late 60s and 70s, yet he walked free from court. The maximum sentence for indecent assault is 10 years. A further seven charges remain on the file.
Peverett’s case was originally listed for a three-week trial at Maidstone crown court – police and witnesses realised there would be considerable media interest, mainly because the Countess of Wessex, Sophie Rhys-Jones, was a pupil at the school, though she played no part in the police investigation. Peverett’s victims were looking forward to their day in court. “The trial was going to be our chance to say ‘Hello. I’m back. I’m going to tell those 12 good men and women of the jury exactly what you did to me,’ ” says Evans.
In the end, after lengthy legal wrangling, the public hearing lasted less than an hour and a half and as a result of a bit of nifty plea-bargaining, Peverett, 66, pleaded guilty and got to go home that night. The headmaster’s crimes were, Judge David Griffiths said, a serious breach of trust which would normally warrant custodial sentence, but because of Peverett’s achievements in the field of education – there were glowing testimonies from former pupils, staff, parents, fellow heads and even one ex-cabinet minister – his was an exceptional case.
So the former headmaster, who worked at the popular Dulwich Preparatory school for 30 years until his retirement in 1990, never had to face a jury and he never had to listen to his victims describe his crimes and the anguish they caused. Most of his accusers were not even in court to see him sentenced – Evans, by chance, was there expecting to be called as a witness. “When I saw him in the court, for a split second I was back in his office. That’s the power he had.”
As children they were betrayed by the man in whose care they had been placed; as adults they feel they have been cheated by the judicial system in which they put their faith. “The sentence will be of great comfort to other headmasters, past and present, who assault children in their care,” says another of Peverett’s victims, Vicky Bennison, 41. “On the other hand, victims of such abuse will be thinking, is all the emotional upheaval worth it if I go to the police and this is the result? They would conclude that it was not worth it and they would be right.”
Evans and Bennison, who were not identified in court, but have agreed to be named here, are now contacting the crown prosecution service (CPS) asking for the case to be referred to the attorney general, who could in turn refer it to the court of appeal to consider whether the sentence was unduly lenient. However, a CPS spokeswoman said there were no plans to refer the case on. The CPS view, it seems, is that at the time the offences were committed the maximum sentence was two years – taking that into consideration an 18-month suspended sentence does not seem unduly lenient, with the emphasis on unduly. Bennison and Evans, who have lived with the consequences of his actions for the best part of their lives, would disagree.
It was Evans who sparked off the original investigation into Peverett, a father of three, after watching a Channel 5 programme about the marriage of Sophie Rhys-Jones to Prince Edward. “Sophie was a good friend of mine. She was in my class. We had had contact up to her engagement. I watched it out of curiosity. Twenty minutes into the programme Mr Peverett came on to the screen. Seeing his face, I just lost the plot. I was inconsolable. I frightened myself. I started chucking things around the room. I frightened my husband. I couldn’t believe he was still out there.”
She didn’t eat or sleep for four days as she struggled to reach a decision about whether she should report him. She plucked up the courage and the inquiry began. “Physically he did the same thing every single time. I got to expect that. It was humiliating and degrading. It was the mental abuse that shattered me at the time and has affected my life ever since. That’s what they don’t take into account in court.”
After Peverett’s violations, her subsequent school career was unimpressive; she was deeply distrustful of male teachers and men in authority, worried that one of them would pick up where Peverett had left off. She was introverted and had problems forming relationships; she is still obsessive about covering up her body and is terrified of passing her problems on to her children.
“I’m supposed to be a role model for my children, but there’s this thing in my past which has distorted my view of being female. I’m very frightened of passing on my warped view to my two young daughters. It’s not OK for him to be infecting them. The main thing I have looked for is some peace in my life. I have not had peace since he did this to me.”
Bennison, who was a weekly boarder at the school for her last four terms, was summoned to Peverett’s office because he noticed she had started to use deodorant. “He was able to pick up on anxieties of children. He had this thing that I did not wash properly. He would sidle up to me and say, ‘Have you washed? I’m sure you haven’t.’ I had to be punished for this.
“He used to call me out of the dormitory after lights out. He made me take my clothes off and lie across his knees for not having washed properly. I had to be naked in front of this man at the age of 11.
“I did not tell anyone about it. I didn’t have the language to tell anyone. I told a boyfriend at the age of 17 and he didn’t respond so I thought maybe this isn’t important. For the next 15 years I could tell people when I got drunk at parties, but I couldn’t tell my family and friends.”
Then last year Bennison, who was working on an aid project in Russia, returned to visit her parents and discovered that Evans had made a statement to the police and an investigation was underway. She was one of 20 former pupils to contact the police following publicity about Peverett – not all of them were part of the final case. Peverett, of Battle, East Sussex, admitted the charge of indecent assault relating to Bennison; he admitted two of the three charges relating to Evans.
It should have been the beginning of the road to recovery for Bennison and Evans. Instead they feel cheated. They feel their voices have not been heard and their tormentor has escaped proper justice. “He should have had a custodial sentence. He was an OBE. Big deal. It doesn’t mean he isn’t guilty,” says Evans. “So he was an Ofsted inspector. Big deal. He admitted he was guilty of child abuse. Why didn’t he go to prison?
“I would have been happy if he had lost his liberty for just a short period of time. So maybe, just maybe, he might have had time to look back on his life and think about what he has done to us.”
Robin David Peverett was a ‘House parent’ at Pestalozzi Children’s Village before becoming a ‘housemaster’ at DCPS Coursehorn in 1963, and later headmaster of Dulwich College Preparatory School (near Cranbrook, Kent) from circa 1967 to 1990.[1]
Sentence
He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, after admitting nine charges of indecently assaulting seven pupils (six girls and one boy, between the ages of 10 and 13) in the late 1960s/1970s.[2]
After lengthy legal wrangling and plea-bargaining he pleaded guilty and was allowed to walk free. Judge David Griffiths said, a serious breach of trust which would normally warrant a custodial sentence, but due to Peverett’s accomplishments – there were glowing testimonies from former pupils, staff, parents, fellow heads and even one ex-cabinet minister – his was an exceptional case.[2][3]
He was later stripped of his OBE (awarded 1995) following his conviction.[4]
2003: Another male victim came forward. CPS declined to take up the case.[5]
2014: A further male victim filed a complaint with Kent Police who indicated that they were aware of two other male victims who were not part of the original criminal and civil cases. Again due to the elapsed time and a lack of sufficient corroborating evidence, CPS declined to take up the case.[6]
2017 – Civil case against Robin Peverett and Dulwich Preparatory School in Central London County Court continues.[7]
She wanted to exclude some of the survivor’s allegations against Bishop Peter Ball, in a bid to protect the Church of England.
He says she told him she “cared very much about the Church”.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-28274882
More on Sloss:
Butler-Sloss was appointed by the government to chair the child sex abuse inquiry but she stood down after it was claimed that there was a conflict of interest because her brother, the late Sir Michael Havers, was Attorney General during the alleged cover-up of a previous pedophile scandal.
Elizabeth Butler Sloss is related to the Sainsbury family
“The Hon. Sarah Sainsbury, daughter of John Davan Sainsbury, married to Hon. Robert Butler-Sloss, son of Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, Baroness Butler-Sloss“
Sainsbury Family were involved, along with bishop Peter Ball, in Derry Mainwaring Knight Satanist trial
The biggest contributor was Mrs. Sainsbury, who wrote checks totaling $116,000. Next came the chief magistrate and former high sheriff of East Sussex, a wealthy farmer named Michael Warren, who is reported to have given nearly $80,000.
Lord Hampden, Anthony David Brand Deputy Lord-Lieutenant for East Sussex contributed a Rolls-Royce with state-of-the-art communications equipment
The local bishop, the Right Reverend Peter Ball, of Lewes, a monk of whom the judge said, “You may think he is a little unwordly,” also agrees. “Father Peter,”… endorsed Mr Baker’s fund-raising with a note
Derry Mainwaring Knight’s trial … shocking testimony that would blow the lid off Satanic doings at the highest levels of English society.
He “outed” two Tory politicians (William Whitelaw, Enoch Powell) and one Labour MP (Leo Abse) as cult members. He declared he would have no need to bilk money out of churchgoers, because he was a successful pimp.
Fomer Head of the CSA inquiry Dame Fiona Woolf
Fiona Woolf – Also, Church of England
Woolf is a member of the Parochial Church Council of St Clement Eastcheap
A parochial church council (PCC) is the executive committee of a Church of England parish
Marie Staunton/NCCL/PIE
Harriet Harman’s successor as legal officer, Marie Staunton, openly defended the affiliation in an astonishingly frank statement of September 1983, which reflected the continued hold of the sexual rights agenda.
‘The NCCL is campaigning to lower the age of consent to 14. An affiliate group like the Paedophile Information Exchange would agree with our policy.’
Raleigh International and Save the Children (Patron Princess Anne) work together
a UK-originated youth and sustainable development not-for-profit organisation
Revealed: who is getting the most money at Britain’s biggest aid charities
2012 £90,001 to 100,000 Marie Staunton, chief executive
Marie Staunton, a trained human rights lawyer, was chief executive of Plan UK for a decade until late 2012. She had previously worked for as a deputy director at Unicef, a director at Amnesty International as as acting general secretary at Liberty.
Ms Staunton writes a blog on the Huffington Post and is also the British independent member on the management board of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, which monitors racism and xenophobia across Europe.
Raleigh International chosen as beneficiary of Lord Mayor’s Appeal
November 9th 2013
Raleigh International today announced that it is one of four charities which will benefit from funds raised during the 2013-2014 Lord Mayor’s Appeal. AldermanFiona Woolf, CBE, elected today as Lord Mayor of London, is a Trustee of Raleigh International and has chosen Raleigh as one of the beneficiaries in the official role’s annual charity appeal.
Late Tory MP was one of the most prominent politicians of the 20th century
He has been named in Church of England review into historic sex abuse
Claims relate to allegations of satanic rituals often involving abuse of kids
Powell’s name was given to police by Bishop of Durham Paul Butler
Powell is one of several high-profile names passed to Scotland Yard by Bishop of Durham Paul Butler, who is leading the review.
The Bishop has also handed detectives the name of Leo Abse, the flamboyant Welsh MP who died in 2008 aged 91.
Last night the Church of England confirmed that both names had been passed on to detectives from Operation Fernbridge, a Metropolitan Police inquiry into an alleged Westminster VIP paedophile network.
The Right Rev Butler was given the politicians’ names by Dominic Walker, former Bishop of Monmouth, who heard the allegations when he was a vicar counselling in the 1980s.
Mr Walker told senior clerics that Abse was named by three abuse survivors whom he counselled when he was a vicar in Brighton in the 1980s.
He also passed on the names of two former Conservative cabinet ministers, who have not yet been publicly linked to the scandal.Mr Walker was questioned by the Right Rev Butler after the discovery of a book from 1991 in which he described counselling sessions with adult survivors.
‘A number of survivors independently gave the name of a particular MP being involved,’ he said, adding. ‘I don’t believe there was any collusion in their stories.’
A Church of England spokesman said: ‘The name Enoch Powell was passed to Operation Fernbridge on the instruction of Bishop Paul Butler.’
It is through Enoch Powell that another intriguing strand in the life of Harvey Proctor appears. This is his personal friendship with missing lawyer Peter Denbywho used to work as an assistant to Enoch Powell.
Peter Jonathan Denby, a former aide to Enoch Powell and friend of Conservative Member of Parliament Harvey Proctor
Later he telephoned Proctor and left a message on his answering machine, saying: “I know I’m wanted but I can’t give myself up yet.” Proctor said he was “worried about him.”
He & Denby had just attempted (unsuccessfully) to sue the BBC. Elm Guest House very much happened & Leon Brittan was named, not by police, media etc, but by residents. The Times were alerted to it many years ago & chose to ignore. Lengthy coverup.
The Master and Fellows are delighted to announce that Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss has been elected an Honorary Fellow of Corpus.
Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss has many close connections with Corpus. Her father, Sir Cecil Havers, was an Old Member, as were her brothers, Michael (m 1946) who became Lord Chancellor in 1986, and David Havers (also m 1946). More recently, her son Robert (m 1981), and her nephew, Philip Havers QC (m 1969) have kept the Corpus link alive.
Vicar Kiddle admitted indecently assaulted a boy aged 15.
Bishop of Lincoln Simon Phipps tells court indecent assault vicar Mark Brydges Kiddle to be given another parish. He had been “an extremely diligent, imaginative and energetic priest”.
The Rt Rev Simon Phipps
Confidant of Princess Margaret
Bishop of Lincoln Rev Simon Phipps – Bishop of Lincoln from 1974 to 1986
His father, a naval officer, had been appointed to the Royal Victorian Order. Phipps was educated at Eton and, while still a young subaltern, was picked out by the then Queen Elizabeth (now the Queen Mother) as a suitable escort for her younger daughter, Princess Margaret. He went on, in 1968, to be appointed Suffragan Bishop of Horsham, and, in 1974, to become Bishop of Lincoln.
He became a star turn in the Footlights review, and, in 1949, was elected the club’s president. His amateur theatricals appealed to Princess Margaret, herself no mean mimic, and, on one memorable visit to Balmoral, he was roped in to play charades by the then Queen Elizabeth, the future bishop being obliged to march around ahead of King George VI carrying an umbrella in imitation of a crozier.
After training for the ministry at Westcott House, Cambridge, Phipps was ordained in 1950, and served his title as assistant curate at Huddersfield parish church. In 1953, he was invited back to Trinity College as chaplain. This was the year when Princess Margaret fell in love with the divorcé Peter Townsend, and it was to Phipps that, during the next three years, while struggling with her conscience and the constitutional issues, the princess turned for spiritual advice. At one time, they were in almost daily contact. Later, he became godfather to her son, Lord Linley, after her marriage to Anthony Armstrong-Jones.
While still at Trinity College, Phipps also forged, with Mervyn Stockwood, one of his warmest episcopal friendships. He and his wife, Mary, remained loyal and loving friends to the future Bishop of Southwark throughout his lonely years in retirement.
In 1965, Phipps was made an honorary canon of Coventry, and three years later, with Princess Margaret in the congregation at Southwark Cathedral, he was consecrated as Suffragan Bishop of Horsham.
It was in 1973, while still in the Chichester diocese, aged 52 and seemingly a confirmed bachelor, that Phipps surprised and delighted his friends by getting married. His wife, Mary Welch, was a daughter of Sir Charles Palmer, of the biscuit manufacturers, Huntley & Palmer, the widow of a clergyman, and a practising psychiatrist.
He retired to his wife’s enchanting Sussex home, with views to Chanctonbury Ring, being invited, most unusually, to act as an honorary assistant bishop in two dioceses, Southwark and Chichester.
Simon Wilton Phipps, clergyman, born July 6 1921; died January 29 2001
Following the war, having read History at Trinity, he studied for the priesthood at Westcott House, Cambridge. A talented writer of lyrics, he was President of Footlights in 1949.
In 1953, after a short spell as a curate in Huddersfield, Phipps was appointed Chaplain at Trinity. That appointment was followed by ten years at Coventry as an Industrial Chaplain, during which time he lived in a small council flat on a new housing estate. The modesty of his surroundings did not prevent him fromentertaining his long-time friend, Princess Margaret, “to the great interest of his neighbours”.[1]
Not long after his ordination, when he was chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge, his gifts were put at the service of Princess Margaret during the crisis that arose out of her relationship with the divorced Group Captain Peter Townsend. Phipps and the Princess were close friends, having met frequently through his father’s position as a Gentleman Usher to King George VI.
He often accompanied her to hunt balls and other social events, and it was sometimes suggested that they were involved romantically, but this was never the case, and his role was always that of counsellor.
His wife Mary, whom he married in 1973 and who predeceased him, was a psychiatrist and the widow of James Welch, a former Head of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC.
Included in the group were: The Lord Bishop of Lincoln (Rt. Rev. Simon Phipps), Mrs. Phipps, the Dean of Lincoln (V. Rev. The Hon. O. W. Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes), the leader of the Lincoln City Council (Cclr. Mrs. Bates) and officers of the Central Council.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln (Guild Patron) said it gave him very great pleasure to be present at the gathering of so many bellringers from different parts of the country and he wished them well in their deliberations at their Conference next day.
Church of England warned bishops not to apologise too fully to sex abuse victims
“The approach to survivors is often a corporate model and this document supports that – it shows a church led by lawyers and insurers, you get the impression that these people are really their masters.
“A diocese is deferential to their bishop and the bishop is deferential to a bunch of lawyers.
“The Church will say ‘our hands are tied’ but they are paying the people who are tying their hands.
Survivors said it showed there was a culture of denial, dishonesty and “blanking” victims in ways which had heightened their pain and ultimately failed to tackle the roots of the abuse crisis.
It highlighted how the teenager – known as “Joe” – revealed his ordeal to a string of leading clerics, three of them later ordained as bishops, who then claimed not to remember anything.
Rev Garth Moore was a Speaker at Butlins Holiday Camp at Skegness
Butler Sloss’ brother Havers/ Sir Peter Hayman etc
Denby investigated for accepting a bribe from the Iranian State shipping Line?
troy
Peter Hayman heavily involved in shipping lines. CEO of Seatrade
The North Yorkshire aspect and Operation Spade
The North Yorkshire Enquirer believes that one of the paedophiles named in the dossier handed to Whitby MP Leon Brittan, when he was Home Secretary, by Mr Dickens in 1983, was Britain’s most successful and longest offending paedophile and rapist Peter Jaconelli, who was exposed by the NYE team.
It is entirely credible that Jaconelli was one of the prominent persons mentioned in the dossier that Mr Dickens passed to the Home Office. It is also possible that the dossier had information on Jimmy Savile, who was equally well-known for offending openly in Whitby, in joint enterprise with Jaconelli.
The West Yorkshire Police investigation into why it failed to arrest Savile was widely castigated as a whitewash. So was the North Yorkshire Police investigation. NYE investigation here. As with the Home Office and MI5, intelligence files appeared to have conveniently disappeared
Archbishop admits Church ‘failed terribly’ over abuse revelations
The Church of England has tonight apologised unreservedly after a Channel 4 News investigation revealed that a prominent Anglican evangelical and former colleague of the Archbishop of Canterbury is alleged to have severely assaulted boys and young men for decades.
The alleged abuse was carried out by prominent QC and part time judge called John Smyth, who was chairman of the Iwerne Trust, a charity closely linked to the church which ran Christian holiday camps for public school students.
The Church admitted that it had “failed terribly”, after this programme learned that the Trust had discovered the alleged abuse in 1982, but failed to report it to the police.
Winchester College, where some of the young men met Smyth, was made aware of the alleged abuse, but also failed to report it to the police at the time. There is no suggestion that any abuse took place at the College or with the knowledge of its staff.
The Archbishop was a colleague of Smyth’s at the Iwerne Trust.
Smyth was never reported to cops.
He was instead allowed to move to South Africa after agreeing never to work with children again.
Neither the church or top Winchester College, were some boys went, told police
The Archbishop and Smyth, who continued to ‘exchange cards’ even after he moved abroad.
Lambeth Palace said: ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury was a dormitory officer at Iwerne holiday camp in the late 1970s, where boys from public schools learnt to develop life as Christians. The role was to be a mentor to the boys, as was that of his now wife at a similar camp for girls.
Washingtonian Magazine – allegations that CLC’s members and pastors have been covering up child sexual abuse for decades and are continuing to handle sexual abuse problems internally instead of reporting them to the police.
Son of lawyer in ‘spanking’ documentary heads US ‘megachurch’ embroiled in sex scandal
Justin Welby worked as a dormitory officer at a camp where Smyth was one of the main leaders in the 70s
The Archbishop said he was first informed of the alleged abuse in late 2013 or early 2014.
He said: ‘I was told the Bishop of Ely – it fell within his diocese – had been informed by a survivor of what had happened and had written to the police so we checked that indeed the police had been contacted immediately as per the Church rules.
‘They had been, we keep an eye on it obviously, we kept in touch and found out what was going on.
‘As you know, John Smyth had moved to Zimbabwe in the early 1980s, I understand, and it was not in the police’s jurisdiction.
‘I have a vague feeling I may have had a Christmas card in the 1990s and when I was living in Paris he passed through a
They later exchanged ‘the occasional card’, Lambeth Palace said last night.
Mr Smyth, a moral crusader who made his name as a barrister representing the Christian campaigner Mary Whitehouse in a landmark prosecution against the Gay News newspaper, went on to live in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
The prosecuting counsel was John Jackson Smyth, Mary Whitehouse’s fellow traveller from the Festival of Lights
Sir Anthony Montague Browne arriving to visit Sir Winston Churchill in hospital with Dianna Churchill and Lady Churchill
Welby’s biological father was Anthony Montague Browne, Churchill’s private secretary, who later worked for the Queen
In a statement the Archbishop said he had been friends with Smyth during the late Seventies, when he worked at the camps, run by the Iwerne Trust.
The Archbishop said he had kept in “occasional” contact with the barrister since.
He was made aware of the allegations in 2013 when the police were involved.
A statement from the Archbishop said: “The Archbishop of Canterbury was a Dormitory Officer at Iwerne holiday camp in the late 1970s, where boys from public schools learnt to develop life as Christians.
“The role was to be a mentor to the boys, as was that of his now wife at a similar camp for girls.
Winchester College, where some of the young men met Smyth, was made aware of the alleged abuse, but also failed to report it to the police at the time.
Edward, Prince of Wales (Iater EdwardVIII):
“Just as Westminster is the mother of British Parliaments, so Winchester is the mother of British public schools”.
The Titus Trust was set up in 1997 and took over fundraising from The Iwerne Trust.
In 2000 it took control of the running of the holidays from Scripture Union.
In 2014 that the board of The Titus Trust became aware of these allegations
The Titus Trust
Lymington Rushmore is part of the Titus Trust, a non-denominational Christian charity. The Trust has been running activity holidays for young people since the 1930s (originally as part of the Scripture Union). It is responsible for four holiday groups –Lymington Rushmore Holidays serving a mixture of day and boarding schools in the South; Iwerne & Forres Holidays, for those at the larger boarding schools and associated prep schools in the South of England; Gloddaeth Holidays working with independent schools in the North of England; and LDN Holidays for those at independent London day schools.
The Titus Trust continues to enjoy strong links with the Scripture Union and with a number of CPAS Ventures and holidays.
The Titus Trust is a registered charity (charity no. 1066751) and is only able to continue its work due to the generous gifts of its supporters.
Reverend David Fletcher, a vicar in the Church of England who as head of Iwerne decided not to report the abuse to the police, declined to comment to Channel 4.
John Smyth QC right next to an advert regarding child sex abuse
Christian crusader in teen abuse scandal
A British lawyer who has been working for the inclusion of Christian values into South Africa’s constitutional jurisprudence has been accused of the “horrific” and “masochistic” beating of teenage boys in his care.
Currently based in Cape Town, John Smyth, a Queen’s Counsel and former acting judge in England, is alleged to have left a decades-long trail of bloodied bodies and broken spirits both in the United Kingdom and in Zimbabwe.
While in Zimbabwe Smyth ran a Christian mission, Zambesi Ministries, for 17 years. He was charged with the culpable homicide of 16-year-old Guide Nyachuru at one of the Zambesi Ministries’ summer camps held in Marondera in December 1992. Nyachuru’s naked body was found in the Ruzawi School pool — questions still hang over the circumstances surrounding his drowning. Smyth has always maintained it was a tragic accident.
Smyth was also charged with five counts of crimen injuria relating to incidents during a camp in April 1993 involving five boys from posh Zimbabwean schools.
The culpable homicide prosecution was discontinued when the then Zimbabwean Chief Justice, Anthony Gubbay, ruled the prosecutor in the case had a conflict of interest. Smyth moved to South Africa soon afterwards in 2001.
The allegations of abuse — ritualised beatings to “repent” for sins such as masturbation — surfaced this week following an investigation by the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 News, An Ungodly Crime?, which screened on Thursday February 2 in Britain.
The alleged pattern of behaviour appears contrary to Smyth’s public image in South Africa as a moral crusader and the executive director of the Justice Alliance of South Africa (Jasa). This week Jasa shut down its website.
Smyth and Jasa have been involved in Constitutional Court cases arguing against same-sex marriage, teenage sex, abortion, pornography and euthanasia. He also submitted draft legislation to the department of home affairs to limit access to pornography.
Senior evangelical Anglicans appear to have known of Smyth’s behaviour, which An Ungodly Crime? suggests they appear to have sought to cover up. In the late Seventies and early Eighties, Smyth was chairperson of the Iwerne Trust, an Anglican organisation with close ties to The Church of England. Iwerne organised Christian holiday camps for boys from Britain’s poshest public schools (called private schools in South Africa).
An internal report written by the Iwerne Trust in 1982, in which it acknowledges the “horrific” scale and severity of the alleged beatings by Smyth involving 22 young men since 1978.
The investigator interviewed 13 of the 22 alleged victims. In one of the first reported incidents a 17-year-old claimed that instead of a shoplifting incident being reported to his parents, Smyth offered him the choice of a beating to repent.
“He chose the beating, which was given with a cane in the summer house,” the report stated.
According to the report the beatings “continued with four 17-year-olds, on the bare bottom with a gym shoe (because it leaves less evidence) but was voluntarily accepted as a deterrent to masturbation. Beatings varied from a dozen to 40 strokes.”
The report acknowledged the beatings were “technically all criminal offences” but the organisation appears not to have reported these cases to the police at the time. The report suggests the practice was part of the “sanctifying of young men, and the blessings of fatherly discipline” but noted that a psychiatrist “describes it as suppressed masochistic sexual activity”.
From 1979 the beatings are alleged to have escalated in frequency, severity and the number of teenagers involved. About half of the victims attended Winchester College, England’s oldest public school, where Smyth appeared to have access to students.
While there was no overt sexual activity, the report said: “There was a very frequent association with sexual sins of a comparatively minor kind (masturbation and impure thoughts) and too many sexual overtones”.
The teenagers said the beatings were followed by “embraces”, with the survivor laying on the bed while it is claimed that Smyth “would kneel and pray, linking arms with him and kissing him on the shoulder and back”.
Smyth was not charged, and, instead, left for Zimbabwe in 1984.
There, he continued to source boys from top-end schools, like Bulawayo’s Christian Brothers College and Prince Edward School in Harare, for camps where the psychological manipulation and abuse allegedly continued.
John Smyth,QC practised law as a barrister for many years in Britain; aged 37 he was appointed Queen’s Counsel, and he sat as a part-time judge for 5 years. Part of his practise was constitutional matters and parliamentary drafting.
In 1984 he was invited to Australia to assist Parliament with drafting their legislation to restrict video pornography and gratuitous violence.
After running a mission in Zimbabwe for 17 years, John and his wife Anne have made their home in South Africa. In the third season of their lives Anne and John weave together their experience of their earlier years. John combines his legal skills with pastoral work and is supported by Anne in both spheres of work.
John has been involved with moral issues in Parliament, the courts and media for 5 years now. He has a proven track record having addressed the Constitutional Court as amicus curiae in person, and as architect and author of the successful challenge to Parliament by Doctors for Life in respect of the Abortion Amendment Bill 2004. John writes, lectures and frequently appears on radio and TV. John’s website is www.jjs.za.net.
John and Anne were married in 1968. They have 4 grown up children and 7 grandchildren.
John was educated in the UK and Canada and gained MA and LLB degrees at the University of Cambridge.
He was called to the Bar in 1965 and practiced as a Barrister (Advocate) for 19 years. In 1978 he was appointed a part-time judge, and in 1979 Queen’s Counsel.
One of Mr Smyth’s daughters, who asked not to be named said
that teenage boys were “often” at their family home for barbecues and pool parties and she never saw any abuse.
The alleged assaults came to light in the early 1980s after one of the victims, a 21-year-old student at Cambridge University, reportedly attempted to kill himself after he was told to submit to another beating.
A report by the charity, the Irwerne Trust, in 1982 called the practice “horrific” but the claims were not reported to police until 2013.
A vicar, Mark Ruston, carried out the report for the charity, which has now been seen by Channel 4 News and the Daily Telegraph.
It reported that after identifying the boys, mostly from public school Winchester College, Mr Smyth took them to his home in Hampshire and carried out lashings with a garden cane in his shed.
John Smyth was appointed a part time judge in 1978
In 1984 John and Anne moved with their family to Zimbabwe to do mission work. After two years with African Enterprise they founded Zambesi Ministries which they directed for the next 15 years until John reached 60.
Anne and John now make their home in Cape Town. John is available as a consultant in constitutional law and serves Doctors for Life International and the Justice Alliance of South Africa.
Welby said he had only had fleeting contact with Smyth since. “I have a vague feeling I may have had a Christmas card in the 1990s and when I was living in Paris he passed through and I shook hands with him. That was the limit.”
Archbishop Justin Welby with Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, the daughter of Greville Janner. JANNER PART OF WORLDWIDE RING
Justin Welby (left) in Baghdad in 2003, with MI6’s Sir John Sawers (right).
Justin Welby “has a secret past smuggling in cold war Europe, briefing US state department officials on rebels in the Niger Delta and chatting to the future head of MI6 in Baghdad.”
A Current Member of Covenant Life Church Has Been Arrested For Multiple Counts of Child Sexual Abuse. P.J. Smyth has not commented on this issue despite being the Church’s Senior Pastor-Elect.
Is P.J. Smyth a Naive Opportunist or Just Someone Comfortable Indirectly Enabling Child Sexual Abuse
P.J. Smyth, a self-proclaimed (he does not appear to have formal Ministry training) Pastor from South Africa, has declared that critics of Covenant Life Church’s (CLC’s) decision to harbor pedophiles are part of a Satanic attack to stop his Godly Ministry per an undisputed statement about his comments at a recent Church meeting below:
link
PJ was born in the UK in 1971. When he was 13 his family moved to Zimbabwe where his parents took up missionary work for many years. PJ and Ashleigh met at high school in Harare (Zimbabwe’s capital city), married straight after college (1993), and for their first few years of marriage, both taught high school.
Q: Where has PJ lived?
A: In the UK until age 13 (1971-1984); in Zimbabwe until age 33 (1984-2004); then in South Africa (2004-2016) until age 45. PJ and family relocated to Maryland in December 2016.
Q: What is his citizenship?
A: PJ is a UK citizen, who enjoyed the status of permanent residence in Zimbabwe, and then in South Africa. Ashleigh is a South African citizen.
Q: Describe PJ’s educational background.
A: PJ attained ‘O’ Levels (aged 16 years) and ‘A’ Levels (aged 18 years), and university degrees from Cape Town University and the University of South Africa in Biblical Studies and Church History.
Q: Describe PJ’s spiritual background.
A: PJ came to faith as a young boy, although he feels he properly owned his faith at age 15. Because he was at boarding schools from ages 8 to 18, PJ’s first genuine experience of local church life came during college. He attended His People Church in Cape Town throughout his university years, and during that time felt God speak to him about one day leading a church.
PJ reflects on three primary shaping spiritual influences. First, his parents. John and Anne Smyth (who live in Cape Town), led PJ to faith and instilled in him a love for God’s Word and for leadership. Second, His People Church in Cape Town. His People taught PJ about the importance of faith, courage and excellence in ministry. Third, Newfrontiers. Terry Virgo, and other Newfrontiers men and women, taught PJ about the importance of the local church, the Holy Spirit and the grace of God.
DISCLAIMER: THE POSTING OF STORIES, COMMENTARIES, REPORTS, DOCUMENTS AND LINKS (EMBEDDED OR OTHERWISE) ON THIS SITE DOES NOT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE, NECESSARILY EXPRESS OR SUGGEST ENDORSEMENT OR SUPPORT OF ANY OF SUCH POSTED MATERIAL OR PARTS THEREIN.
^ Prince Charles with his spiritual advisor – paedophile Peter Ball in 1992
How Prince Charles’s reputation survived devoted friendships with – to date – three paedophiles: Laurens van der Post, Jimmy Savile and an already cautioned offender, Peter Ball.
Peter Ball: Sex offender bishop dies
June 23 2019
A retired bishop who was jailed for a string of sexual offences against teenagers and young men has died.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) said Peter Ball “was able to sexually abuse vulnerable teenagers and young men for decades”.
He was jailed in 2015 after being found guilty of misconduct in public office and indecent assaults.
The Church of England confirmed Ball’s death and offered “prayers and thoughts” for “everyone affected”.
Bishop Peter Hancock, the Church’s safeguarding lead, said: “We have been made aware of the death of Peter Ball and our prayers and thoughts are with everyone affected by this news.”
Ball, of Langport in Somerset, was Bishop of Lewes between 1977 and 1992 and Bishop of Gloucester from 1992 until he resigned the following year.
After his trial at the Old Bailey he was sentenced to 32 months for offences against 18 teenagers and men between the 1970s and the 1990s.
Pervert Bishop Peter Ball was friends with Jimmy Savile, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth, Queen’s chaplain, Rev John Robson, Margaret Thatcher, Ian Gow, Chief Justice Lord Berwick, George Pell, Fergie, Duchess of York…
Enoch Powell was friends with Ian Gow
May 1988: Ian Gow, who brought along his friends, Enoch Powell and his wife.
Ian Gow, PPS to Thatcher, was also friends with Enoch Powell. Gow was good friends with Peter Ball who spoke at Gow’s memorial.
Enoch Powell at Gow’s funeral
Northern Ireland was Gow’s political passion. He knew and understood the province as few Englishmen do. From his days of military service he developed a feel for the people of Ulster, and after long years of study at the feet of Airey Neave, John Biggs Davison and Enoch Powell all of whom were romantic heroes to him he became the inheritor of their political mantle in Northern Ireland.
Tom Lawson, son of Lord Lawson and half-brother of Nigella, was educated at Eton before going to Oxford, and is now deputy head of Christ’s Hospital school in Horsham, West Sussex.
Lord Lawson say Police should stop funding investigations into historical abuse.
22/11/2015
alun;
The current headmaster (since 2016) at Eastbourne College is Tom Lawson, half-brother of Nigela and son of the Tory grandee Nigel who argued that no funds should be ploughed into historical child sex allegations.
Tom Lawson came to Eastbourne College from Christ’s Hospital where no fewer than 5 teachers have been convicted for CSA and where a common punishment used to be to send pupils down to Peter Ball’s house!
Some students were sent from Christ Hospital School to paedophile Bishop Peter Ball for punishment.
Another director of Eastbourne College was Alison ‘Butterfingers’ Saunders (2008 – 2014). Despite the collapse of an unprecedented number of abuse cases during her watch as DPP, she still insists she has done a good job:
10 Dec 1991 – Letter from Peter Ball to Enoch Powell
alun:
The address on that note from Bishop Ball to Enoch Powell is significant: It is the postal address for Eastbourne College, where Peter Ball was on the BOD between 1991 and 1992, a school ravaged by cases of child sexual abuse.
Two retired teachers who sexually assaulted a boy while they taught at his college are jailed for a total of 17 years
12 April 2017
Ex-history teacher Andrew Boxer, 67, was sentenced to 15 years in jail
Ex-music teacher Graham Jones, 63, was jailed for two years
Both taught at Eastbourne College, East Sussex, at the time of the abuse, while the victim was a pupil there
Andrew Boxer and Graham Jones were both convicted of several counts of indecently assaulting the same boy between 1988 and 1993, following a week-long trial.
Former history teacher Boxer, 67, was sentenced to 15 years behind bars for seven counts of indecent assault – six at the same address in Eastbourne, East Sussex and another in Cambridge.
Yet another director of Eastbourne College (1991 – 2004) was the Duke Of Devonshire Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish, another close friend of Savile, BigEars and Bishop Ball, seen here giving Savile a silly handshake:
Prince Charles, Camilla Parker-Bowles and the Duke were close friends.
A punishment at Christ’s Hospital School was to be sent down for a few nights at Peter Ball’s house. I wonder whether those sending them down knew what their fate might be? And who were his ‘special friends’?
It would appear Tom Lawson was what is referred to as a ‘safe pair of hands’, stumbling from one paedo school to the next. He also worked at Winchester College for 15 years, where John Smyth QC abused boys:
Charles and the pervert: Prince tells child sex abuse inquiry he was ‘deceived’ by bishop Peter Ball but says he cannot remember who he was referring to when he said ‘I will see off this horrid man’ in letter to disgraced clergyman 21 years ago
Peter Ball would pray naked with them at the altar and encourage them to submit to beatings. At least five more victims were schoolchildren.
Mr Hughes has now indicated that new complainants came forward following the media coverage of Peter Ball’s sentencing. It was considered that it was not in the public interest to pursue these cases, as Peter Ball has recently been incarcerated.
The former Chancellor’s son was part of a Bullingdon set that caused ‘mayhem’ at a party in Kingston Blount that required 30 police officers to clear up.
EXCLUSIVE: Bullingdon Club 1996- Tom Lawson, the arms dealer’s son and the ‘mayhem’ that took 30 cops to shut down
Jimmy Savile acted as a kind of marriage counsellor between Charles and Princess Diana.
Whitehall is ‘covering up the past’: File on Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage, Lockerbie records and MI5 ‘link’ to Belfast lawyer death among documents blocked by government
28 July 2018
The Advisory Council on National Records and Archives released its latest report
Whitehall is supposed to send files to the National Archives after 20 years
Officials can block the release of files if they compromise National security
The number of blocked files has jumped from 4,300 to 5,900 in a year
Jimmy Savile acted as a kind of marriage counsellor between Charles and Princess Diana.
Jimmy Savile caused concern with behaviour on visits to Prince Charles
Former royal aide says TV presenter would greet young female assistants at St James’s Palace by ‘rubbing lips up their arms’
Savile is understood to have visited Prince Charles’s official London residence several times in the late 1980s when he was acting as a kind of marriage counsellor between Charles and Princess Diana.
Incredibly naive and unwise letters from Prince Charles to Peter Ball. Completely biased and one-sided. Showing only sympathy for the perpetrator. This is 2 yrs after Ball had accepted caution, admitting his guilt!
#iicsa #CSA #CSE #cofe #PrinceCharles
Astonishingly, here Prince Charles refers to the VICTIM, Neil Todd as a “ghastly & horrid man” and threatens to “see him off”, 4 yrs after Ball had admitted abusing him. HRH then buys Ball a substantial house. NEIL LATER TAKES HIS OWN LIFE
Camille Davis Russo@CDavisRusso
Wouldn’t you think with the sort of emotion he displays here he has inordinate affection for this sado-peado?
Peter Ball would pray naked with them at the altar and encourage them to submit to beatings. At least five more victims were school children.
Charles and the pervert: Prince tells child sex abuse inquiry he was ‘deceived’ by bishop Peter Ball but says he cannot remember who he was referring to when he said ‘I will see off this horrid man’ in letter to disgraced clergyman 21 years ago
Prince Charles denied he tried to influence an investigation into Peter Ball
The royal gave written evidence at a sex child abuse inquiry on Friday
Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes, sexually abused 18 men during ’80s and ’90s
27 July 2018
The Prince of Wales has told a public inquiry he was ‘deceived’ by disgraced bishop Peter Ball and said he ‘cannot shed any light’ on the ‘horrid man’ he referred to in a letter to the paedophile.
Prince Charles was friends with the ex-Bishop of Lewes for over two decades after he accepted a caution for gross indecency.
He only cut ties with him after he was convicted of sexually abusing 18 young men aged 17 to 25 over 30 years in 2015.
The convicted Bishop, 86, was released last year after serving half his sentence behind bars.
In written evidence today, Prince Charles refused to elaborate on a letter he wrote to Ball at the time of sexual misconduct claims, telling him: ‘I will see off this horrid man if he tries anything again.’
Ball had told the Prince a single accuser was behind allegations that led to him having to quit as the Bishop of Gloucester.
In a letter to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, the Prince said Ball had told him the complaint against him was false and had arisen from someone who had a grudge against him and was ‘persecuting’ him.
In extracts from one letter between the Prince and Ball, Charles says: ‘I can’t bear it that the frightful and terrifying man is on the loose and doing his worst.’
But in his letter to the inquiry on Friday, the Prince, who said he regrets having been ‘deceived’ by Ball, said: ‘I regret that I am unable to shed any light on references made in a letter dated 23rd March 1997 to a ‘horrid man’ or a ‘frightful and terrifying man’.
‘This seems to be a manner of speaking in the midst of a long letter written more than twenty years ago.
‘I do recall that Peter Ball felt that numerous individuals, including his critics in the media, were doing all in their power to disadvantage him unfairly.
‘I suspect, but cannot be certain, that the reference is to this issue in some way.’
The Prince says he did not know about the nature of the complaint against Ball and had not appreciated the meaning of a caution – the acceptance of guilt.
A lawyer for some of the former bishop’s victims has said it was difficult to see that ‘as anything other than willful blindness’.
Ball had previously boasted of being a confidant of Charles, and his court case heard that a member of the royal family was among a host of public figures who supported him when he avoided charges in 1993.
In a statement the Prince of Wales denied he tried to influence the police probe into Ball, as he also revealed the bishop told him he had quit his job over an ‘indiscretion’.
He is not giving evidence in person, and it is instead being read out from a prepared statement.
Today he was pictured meeting the UK’s first F-35 Lightening Squadron at the RAF base in Kings Lynn, Norfolk.
In another letter from the Prince to Ball in 1995 – two years after Ball’s caution – the future king said he wished he could ‘do more’.
He said: ‘I feel so desperately strongly about the monstrous wrongs that have been done to you and the way you have been treated.’
Charles also said he had been told by the then Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey the church was looking at bringing Ball back into public ministry.
In the 1995 letter he said it was ‘appalling’ that the Archbishop, now Lord Carey, had ‘gone back on what he told me’.
He said it was clear the Archbishop was ‘frightened of the press – what he calls ‘public perception’.’
Another letter from Charles the following year referred to the process of getting a Duchy of Cornwall property for Ball and his brother Michael, Bishop of Truro.
It said: ‘I long to see you both settled somewhere that suits you and gives you peace and tranquility – and not too far from here so you can come over more easily.’
The pair rented a Duchy property between 1997 and 2011.
Charles’s letter to the inquiry added: ‘My heart goes out to the victims of abuse and I applaud their courage as they rebuild their lives and, so often, offer invaluable support to others who have suffered.
‘I wish I could do more’: What the prince wrote to his friend the bishop as allegations swirled around
Sept 1993, Ball to Charles
Life continues to be pretty nasty for me for, it seems that my accusers still want to continue their malicious campaign. Luckily they are beginning to show some of their fraudulent plans.
Dec 1994, Charles to Ball
I saw the Archbishop the other day and he told me he is trying to bring you back to a public ministry. I do hope this will be all right and suit you, if and when it happens….
Feb 1995, Charles to Ball
I wish I could do more. I feel so desperately strongly about the monstrous wrongs that have been done to you and the way you have been treated. It’s appalling that the Archbishop has gone back on what he told me, before Xmas, that he was hoping to restore you to some form of Ministry in the Church.
I suspect you are absolutely right – it is due to fear of the media….If it is any consolation, the Archbishop has written me a letter (between you and me) in which it is also clear that he is frightened of the press – what he calls ‘public perception’, which in fact, perception of events and characters based entirely on lies, invention, speculation and sensation.
Dec 1995, Ball to Charles
The young man who accused me keeps on harassing. The last was a few weeks back with a fax, threatening to say more, when he has agreed not to and ending with the words ‘Your never forgiving rnbbrother in Christ’. That is both vile and blasphemous and oh that the police and CPS had seen and known from the beginning the nature of the young man. How I wish the Archbishop or someone would tell them.
April 1996, Ball to Charles
And I can honestly share the pain of it all having tried to break the crippling and unchristian powers of the ecclesiastical set up, and then being deserted in my hour of need.
June 1996, Charles to Ball
…I am so glad that [X] has been in touch as I requested. I pray the Duchy will be able to find something suitable for you both in due course, but it may take a little time to locate it! I long to see you both settled somewhere that suits you and gives you peace and tranquility – and not too far from here so you can come over more easily…
March 1997, Charles to Ball
[X] tells me that your house has been bought successfully – it looks rather nice – and I only hope the rent won’t be too bad!
I can’t bear it that the frightful, terrifying man is on the loose again and doing his worst… I was visiting the vicar… and we were enthusing about you and your brother and he then told me that he had heard that this ghastly man was up to his dastardly tricks again…. I’ll see off this horrid man if he tries anything again.
Aug 2001, Charles to Ball
I do however firmly believe that one day people will be forced to signing your resignation deed but, as you have been advised, I daresay that the establishment will close ranks and you will get nowhere. But how outrageous that now these people say sorry – and only in private….
Dec 2001, Charles to Ball
I saw [ ] the other day…he mentioned that you were thinking of going to the Archbishop and seemed a bit anxious about it… I daresay by now you will have approached the Archbishop but in your letter you so kindly asked me whether I had any objections – something which you certainly didn’t need to do.
The only thing I would say is that unless you really need to go to the Archbishop of Canterbury – for financial reasons particularly – I would have thought it might be better to let sleeping dogs lie…
Oct 2009, Ball to Charles
I am now nearly a broken man, because of what the Church has put me through after seventeen years of serving in retirement. They have smashed me with the bully of an assessor -…from a Child Protection Officer and no pastoral care, except two nice letters from the Archbishop. Suddenly, I am not allowed to baptise, or go to any parish without informing the Church Warden that I had a caution all those years back…
Ball included a letter that set out he was being risk assessed.
May 2010, Ball to Charles
…the horror that has come to me from the Bishop of Chichester with the Archbishop’s obvious hand in it. I have been told that I may not minister at all when we move, nor may I worship anywhere without signing a Declaration for the Protection of Children.
May 2012, Ball to Charles
Writes to say that the police are re-opening the investigation and are to question him. He says: ‘I thought it had been fully examined twenty years ago.’
July 2012, Ball to Charles
Life is ‘almost unbearable. I am being pursued and persecuted. In ways which it would not be discreet to enlarge on, though I am sure that you can guess their source and virulence’.
Dec 2012, Ball to Charles
Ball wrote to thank the Prince of Wales for phoning him, writing in the letter that the affair of twenty years ago had been ‘stirred up’ again by Lambeth.
‘It remains a source of deep personal regret that I was one of many who were deceived over a long period of time about the true nature of Mr Ball’s activities.’
He also said, in the six-page statement read by counsel to the inquiry Fiona Scolding, that he had not appreciated the meaning of the caution and that at the time the word of a bishop was generally seen as trustworthy.
He said he did not realise the truth of what had gone on until Ball’s conviction, adding that his main source of information until then had been the bishop himself.
Dismissing any suggestion he had ever tried to interfere in the police investigation into Ball, Charles said it was possible his name had been taken ‘in vain’.
In his statement, dated July 10 this year, Charles said: ‘At no stage did I ever seek to influence the outcome of either of the police investigations into Peter Ball and nor did I instruct or encourage my staff to do so.’
Ball, the former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, is too ill to give evidence in person, the inquiry has heard.
But in a statement he referred to his relationship as having been one of ‘support and respect’.
Ball said: ‘I would strongly resist any suggestion that in some way I could bring pressure to bear on him to act on my behalf and have certainly never made a request for him to do so.’
On Monday the inquiry heard there had been lengthy discussions between Charles’s lawyers and the inquiry in which his legal team initially argued that the future king could not be compelled to produce a statement.
Clarence House has since said Charles was willing to help the inquiry and had voluntarily answered all questions asked of him.
Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon who represents a number of Ball’s victims, said Charles’s explanation that he was not aware of the meaning of a caution left his clients ‘dissatisfied’.
He said: ‘Prince Charles had access to the best legal advice that money can buy and, as a man in his position, a particular responsibility to check the facts.
‘It is difficult to see his failure to do so as anything other than wilful blindness.
‘His evidence, together with that of Lord Carey, the then archbishop of Canterbury, and other establishment figures who have given evidence this week, will do little to dissuade survivors from the conclusion that the British establishment aided and protected Ball and even now have failed to give a transparent account of their actions.’
Charles said in the six-page letter dated July 10 this year that it was his ‘deep regret’ that he and others had been ‘misled’ by Ball.
Elsewhere in his evidence, Charles said Ball had been invited to his home to give holy communion a number of times, from 1993.
He said: ‘Peter Ball occasionally wrote to me in respect of private, often spiritual, matters.’
Referring to his knowledge of the complaint against Ball, he added that in the 1980s and 1990s there was ‘a presumption that people such as Bishops could be taken at their word and, as a result of the high office they held, were worthy of trust and confidence’.
He said at the time ‘there was on my part a presumption of good faith’.
The inquiry is examining how the Church of England handled allegations of sexual abuse and has previously focused on the Diocese of Chichester – where Ball and several other convicted paedophile priests once officiated.
Ball accepted a caution for one count of gross indecency in 1993 and resigned due to ill health.
Prince Charles’ full statement to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
Dear Professor Jay
1. Thank you for inviting me to offer context on how I came to know former Bishop Peter Ball and on my dealings with him over the years, to assist your important Inquiry. I want to begin by applauding your work to ensure that the abuse of children is properly investigated and appropriate measures are taken to ensure they are fully protected. That is why I am pleased, on this occasion, to offer the following information, which I have set out to the best of my recollection after the passage of 25 years.
2. Over the years I have had, and continue to have, many interactions with the Clergy of the Church of England and of other Faiths, often on a daily basis. Set in that context, I first became aware of Peter Ball sometime during the 1980s, when I heard him preach. At that time, he came across as an interesting and engaging person. He was later appointed Bishop of Gloucester, in 1992. Since he had become my local Diocesan Bishop, near my home in Gloucestershire, I attended his Installation. He gave an impressive Address, which brought him to my attention again. At the same time I recall becoming aware of Michael Ball (Peter Ball’s brother) who was later appointed Bishop of Truro, to which I am also closely connected through the Duchy of Cornwall. Over the whole of my life, I have met countless senior Clergy who have been invited to preach and, on various occasions, I have myself invited them to give Holy Communion at my home. I extended such invitations to Peter Ball from time to time, starting in 1993.
3. As is well known, I maintain correspondence relationships with a great number of individuals. Peter Ball occasionally wrote to me in respect of private, often spiritual, matters. On each occasion I naturally replied as I believe that to be the polite thing to do, although there was often a significant delay on my part given other priorities which demanded my attention. My recollection is that these exchanges were normally instigated and driven by Peter Ball, in addition to a handful of telephone calls during the decades of our correspondence. Having refreshed my memory of our correspondence to try to help your Inquiry, I note this is borne out by the contents and dates of the letters in question.
4. With the significant passage of time, I cannot now recall with sufficient certainty when the following exchange took place and whether there was one particular conversation that concerned the reflections I offer below or more than one.
5. Peter Ball told me that he had been involved in some form of ‘indiscretion’, which prompted his resignation as my local Bishop at Gloucester. He emphasised that one individual, who I now understand to be Mr Neil Todd, had made a complaint to the Police; that the Police had investigated the matter; and that the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service had decided to take no action. This sequence of events seemed to support Mr Ball’s claim that the complaint emanated from a single individual; that the individual bore a grudge against him and was ‘persecuting’ him; that the complaint was false; but that the individual had nonetheless profited from the complaint by selling his story to the newspapers. The matter was described by him as ‘closed’. Peter Ball added that various people within the Church did not like him and had themselves used the complaint to curtail his ministry and force his resignation. When this exchange took place, I did not know about the nature of the complaint.
6. The true context and details of this complaint, and I now understand many others, against Peter Ball did not come to my attention until the time of Mr Ball’s trial and conviction in 2015. My main source of information before this was Mr Ball himself, though I should add that I was so fully occupied by my public role that Mr Ball’s situation was rarely at the front of my mind. As context, it seems important to say that in the 1980’s and 1990’s there was a presumption that people such as Bishops could be taken at their word and, as a result of the high office they held, were worthy of trust and confidence. That has changed over the years, as evidence has caused us all to be more challenging of what we hear and what we are told. But, at the time, there was on my part a presumption of good faith. I believe I was far from alone in taking this view.
7. I was certainly not aware at the time of the significance or impact of the caution that Peter Ball has accepted, or indeed sure if I was even told about it. Whilst I note that Peter Ball mentioned the word in a letter to me in October 2009, I was not aware until recently that a caution in fact carries an acceptance of guilt. I was aware that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided not to pursue a case against Mr Ball. This seemed to support Mr Ball’s defence of his position set out in his letter.
8. I recall that Peter Ball told me that following his resignation as Bishop of Gloucester he would lose the house in which he lived and that, as a consequence, both he and his brother Michael would become homeless. He told me that their monastic vows meant they had very little money. In this context, I occasionally sent the brothers small gifts of money, as I do for many people in need, and Pete Ball’s interest in becoming a tenant of a Duchy of Cornwall property then arose. A significant part of the Duchy’s business is in arranging and managing leases for properties and I mentioned the situation of the Ball brothers to the Duchy, as I do for others from time to time. The details of the eventual rental were handled, as usual, by Duchy staff. I was aware of the transaction but did not assist with the selection of the house. Some time later, in 1997, Peter and Michael Ball became tenants of a Duchy property until early in 2011, when they moved on.
Police investigations
9. At no stage did I ever seek to influence the outcome of either of the Police investigations into Peter Ball and nor did I instruct or encourage my staff to do so.
10. I understand from document ANG000021 that a member of Gloucestershire Police seems to recall that he ‘came under pressure’ in 1992 or 1993 which related in some way to some form of interest from myself and my staff in Peter Ball. This is untrue. Indeed, at the time of this Police investigation I had no knowledge of these particular matters. It follows, therefore, that I did not authorise – and could not have authorised – any such action. And nor would I have done.
11. Likewise, I have no recollection of any contact by one of my Personal Protection Officers or indeed any member of my staff with Gloucestershire Police. I was clear at the time, as I have remained clear, that the Police must be able to carry out their investigation in the proper manner without external pressure or influence. We have looked at our files and can find no record of any of these matters. It is always possible that my name was taken in vain, as can unfortunately happen from time to time. As I make clear elsewhere in this Statement, there is a gap between rumour and fact.
12. In a similar vein, I do not recall receiving a letter from Michael Ball in April 2013 as described by Detective Superintendent Carwyn Hughes (OHY000203). Having looked at our files we cannot find any record of such a letter. The occasional letters that I did receive from Michael Ball were of private and social nature and I am not aware of any interest from Sussex Police in this correspondence. Nevertheless, I have made available to you copies of the private correspondence received from Michael Ball, in case that could help your Inquiry in any way. I understand that a conversation took place between Sussex Police and the Metropolitan Police Royalty Protection team in 2013, and that Sussex Police informed the Metropolitan Police that they visited Peter Ball’s home and removed items which included a letter sent from me. I believe the Metropolitan Police asked whether or not this letter was relevant to the inquiry. I further understand that the Metropolitan Police emphasised clearly that they were not enquiring about the investigation itself and specifically wished to avoid any appearance of influence over it. They wished only to establish the facts about the property that had been removed and its correct ownership. The Metropolitan Police were told that the letter in question was not relevant and that it was to be returned by Sussex Police to Peter Ball.
The Church of England
13. Probably late in 1994 (although I cannot now be certain of the date) I recall seeing the then-Archbishop of Canterbury at an event and taking that opportunity to ask, among other issues, about Peter Ball as he had lately been my local Bishop. I remember the Archbishop was supportive of Peter Ball and thought him a good man and priest. I do not think we discussed any detail, though I recall that the Archbishop was perhaps thinking of ‘trying to bring [Peter Ball] back to a public ministry’ at some stage. I understood there were some complications, but these were not described. As this was clearly a matter for Church authorities, I took no personal position on it.
14. Other than this conversation with the then-Archbishop, I do not recall any specific conversations regarding Peter Ball, although I was aware that Mr Ball was himself keen to persuade the Church to ‘restore [him] to some form of Ministry in the Church’. The general view of members of the Clergy who occasionally mentioned him to me was that he was a capable and well-liked priest.
15. The Inquiry has asked about a note made by Andrew Purkis, of Lambeth Palace, following a lunch he had with my then-Private Secretary, Richard Aylard, on 30th August 1994 (ACE003034). My Private Secretary meets regularly with members of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Office to discuss a range of matters. Having reviewed the document it is clear that the meeting took place in the normal course of business and was for the purpose of discussing matters other than Mr Ball. I cannot shed any light on what appears to be a brief mention of Mr Ball at the end of the meeting. I have no recollection of discussing the matter. I have also been shown a copy of my letter of 14th December 2001 addressed to Peter Ball. As far as I can recall, this letter conveyed that I could not assist Peter Ball in any approach he was thinking of making to the Archbishop to seek a return to public ministry. I recall Peter Ball repeating this request around this time and again some time later and my declining to assist. It follows therefore that I was not involved in ‘any discussion with Lambeth Palace’ on this matter.
Contact with Institutions
16. You have asked about contact between myself and institutions in respect of Peter Ball between 1993 and 2015. To the best of my knowledge and belief I have dealt with these contacts in the information I have volunteered above, and I can only hope this will be of some assistance to you.
17. I have been shown an extract from an interview conducted by the Chair of the Church of England’s Inquiry into Peter Ball last year, Dame Moira Gibb, with Elizabeth Hall of the Church of England, suggested there were some rumours of an interest from me in Peter Ball being given some alternative employment (INQ000682). I can confirm that this is untrue: not for the first time, and as the Gibb Inquiry concluded in respect of my contacts with Peter Ball over the years, there is a gap between rumour and fact. I did not seek any such roles for Mr Ball and did not ask others to do so on my behalf.
18. I regret that I am unable to shed any light on references made in a letter dated 23rd March 1997 to a ‘horrid man’ or a ‘frightful and terrifying man’. This seems to be a manner of speaking in the midst of a long letter written more than twenty years ago. I do recall that Peter Ball felt that numerous individuals, including his critics in the media, were doing all in their power to disadvantage him unfairly. I suspect, but cannot be certain, that the reference is to this issue in some way. It of course needs to be read in the context of my understanding at the time, namely that Peter Ball had been falsely accused of a single offence (the nature of which was unknown to me) by an individual whom the relevant judicial authorities and many others had themselves not believed. Events later demonstrated beyond any doubt, to my deep regret, that I, along with many others, had been misled and the reverse was true. At the time, however, it would have followed that people seeking to disadvantage Peter Ball, including from gaining employment, were behaving unfairly. What I can say with certainty is that I did not express this view to anyone else or take any action associated with it.
19. In conclusion, I would like to state that, throughout my life, my position has occasionally brought me into contact with prominent people who have subsequently been accused of serious wrong-doing. Rather than rushing to private judgement, I have always taken the view that the judicial process should take its course. I am then able to ground my opinions in facts tested by law, rather than hearsay. In many cases, including two very prominent cases of false accusation last year, this has proved a sensible course. It follows that I ceased contact with Mr Ball once the judicial process had concluded and he was found guilty of serious offences against young people. My heart goes out to the victims of abuse and I applaud their courage as they rebuild their lives and, so often, offer invaluable support to others who have suffered. It remains a source of deep personal regret that I was one of many who were deceived over a long period of time about the true nature of Mr Ball’s activities. That is why I wanted to volunteer the facts in this letter, which I believe to be true, in the hope that they might be able to help your important work.
Yours sincerely
DPA
Prayers at Highgrove and a friendship that lasted decades
By Sam Greenhill for The Daily Mail
Peter Ball, who made his young victims roll in the snow naked before beating them until they bled, once described Prince Charles as a loyal friend.
The pair had prayed together at Highgrove and exchanged more than 50 letters, many of them deeply spiritual.
And even after his ‘indiscretion’ with a boy of 17, the bishop was given a Duchy of Cornwall house to live in, for which he thanked the ‘wonderfully kind’ prince.
Yesterday Charles expressed deep regret that he had ever put his faith in Ball, saying he had been horribly deceived by the paedophile bishop.
Charles said that in the 1980s, when he first knew him, and the 1990s, there was ‘a presumption that people such as bishops could be taken at their word’
It is now believed that sadistic Ball preyed on more than 100 boys and men in a 20-year reign of abuse.
Born in 1932, he went to Lancing College public school in West Sussex and Cambridge University before establishing a monastery in Gloucestershire with his twin brother, Michael.
Ball showed ‘favouritism’ to novice monks, and targeted schools to deliver sermons.
He was made Bishop of Lewes in 1977 and Bishop of Gloucester from 1992, during which time he handpicked 18 vulnerable victims to commit acts of ‘debasement’ in the name of religion.
He would pray naked with them at the altar and encourage them to submit to beatings. At least five more victims were schoolchildren.
As Bishop of Gloucester, Ball’s diocese covered Charles’s country home Highgrove, and the prince was among the guests at his enthronement.
By now, he was one of the church’s best known characters, refusing to wear the ceremonial purple of a bishop in favour of simple, monastic robes, sleeping on the floor and taking vows of celibacy.
Eight months after the enthronement, Ball was arrested. Yesterday the prince recalled: ‘Peter Ball told me he had been involved in some sort of “indiscretion” which prompted his resignation as my local bishop.’
In fact he had been horrifically abusing 16-year-old trainee monk Neil Todd, forcing him to perform sex acts as they lay naked in bed together, take ice-cold, early-morning showers while reading the Bible and stand side by side naked reciting psalms in front of a figure of Christ.
Mr Todd was so tormented he eventually committed suicide aged 38 in 2012.
In his letter to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, Charles said he was unaware of the true nature of the clergyman’s behaviour until more than 20 years after allegations first surfaced.
Ball got away with a police caution in March 1993 despite confessing his guilt. For his part, Charles said he had accepted Ball’s claim that Mr Todd had borne a grudge and made false allegations.
So Ball resumed his ministry, even officiating over communion at Highgrove.
He was also provided with Manor Lodge, a pretty cottage on Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall estate in the village of Aller, Somerset.
Clarence House has been at great pains to say it was the Duchy of Cornwall, the private estate which funds the heir to the throne, and not Charles himself that had purchased the lodge that Ball rented.
It subsequently emerged that police went easy on Ball in 1993 and cited his royal connections.
In documents unearthed by the BBC, retired police detective Wayne Murdock is said to have discussed with Ball’s legal team ‘the need to prevent a scandal, especially as Peter was a frequent visitor to Sandringham and is friendly with Prince Charles’.
It also emerged that the bishop’s lawyers had claimed to have a ‘letter of support from a member of the Royal Family’, who was not named. It is unclear whether this could be the same letter as the one that emerged yesterday.
Either way, no such letter was ever produced in any court hearings, and an official report found there was no evidence any royal had sought to intervene in the judicial process.
But the mother of the trainee monk was scathing about Prince Charles allowing Ball to live on his Duchy estate. Speaking in 1998, she said of the bishop: ‘He is pure evil, a beast, and he’s hiding behind God.
This is quite unbelievable. I don’t know what Prince Charles thinks he is doing.’
Yesterday Charles said he had always believed in allowing the judicial process to take its course ‘rather than rushing to private judgement’.
In 2006 Ball’s status in royal circles was confirmed in spectacular style when he was invited to read the homily at the funeral of the father of Camilla Parker Bowles.
He continued as a Church of England priest until 2010.
But justice was slowly catching up with him. Police re-opened their investigation in 2012 after new allegations, and this time a flood of Ball’s victims came forward.
If Charles was anxious, that might explain why in 2013 a royal aide contacted the chief constable of Sussex Police to ask whether information gathered during its investigation could ‘be embarrassing to Prince Charles or the monarchy in general’. Apparently they were reassured.
In 2015, Ball’s crimes were finally laid bare at the Old Bailey which heard shocking details of his reign of abuse. His trial heard he had been protected by ‘Cabinet ministers, the Royal Family, MPs, JPs and a lord’, not to mention the Church of England.
The Church has since expressed its ‘true sorrow’ at its shocking failures.
Ball, now 86, was released in February last year and lives a free man back in Aller, Somerset.
Clarence House was quick to insist last night that he is definitely not living in any of Charles’s properties.
Extracts from correspondence between Prince Charles and Peter Ball
Peter Ball to Prince Charles
8/12/95 “The young man who accused me keeps on harassing. The last few weeks back
Prince Charles to Peter Ball
16/02/95 “I wish I could do more. I feel so desperately strongly about the monstrous wrongs that have been done to you and the way you have been treated. It’s appalling that the Archbishop has gone back on what he told me, before Xmas, that he was hoping to restore you to some form of Ministry in the Church. I suspect you are absolutely right- it is due to fear of the media…If it is any consolation, the Archbishop has written me a letter (between you and me) in which it is also clear that he is frightened of the press – what he calls “public perception” of events and characters based entirely on lies, invention, speculation and sensation.”
Prince Charles to Peter Ball
11/12/94 “I saw the Archbishop the other day and he told me he is trying to bring you back to a public ministry. I do hope this will be all right and suit you, if and when it happens…”
Peter Ball to Prince Charles
16/11/93 “Life continues to be pretty nasty for me for it seems that my accusers still want to continue their malicious campaign. Luckily they are beginning to show some of their fraudulent plans.”
In extracts of letters published today by the inquiry, the Prince told Ball his accuser was a “frightful, terrifying man” who was “up to his dastardly tricks again.”
The Prince adds in the letter to Ball in 1997: “I’ll see off this horrid man if he tries anything again.”
The Prince also accuses Lambeth Palace – the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury – of being “frightened of the press” for forcing Ball to resign his ministry.
In fact, it was clear it was Peter Ball – not his accuser – who was lying to the Prince.
No charges were brought, and he took his own life shortly before an investigation into sexual abuse allegations spanning some 30 years was reopened in 2012.
Charles denies trying to influence inquiry into sex abuse bishop
27 July 2018
Prince Charles has denied that he tried to influence a police investigation into disgraced bishop Peter Ball.
In written evidence to a child sex abuse inquiry, the heir to the throne said claims by a former police officer that he “came under pressure” as a result of interest from himself were “untrue” and argued there was “a gap between rumour and fact”.
The Prince of Wales also revealed that following his resignation as bishop of Gloucester, he had sent Ball’s and his brother “small gifts of money” and also assisted them in getting one of his Duchy of Cornwall property’s.
He said: “It remains a source of deep personal regret that I was one of many who were deceived over a long period of time about the true nature of Mr Ball’s activities.”
The written statement from Charles was read out during the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) investigation as it examines how allegations against the former Church of England bishop were handled.
Now 86, the former bishop of Lewes and then Gloucester was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for sexually abusing 18 young men over 30 years. He was released in February last year after serving half his sentence behind bars.
Imagine the fear and loathing at @ClarenceHouse – what happened to Butler-Sloss? Le Ponce was promised this would never happen…first Savile, now this..we need a D notice now….
InquiryCSA Verified account @InquiryCSA
Mr O’Donnell, from Slater and Gordon is making a final submission:
“Here is an abuser (Peter Ball) at the very heart of the establishment, he was selected by the executive and he had the judiciary, the legislature and the monarchy behind him.”
Mr. Nigel Giggin QC closing submission to the #AngilcanHearing from the Archbishops Council:
“No one on the facts that were known at the time should have thought that Peter Ball could be described as, and I quote “a wonderful priest and bishop.”
We are now hearing a read statement from HRH The Prince of Wales.
I want to begin by applauding the your work to ensure the abuse of children is properly investigated and appropriate measures are taken to ensure they are protected.
Over the years I have had, and continue to have, many interactions with the clergy of the Church of England, and of other faiths, often on a daily basis.
I first became aware of Peter Ball in the 1980’s when I heard him preach. At that time, he came across as an interesting and engaging person
Peter Ball occasionally wrote to me in respect of private, often spiritual matters. On each occasion I naturally replied as I believe that to be the polite thing to do.
Peter Ball told me he had been involved in some form of ‘indiscretion’ which prompted his resignation as the Bishop of Gloucester. The matter was described by him as ‘closed’. When this exchange took place I did not know the nature of the complaint.
I was certainly not aware at the time of the significance or impact of the caution Peter Ball had accepted, or indeed sure if I was even told about it.
I occasionally send the brothers small gifts of money, as I do for many people in need, and Peter Ball’s interest in becoming a tenant of a Duchy of Cornwall property then arose.
Probably late in 1994, I recall seeing the then Archbishop and of Canterbury at an event, and taking the opportunity to ask, among other issues, about Peter Ball as he had lately been my local Bishop.
Other than this conversation, I do not recall any specific conversations regarding Peter Ball, although I was aware that Peter Ball himself was keen to persuade the church to restore him to some form of ministry in the church.
I remember the Archbishop was supportive of Peter Ball and thought him a good man and priest.
“In conclusion, I would like to state that, throughout my life, my position has occasionally brought me into contact with prominent people that have subsequently been accused of wrongdoing.
“Rather than rushing to public judgement I have always taken the view that the judicial process should take its course.
“It follows that I ceased contact with Peter Ball once the judicial process was completed and he was found guilty of serious offences against young people.”
“My heart goes out to the victims of abuse, and I applaud their courage as they rebuild their lives and, so often, offer invaluable support to others who have suffered.
“It remains a source of deep personal regret that I was one of the many who were deceived over a long period of time as to the true nature of Peter Ball’s activities.”
We are now hearing extracts from letters between HRH The Prince of Wales and Peter Ball. These extracts are available on our website.
InquiryCSA Verified account @InquiryCSA
A letter is now being read which was sent from Lord Lloyd of Berwick to Mr Murdock: “He (Peter Ball) is the most upright, gentle and saintly man, I find it difficult to accept such an awful fate has befallen such a man.”
We are now hearing from Lord Berwick regarding a telephone call he made to Wayne Murdock, SIO in the Peter Ball case from Gloucestershire police.
Judge phoned officer during bishop Ball inquiry
A senior judge and close friend of a bishop accused of sex offences telephoned the detective handling the case in the middle of the police investigation, a public inquiry was told yesterday.
Lord Justice Lloyd, now Lord Lloyd of Berwick, an appeal court judge who became a law lord, called Wayne Murdock, then a detective inspector. “I said to him, ‘You do realise that I’m the investigating officer’,” Mr Murdock told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
Mr Murdock also criticised Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, for not passing letters from Peter Ball’s victims to the police and said a private investigator hired by the church came close to perverting the course of justice.
Ms Scolding is now discussing with Lord Berwick his support of Peter Ball returning to the church ministry. He thought it acceptable to go back to the ministry as he had resigned as a bishop and could not be left with nothing to do for the rest of his life.
Lord Berwick:
“I got to know Ball Peter Ball very soon after he became Bishop of Lewes, because I wast hen the chairman of the Chichester Diocesan Board of Finance, and, accordingly, I would meet Peter Ball at meetings of the Bishops’ Council. But I got to know him well when he became our nearest neighbour in Berwick. He was a very remarkable – he had very remarkable gifts, spiritual gifts….I liked him very much. We then became very good friends, and we still are.”
If you were trying to provide a character reference…, why didn’t you simply write to Peter Ball’s solicitors and provide this information…Why did you think it was appropriate for you to directly write to the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire? …Because obviously it as written from you in your –saying …”I am Lord Justice Lloyd”, wasn’t it?
The Archbishop of Canterbury agreed that Peter Ball should be given names letters of complaint about him. (Peter Ball)
It was very bad practice wasn’t it?
Nobody’s Friends
In 2018 the club was subject of a question in the IICSA hearing into abuse in the Church of England. Lord Lloyd had sent a letter of influence in the Peter Ball case to Archbishop Carey prefaced with the phrase “May I presume on a brief acquaintanceship at dinners of Nobody’s Friends?”[17] When asked about the club in his evidence to the Inquiry, Lord Lloyd described Nobody’s Friends as “simply a club, half consisting of the clergy, members of the clergy, and half consisting of members of the laity, which dine together probably twice a year, very often in Lambeth Palace.”
The IICSA counsel pointed out that the Daily Mail had once described it as “centred on a strong core of bishops, ex-Tory ministers and former military top brass, a highly secretive, all-male group representing Britain’s most entrenched professions and institutions.” Lord Lloyd replied, “That’s a typical Daily Mail description of something they don’t particularly like, but I can assure you that Nobody’s Friends is a perfectly ordinary dining club…” The same article that IICSA drew upon in the hearing indicated that Prime Minister Tony Blair had been keen to join the club in 2003.[18][19][20]
Stephen Parsons commented in an influential blog, following the IICSA hearing, that the forum Nobody’s Friends provided for influence in the Peter Ball case suggested a “toxic masculinity” in the Church of England. He went on to say:
A men-only dining club that meets regularly at Lambeth Palace, known as Nobody’s Friends, appears to be a gathering for socially very well-connected Anglicans. Although originally high church in its origins, the club provides an opportunity for a privileged church group to network and sometimes lobby those in authority in the Church …… The Nobody’s Friends dining group has been described as ‘private’ rather than a secret group, but it still represents an exclusive world of male privilege within the heart of the Anglican establishment. When Bishop John Bickersteth once revealed that his appointment to Bath and Wells followed his being ‘spotted’ at a Nobody’s dinner, we began to get the feeling that the values of our church may incline towards corporate and institutional interests rather than a personal morality based on the Sermon on the Mount.[21]
Gilo writes: Safeguarding the Secrets part 1 – Nobody’s Friends
I was recently given a copy of Nobody’s Friends 1800-2000, a biography and historical diary of the Lambeth Palace dining club which featured in the Peter Ball hearings at IICSA. It emerged at the Inquiry that Lord Lloyd of Berwick had cited their mutual membership of the secretive club to Archbishop Carey in one of many ‘letters of influence’ in support of Ball. Nobody’s Friends is a gathering which quietly fosters establishment links between church and Westminster (mostly the Tory bits of it) and meets in the Guards Room at Lambeth Palace. Newly elected members ‘justify’ themselves during congratulatory speeches which honour any advancement in the various pecking orders (episcopal, judicial, political) of its members. It undoubtedly offers a fulcrum of patronage to any senior cleric lucky enough to be elected member, who might aspire to a mitre.
Membership has included many bishops and archbishops, headmasters from a sprinkling of top schools, various Archbishop’s Appointments Secretaries, Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretaries, Leaders of the House of Commons and House of Lords, Tory peers, Admiralty figures, judicial figures and church lawyers. Such heavyweights as Sir Michael Havers (later Lord Chancellor), Lord Pym, Douglas Hurd, Lord Justice Bingham (former Master of the Rolls) have graced its tables. Several of the senior clerics on the board of Ecclesiastical have also enjoyed membership, and one of the headmaster directors of the church’s insurer. The current club President is believed to be Sir Philip Mawer, who was on the directors board of Ecclesiastical when he was also at same time Secretary General of Synod.
Jonathan Fletcher, Archbishop Welby’s friend and a regular participant at the Iwerne camps from the early 1950s has been a member since 1983. His father, Lord Fletcher, was also a member. The club seems to have had a culture of nepotism in which the scion of ennobled members themselves become elected members.
But another name kept ringing bells. Sir William Van Straubenzee, Tory minister in Northern Ireland under Heath and later a prominent Synod member and Church Estates Commissioner, became a member in 1973. In 1988 he was elected Vice President of the club, and in 1991 elected President of Nobody’s – a position he held until his death in 1999. Clearly very well connected, his London home was a grace-and-favour apartment in Lambeth Palace in the Lollard’s Tower. This pied-à-terre gave name to a group of Tory wets, the Lollards, who met there during Thatcher’s premiership.
Straubenzee was cited in government files in relation to abuse at the Kincora boys home in Belfast. Sir Anthony Duff sent an MI5 dossier on Straubenzee to Sir Robert Armstrong (now Lord Armstrong) in 1986. Kincora may have have been run under the watchful eye of the secret services who used it as a ‘dirty tricks’ blackmail operation, although the findings of the Hart report (Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry HIA Inquiry 2014-2016) disputed this. The involvement of MI5 in Kincora has never meaningfully been investigated. And although three men who shared in the running of the home were prosecuted and jailed in the 1980s – figures from the political and establishment worlds named in connection with the abuse and trafficking of boys from this and other homes in Belfast did not face questioning.
Armstrong himself was also a member of Nobody’s from 1984, and may be still as far as anyone knows. It’s unlikely that other members had awareness at the time when the senior mandarin from Number 10 received this intelligence from MI5. Armstrong appears to have remained tight-lipped, although it is recorded that these files were passed to the Prime Minister. So two men, one of whom had grounds from the security services to suspect possible abuse activities by the other – both toasted the club’s customs and membership alongside assorted archbishops during coffee and mint thins. It’s a disconcerting image.
Equally as disconcerting, there seems to be no indication that the Church of England shared this information with IICSA. Nor following the Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam QC Review when the material from the Cabinet Office first came to public light in 2015 after their report.
Despite judicial interest in these matters, the suffering of victims and survivors, and the need for transparency – the Church of England did not seem to offer this information to these inquiries? Presumably many current Nobody’s Friends, including many bishops, have copies of this rare publication. It did not occur to any of them, nor to the club Treasurer, that this might be helpful information – not least because it might shed light on the culture of protectionism afforded by these private clubs.
Another Lambeth Palace dining club offers a deeper picture of privilege and protection. In 1993 a former chairman of the Nikaean Club and head of Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge went to court for abusing a boy between the ages of 14 and 16. Canon (later Bishop) Christopher Hill, also a member of the Nikæan Club, accompanied Patrick Gilbert to court. Gilbert was also able to brandish a character witness letter from another Nikaean member – former Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan. Gilbert, who was also secretary of the wine committee at The Athenaeum, admitted a previous conviction for indecent assault on two 13-year-old school boys in 1962. Despite this and despite the seriousness of the charge, and almost certainly owing to the protecting influence of a Lambeth Palace dining club, he received a suspended sentence and sympathy from the judge for the considerable stress he had endured. As the judge explained, he decided not to jail the bachelor because of his health and ‘very severe punishment’ he had already undergone through loss of reputation. Both Hill and Coggan were also members of The Athenaeum. It’s not who you know… but who you dine with.
Returning to Nobody’s it is oddly disturbing that its members are likely to have their own copies of this book, and many older members will remember Straubenzee as President of the club. They will have presumably been aware of media reports in recent years of the mention of Straubenzee in secret service reports to the Cabinet Office.
A culture of ‘say nothing unless asked’ is a culture still reluctant to move on from subtle complicity and subterfuge. This mindset has already led to the current existential crisis of the bishops and senior ‘management’ of the Church. The time for keeping of secrets Luca Brasi-style to protect the reputation of a Lambeth Palace eliterie should long be over. The Church should no longer entertain disposition to this kind of omerta. A church with secrecy riven in its bones is not a church with a healthy and redemptive future. It is hardly worth the candle.
Incidentally I was interested to find that two senior figures I had told of my abuse – were both members. Stephen Platten, former Bishop of Wakefield, and John Eastaugh, former Bishop of Hereford.
With no little irony, I give the last word of this essay to Lord Lloyd. When questioned at the Inquiry, his description of Nobody’s Friends was that it was a “perfectly ordinary dining club”.
Looking back at his history, it appears Lord Lloyd of Berwick was Prince Charles’ attorney general at the same time Nicholas Soames was his equerry… Would they have worked together in any capacity?
Nicholas Soames:
I knew Harvey Proctor slightly. He had been in the House for four years when I was first elected in 1983. We were not political soulmates, but I was one of those Members of Parliament proud to rally around to help him to set up his shop in Richmond following his conviction in 1987, which resulted in his leaving the House.
The Aegis connection? Oh, and here’s the Wardrobe with the Little Key out canvassing in 1983 with Ted Heath, the man who would have been questioned under caution for the abuse of children.
The Aegis connection? Nicholas Soames was always on hand to give the paedophile Harvey Proctor a leg-up in times of need:
Bud McFarlane relevant here… not only a director of Aegis Defence (like Soames & Boateng) also involved with Iran Contra (and it’s ties to @FranklinScandal). Le Cercle Member too…
7/ Another Western Goals man, Robert McFarlane was involved in ContraGate and on the board of Aegis, Soames’ defence company. Soames (Wardrobe with Little Key) is of course a close friend of Denby mate Proctor and likely facilitated his St. (V)Ermin’s PR conference.
The Aegis connection? Chairman Soames and Princess Diana:
The Aegis connection? Another non-executive director of Aegis is Paul Boateng, a man with connections to paedophile John Carroll and the Angel Rd. children’s home.
Anthony John Leslie Lloyd, Baron Lloyd of Berwick, Kt, PC, DL (left)with Sir John Birch Director of Aegis
One of Prince Charles closest friends, Nicholas Soames is chairman of Aegis
Charles later admitted his adultery and Soames apologised. When questioned by the inquest into the death of Diana, Soames said that he saw his job as “to speak up for the Prince of Wales”, he denied threatening Diana, and warning her, “accidents happen” in the months before she died.[6]
The Aegis connection? Despite Bishop Ball’s seriously perverted character, Lloyd of Berwick still fawns over him:
In 1969 Lloyd was appointedAttorney-General to the Prince of Wales, serving until 1977.
He was made a Privy Counsellor
He held the office of Deputy Lieutenant (D.L.) of East Sussex in 1983.
We are now hearing from Ms Kate Wood, the Safeguarding Consultant for the Diocese of Chichester and retired detective inspector looking at child sexual abuse and domestic abuse. She contacted the Church of England in 2007 to support investigations into child sexual abuse
In 2008/09 Ms Wood notes that Peter Ball did not have a risk assessment while he was working in Bath & Wells. She conducted a past cases review in 2009. She described a “disturbing pattern of behaviour” from Peter Ball.
Ms Wood raised concerns in 2008/09 that a 17 year old who was attending school, who Peter Ball to masturbate in front of him. The file notes said it was no offence, but it was an offence of gross indecency.
Ms Wood recalls asking Peter Ball what indecent assault is. He replied “oh yes, I did do that.” She then explained what gross indecency was. He again replied: “I did have an emmission.” Ms Wood was surprised that Peter Ball had admitted behaviour after years of denial.
The Inquiry is now hearing from Dame Moira Gibb. Last year, Ms Gibb published a report into the Church’s handling of the Peter Ball case:
Ms Scolding has asked Ms Gibb about the limits of her report into Peter Ball. She confirms that she had no difficulties in accessing information from the Church of England, however had difficulties with Northamptonshire Constabulary and Gloucestershire Constabulary.
Ms Scolding notes that former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey raised a number of concerns in his witness statement about conclusions in Dame GIbb’s report. In the report Ms Gibb noted degrees of cover up and collusion in relation to Peter Ball.
“Failure to pass the letters to the police (detailing allegations in relation to Peter Ball) must give rise to a perception of deliberate concealment.” Dame Moira Gibb tells the #AnglicanHearing
Dame Moira Gibb is now explaining why she used the word “careless” in her report. She notes carelessness in the attitude of the Church towards the victims of Peter Ball.
Prince Charles aide asked police if anything could ’embarrass’ him during inquiry into paedophile bishop
25 July 2018
An aide to the Prince of Wales contacted police in 2013 to ask about “embarrassing” material it may have collected during an investigation into a paedophile bishop, the independent child sex abuse inquiry has heard.
A member of the Prince’s staff contacted the chief constable of Sussex Police to ask whether information gathered during its investigation into Peter Ball, the former bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester, could “be embarassing to Prince Charles or the monarchy in general”.
Ball, now 86, was convicted in 2015 of misconduct in public office after admitting the sexual abuse of 18 young men.
According to the evidence of Detective Chief Inspector Carwyn Hughes, who worked on the investigation, the disgraced bishop had a “long-lasting friendship” with the Prince of Wales and the pair had exchanged several letters.
The contact was made after Peter Ball’s brother Michael Ball sent a letter to the Prince.
On Wednesday the officer told the inquiry he examined the police’s records to see if they had collected any material which could “damage the reputation of Prince Charles”, and did not find any.
Calling the contact “highly unusual” on account of the prince’s status, he said it prompted him to consider whether the prince could be a witness in the inquiry.
He insisted that Prince Charles was not treated differently from “the man on the street”, and that while he would have been notified if there was any relevant information, this would also have been the case for a member of the public.
“If there was evidence in the investigation that was of relevance to the person on the street, they would also be a potential witness,” he said, adding that he felt “no pressure” and did not feel the investigation had been influenced as a result of the contact.
The inquiry also heard that pre-charge publicity around Bishop Ball encouraged 12 victims to come forward to police.
The Inquiry is due to hear read evidence on Friday from the Prince of Wales, who maintained contact with the bishop after Ball was cautioned in 1993 for gross indecency.
He is expected to say in his statement that he did not know the caution involved an admission of guilt.
On Wednesday morning the inquiry heard from Wayne Murdock, formerly of Gloucestershire Police, who had presided over the earlier inquiry, which ended with the caution.
Mr Murdock said that he believed the outcome of his investigation could have been different had then-Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey handed over letters sent to Lambeth Palace by victims and their families.
“He knew we were carrying out an investigation, and for some reason he withheld them,” he said.
On Tuesday Lord Carey admitted that the letters should have been handed over, but added that he had “assumed the police were investigating this thoroughly”. The inquiry continues.
Another extraordinary day @InquiryCSA we hear a former Bishop @DioTruro may have perverted the course of justice and that Prince Charles’ staff officer asked Sussex Police in 2013 if they had any embarrassing information about the Prince of Wales.(They said No.) @churchofengland
Peter Ball received around £12,500 between 1992 and 1994 from @churchofengland Lord Carey tells @InquiryCSA as a retired Bishop Peter Ball needed help and I was glad to give it.
Peter Ball’s defence solicitor wrote to the Crown Prosecution Service saying he had received 1284 letters in support and to consider the impact of a prosecution on @churchofengland@InquiryCSA
Cassandra Cogno@CassandraCogno
Just like Dame Butler “we don’t want to give the press a bishop” Sloss …
Janet Cope, Jimmy Savile’s secretary, showing his files – letter from Prince Charles next to a clipping about the Cleveland Inquiry
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
Now here’s a thought: Is the Sloshed Butler Royalty’s safe pair of hands when embarrassing material may emerge and a coverup is needed?
Given her past failures and her closeness to paedophiles, it was the incredible and shameful choice of Butler Sloss as first chair of @InquiryCSA which really took the biscuit though:
Butler Sloss was commissioned to look into abuse in the Diocese of Chicester. During that review she uttered the infamous words she didn’t want to ‘give the press a Bishop.’ The Bishop was Peter Ball.
According to the BBC, investigating officer Detective Inspector Wayne Murdock is said to have discussed with Ball’s legal team in the documents “the need to prevent a scandal in the press, especially as Peter was a frequent visitor to Sandringham and is friendly with Prince Charles”.
In a separate document released by Gloucestershire Police in response to an Freedom of Information request, Mr Murdock writes that after a meeting at Lambeth Palace, it was suggested that “any form of Church investigation instigated by the Archbishop of Canterbury would be ‘fairly low key and private’.”
He said the Church had displayed a “considerable amount of naivety” over the case as it took no action when advised in early September 1992 of “irregularities” concerning Ball.
Gloucestershire Police received messages of support for the former clergyman from MPs, former public school heads, JPs and a Lord Chief Justice, and Mr Murdock said: “According to defence sources they claim to have in excess of two thousand letters of support for Bishop Peter Ball, including letters from Cabinet ministers and Royal Family.”
Mr Hughes carried out an investigation into Lord Carey following the Peter Ball sentencing considering whether any legal action was to be taken as there were letters not disclosed to the police from Carey.
craftymuvva@craftymuvva
This should have made headline news this evening. I bet it didn’t:
Ms McNeill is now asking whether it was unusual to receive a call from the Prince of Wales office regarding Operation Dunhill. Mr Hughes has confirmed that it was indeed unusual for this call to have been made.
Operation Dunhillbegan as a direct result of the safeguarding officer at Lambeth Palace raising concerns about Peter Ball following a church initiated review of files.
A man who was 12 when he alleges he was abused by the former bishop of Lewes was among those who came forward, according to a spokesman for Sussex police’s Operation Dunhill
Mr Hughes on the delay of the CPS decision on charges of Peter Ball: “There was a growing theory that there had been some sort of establishment cover up.”
We are now looking at a case conference with the CPS, where Mr Hughes was made aware of a letter sent to Peter Ball regarding his police cautions.
Mr Hughes: “As far as I was concerned, this was highly unusual.”
It gave Mr Hughes little time to speak to complainants before a press conference was to be held. Mr Hughes confirms it would be useful for the CPS to give more time to notify victims before issuing details to the press.
Mr Hughes on discussing two complainants in the Peter Ball case. “I can see from their prospective that they did not get justice in this case.”
Mr Hughes has now indicated that new complainants came forward following the media coverage of Peter Ball’s sentencing. It was considered that it was not in the public interest to pursue these cases, as Peter Ball has recently been incarcerated.
Sean O’Neill @TimesONeil
In the light of Cliff Richard judgment: senior detective says pre-charge publicity around Bishop Peter Ball encouraged 12 victims to come forward to police
InquiryCSAVerified account@InquiryCSA
Mr Hughes carried out an investigation into Lord Carey following the Peter Ball sentencing considering whether any legal action was to be taken as there were letters not disclosed to the police from Carey.
Mr Hughes concluded that there was no legal action to take against Lord Carey. He found that there was gross misconduct at that time at Lambeth Palace but considered that it did not cross any threshold for criminal proceedings.
We are now hearing read evidence on behalf of Ian David Stafford Beer CBE.
Mr Beer: “He first met Peter Ball through his mother in law. The Ball twins created the society of the Glorious Ascension.”
Peter Ball claimed to Mr Beer that he had been given a letter by the then Archbishop of Canterbury giving permission to officiate anywhere in the UK, however, the Bishop of Gloucestershire declined to give permission for Peter Ball to officiate the wedding of his son
Inquiry counsel Fiona Scolding QC is hearing evidence from Mr Wayne Murdock, formerly of Gloucestershire Police
Mr Murdock states that it’s not true to say that he would cease the investigation if Peter Ball would accept a caution. These matters needed proper investigation. ‘I wouldn’t cut corners’
Mr Murdock, when showed notes from PB’s solicitors on meeting – that he would supply them with notes of the investigation – said ‘Rubbish … I would be knocking on the door of perverting the course of justice, and I would not do that’ – watch live:
Mr Murdoch: ‘I made it clear [at the meeting with PB’s legal team] that I would report back to the DPP, the offer of the caution, and I clearly made no promises… I certainly did not recommend a caution.
Mr Murdock wrote a 633 page report to the Crown Prosecution Service which contained all witness statements and at the end, Mr Murdock, as SIO could give his views, opinions and summarise what he believed what offences should be charged.
Mr Murdock’s report recommended the DPP considers charges of gross indecency and indecent assault. and also wish to consider additional offences which resulted from the police investigation – Offences under section 18 of offences against the person ACT (sec 18 is GBH)
FSQC – You say in your report that you invite the CPS to consider that Peter Ball has been less than truthful [in his evidence] – and has been quite calculating in the manner in which he presents himself.
FSQC: You also flag to the CPS that the reputation of the Church would suffer if PB was prosecuted-that didn’t really matter did it? Mr Murdock: It’s my job to point out the risks to the CPS the decision lies with them whether or not to prosecute.
Credne’s Cod Peace @CrednesCodPeace
It’s quite strange that one of the best mate’s with many paedophiles including Jimmy Saville is allowed to get away without giving verbal evidence or being cross examined. Long live the monarchy, we like our feudal lords & masters.
Prince Charles tried to keep links to paedophile bishop Peter Ball private
July 24 2018
Prince Charles argued that information about his connection with Bishop Peter Ball was “private and confidential”
The Prince of Wales staged a lengthy legal fight against demands from a public inquiry for him to provide evidence about his long friendship with a paedophile Anglican bishop, it has emerged.
Lawyers for Prince Charles protested that requests for evidence from the child abuse inquiry about his connection with Bishop Peter Ball were beyond its powers, unfair and a breach of the prince’s human rights by seeking to obtain “intensely private and confidential” material.
Alexis Jay, chairwoman of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), issued a statutory notice requiring the prince to provide evidence but met continued resistance from Clarence House.
When the prince’s evidence was submitted last week the inquiry was surprised that it came in the form of a letter to Professor Jay rather than a formal witness statement “finalised with a statement of truth and signed”.
Richard Scorer, solicitor for six of Ball’s victims, told an inquiry hearing that the prince’s refusal to provide a statement in the usual way “will feed concerns that the letter is less than entirely frank about his relationship with Peter Ball”.
The Times revealed last week that the prince’s draft evidence admitted that he maintained a friendship with Ball, 86, former Anglican Bishop of Gloucester, for more than 20 years after the cleric accepted a police caution for gross indecency in 1993.
The prince invited Ball to his Highgrove home and to royal occasions, gave him “small gifts of money” after he was forced to resign his ministry and helped to arrange a Duchy of Cornwall house for him to live in.
His evidence said he did not understand that a criminal caution involved an admission of guilt and did not cut contact with Ball until he was convicted and jailed at the Old Bailey in 2015. The prince expressed “deep personal regret” that he had been deceived by the bishop.
The investigation of the Ball case is part of the IICSA’s wider inquiry into the handling of child abuse cases by the Church of England.
The inquiry counsel Fiona Scolding, QC, said the IICSA had heard from 32 men who were victims of grooming, abuse and sexual exploitation by the bishop when they were teenage boys or young adults.
At the time of the initial police inquiry into Ball in 1992-93, police and prosecutors received 24 letters from prominent figures — including senior clergy, MPs, an appeal court judge and public school headmasters — lobbying on his behalf.
Ball exploited his royal and establishment connections in a voluminous letter-writing campaign in which he pressed, with success, for his return to Church duties. He was given permission to officiate at services and between 1996 and 2002 preached at 25 schools.
William Chapman, counsel for some of Ball’s victims, said the cleric had been able to “call upon the willing assistance of the establishment — including the heir to the throne”.
He told Professor Jay and the inquiry panel: “These establishment helpers claim they were duped by Peter Ball. You will have to consider whether that is credible — given what they must have known or could easily have found out about Peter Ball. Prince Charles has many advisers, he only had to ask what a ‘caution’ meant.”
Mr Scorer also argued that the prince could have inquired about the accurate legal position concerning Ball. “Prince Charles apparently decided not to seek clarification of the legal position. To my clients, this extraordinary lack of curiosity looks like wilful blindness,” he said.
Ms Scolding said that the format of the prince’s eventual evidence “was not what had been requested” but the IICSA was satisfied that it did answer the questions put to Prince Charles.
She said: “The last sentence of the letter does make clear that the material set out within it is true. The inquiry considered that this complies with the requirements of a statement of truth and that the letter received contained all the evidence required.”
Ms Scolding said the inquiry had withdrawn the statutory demand for the prince to provide evidence and had “adjusted its requests in some respects”. She added, however, that the IICSA “did not resile from its demands the need to obtain this evidence or accept the contention that the prince should be treated in a way that was different from any other witness”.
The prince’s evidence will be read at the inquiry on Friday but he will not be called to answer questions.
A Clarence House spokesman said: “The prince made it clear that he was willing to help the inquiry and voluntarily answered all the questions asked in the form of ‘free flowing text’ as requested by the inquiry itself. The final submission includes a statement of truth in common with all witness statements.
“The legal exchanges, which have been extensively referred to by the inquiry’s solicitors, were necessary to ensure clarity regarding both the structure, relevance and content of the statement. Once resolved, the inquiry raised no objection to the format of the prince’s submission.”
Lord Carey to face questions
Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, faces intensive public questioning today about his handling of the case of the disgraced bishop Peter Ball.
Lord Carey, 82, will appear at the child abuse public inquiry to explain why he wrote to senior police and prosecutors in support of Ball when the Bishop of Gloucester as he was then was under criminal investigation in 1993. When he was lobbying on Ball’s behalf, the former archbishop was aware that Lambeth Palace had received further allegations of sexual misconduct against Ball. Only one letter was passed to the police.
The peer will also be asked to explain why he tried to rehabilitate Ball after his criminal caution by giving him permission to conduct church services.
The inquiry was told yesterday that in 2014 Lord Carey again wrote to officers claiming that the bishop had “served the church with great distinction”.
Ms Scolding QC asks former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey why Peter Ball was given money to go on holiday, when his victims received no counselling. He responds, we didn’t care enough for the victims at the time, and I would gladly have given money for that end.
Ms Scolding QC asks do you think it was appropriate to give a bishop who had been found guilty of gross indecency discretionary funds? At the time we felt that Peter Ball needed help, after careful scrutiny of his finances Lord Carey responds.
A letter from Peter Ball to Lord Carey in 1994 he asks for £10,000 to help with legal funds. In the letter, Peter Ball describes allegations as a “little nuisance”.
Ms Scolding QC asks do you think it was appropriate to give a bishop who had been found guilty of gross indecency discretionary funds? At the time we felt that Peter Ball needed help, after careful scrutiny of his finances Lord Carey responds.
Ms Scolding QC asks Lord Carey why Peter Ball was allowed to attend Stowe School and Radley College in 1996/97. He says he thought there would be proper supervision. Ms Scolding also notes there is no evidence schools were warned about Ball’s previous behaviour.
Daisy Law@theDaisyLaw
What, like the supervision which the church undertook by their conspiracy to cover up his crimes against children? Carey is looking like a fellow poacher rather than a gamekeeper trying to protect the flock. Corruption & shady networking are phrases which come to mind.
alun:
Surely I-Don’t-Carey must have been aware of this:
@craftymuvva
For a man that wrote numerous letters proffering his opinions on political matters to the PM (this proving his continued interest and knowledge of current affairs), Charlie is certainly very selective about what he knew…
Linda Woodhead@LindaWoodhead
IICSA … on the Peter Ball scandal: hears of the extraordinary lengths to which Prince Charles’s lawyers went to wiggle out of complying with IICSA’s request that the Prince give a witness statement to the Inquiry like everyone else. Even invoking European convention HRights!
William Chapman, counsel for survivors @InquiryCSA : “Were they really as ignorant as they claimed about the nature of Peter Ball’s activities? Prince Charles has many advisers, he only had to ask. So did the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
Under current @churchofengland procedures Peter Ball is still able to call himself, Bishop, with the title, Right Reverend”
Prince Charles refused to give formal statement to sex abuse inquiry
23 July 2018
Prince Charles refused to provide a formal witness statement to the child sex abuse inquiry, lawyers told a hearing on Monday.
The inquiry is currently hearing evidence relating to abuse carried out by Peter Ball, the former bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester, who knew the prince and exchanged letters with him.
Lawyers for the Prince of Wales used human rights law to object to block efforts to compel him to send a witness statement in the format used by the inquiry, instead sending a signed letter.
Fiona Scolding, lead counsel to the investigation into the Anglican church, said that his lawyers had previously argued that compelling him to give evidence was outside its powers.
Ball was convicted in 2015 of misconduct in public office after admitting abusing 18 teenagers and young men between the 1970s and 1990s.
His abuse had first been reported to the church in 1992, but police and CPS decided to give him a caution, and he was stripped of his role as bishop.
Ms Scolding said there would have been “no doubt” about what the inquiry’s lawyers were asking for, as they sent a template for the document and used the word “statement” five times in one letter asking for the document to be signed.
“Despite lengthy correspondence, including assertions from the Prince’s solicitors that the Inquiry’s requests for evidence were outside its powers, i.e. ‘ultra vires’, there was never any suggestion at any point that the statement would be provided by letter,” she said.
The prince’s law firm Harbottle & Lewis also tried to argue that asking for a witness statement was “unfair”, and constituted a request for “intensely private and confidential” personal data.
Following “lengthy and extensive correspondence” an agreement was reached and the inquiry has decided to treat the letter, which ends with a sentence saying that its contents are true, as equivalent to a witness statement, she said.
The Prince will not give evidence in person but will have the statement read out at the hearing on Friday.
Earlier in the hearing Richard Scorer, of law firm Slater and Gordon, who is representing victims and survivors, expressed “surprise and concern” at the decision.
“This will inevitably raise concerns that the letter may be less than entirely frank about his relationship with Peter Ball and that it contains matters to which he s reluctant to attach a formal statement of truth,” he said.
The prince’s statement is expected to say that he was “not aware at the time of the significance or impact of the caution that Peter Ball had accepted”, including the fact that a caution involves admission of guilt.
On Tuesday the Inquiry is expected to hear evidence in person from former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, who was found in an independent inquiry last year to be among senior church figures who “colluded” with Peter Ball.
Earlier in the day the inquiry heard that the church was dealing with a “turbulent” period in 1992, with Lord Carey raising the “constitutional crisis” caused by the Prince’s split with Diana, Princess of Wales, as well as the decision to allow women to be priests.
A Clarence House spokesman said: “The prince made it clear that he was willing to help the Inquiry and voluntarily answered all the questions asked in the form of ‘free flowing text’ as requested by the Inquiry itself.
“The final submission includes a statement of truth in common with all witness statements. The legal exchanges, which have been extensively referred to by the Inquiry’s solicitors, were necessary to ensure clarity regarding both the structure, relevance and content of the statement.
“Once resolved, the Inquiry raised no objection to the format of the prince’s submission.”
Elizabeth Butler Sloss, 1st IICSA chair, member of the establishment protected Bishop Peter Ball
Establishment ‘rallied to help ex-bishop later jailed for abuse’
Prince Charles and Lord Carey among powerful backers of Peter Ball, abuse inquiry told
23 July 2018
Members of the establishment, including the heir to the throne, the then archbishop of Canterbury and a senior member of the judiciary, rallied to the support of Peter Ball, a Church of England bishop accused of sexual abuse, an independent inquiry has heard.
“The story of Peter Ball is the story of the establishment at work in modern times,” said William Chapman, representing survivors. “It is the story of how the establishment minimised the nature of Peter Ball’s misdeeds … and silenced and harassed those who tried to complain.”
One survivor told the inquiry the C of E’s response to his disclosure of abuse amounted to “enduringly cruel and sadistic treatment”.
The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse is examining how the church handled allegations. A five-day hearing this week is scrutinising the church’s response to claims of sexual abuse against Ball, a former bishop of Lewes and then Gloucester, who was jailed in 2015.
Ball was able to call upon the “willing assistance of members of the establishment”, said Chapman. “It included the heir to the throne, the archbishop and a senior member of the judiciary, to name only the most prominent.”
Between them, they provided Ball with money and accommodation, legal advice, a private detective, references and approaches to the police and the prosecuting authorities.
“The alacrity and the extent of the response by Peter Ball’s friends to one of their own in trouble was impressive. It makes a horrible contrast to the way Peter Ball’s victims were treated,” Chapman said.
He told the inquiry: “These establishment helpers claim they were duped by Peter Ball … But you will have to consider if it is credible, given what they must have known or could easily have found out about Peter Ball, whether they were really as ignorant as they claimed they were about the nature of Peter Ball’s activities.
“Some claimed they did not know what a caution meant. Well, Prince Charles has many advisers; he only had to ask. So does the archbishop of Canterbury.”
Ball’s friends were willing to “add their weight” against the due criminal process. “They went far beyond the normal obligations of friendship.”
Allegations were first made against Ball in 1992, but he accepted a police caution and resigned his position as bishop. An independent review of the case commissioned by the C of E and published last year found evidence of collusion and a cover-up at the highest levels.
Richard Scorer, also representing survivors, said that Ball found in his fellow bishops the “perfect accomplices, prepared to turn a blind eye to his abuse over many decades”.
None bore greater responsibility than Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, Scorer said. “We fear that when we hear from him this week, the usual litany of excuses will be trotted out,” he said, adding that Carey must give a “transparent account of his actions”.
Prince Charles’s assertion that he did not understand the significance of a caution was “frankly astonishing”, he said. The prince has access to “the best legal advice that money can buy,” Scorer added.
The prince chose not to clarify the legal position. “To my clients, this extraordinary lack of curiosity looks like wilful blindness,” he said.
In her opening statement, Fiona Scolding, senior counsel to the inquiry, said that Ball’s “fall from grace was a huge shock to the church”.
She added: “He was a very senior clergyman with enormous spiritual authority. He also had power and charm.”
People inside and outside the church had attested to Ball’s charisma and oratorical brilliance. She said that power had been “further enhanced by his cultivation of influential friends both within and outside the church”.
As an example, Ball had told people after his arrest that four cabinet ministers had offered him a “bolthole from the press”.
“He did not stint from mentioning those friends in prominent places when he thought it would assist his cause,” Scolding added.
She told the hearing of a scheme set up by Ball for young men interested in religious life that gave him the opportunity to groom them for sexual abuse and exploitation. The men were encouraged to pray naked, and engage in massage and spanking. One, Neil Todd, who first made allegations against Ball, killed himself in 2012.
Scolding said that Ball, now 86, was too unwell to give evidence either at the inquiry or by video link. But in one of two statements he had submitted he made an apology and said he had “neither been open nor shown penitence in the past”.
The hearing heard from three survivors who described their abuse by Ball. One, the Rev Graham Sawyer, who has waived his right to anonymity, said: “The sexual abuse that was perpetrated on me by bishop Peter Ball pales into insignificance when compared to the enduringly cruel and sadistic treatment that has been meted out to me by officials, both lay and ordained, in the Church of England.”
He described the culture within Anglicanism as an “ecclesiastic protection racket – and anyone who seeks in any way to threaten the reputation of the church and institution has to be destroyed”.
Safeguarding should be taken out of the church’s hands he said, as “it cannot police itself with any credibility”.
At the start of proceedings, Alexis Jay, the chair of the inquiry, said she had ordered an investigation into the leaking to the media of the Prince of Wales’s letter.
She said the leak was a “very serious breach of confidence by someone with direct access to information in this investigation” and promised “firm action” should the source be uncovered.
Scolding said a suggestion reported by the Times that the timing of the statement, to be read on the final day of this week’s hearings, was to prevent the prince being called for cross-examination “could not be further from the truth”.
She said: “There is no requirement for him to attend in person as his evidence, whilst important, is not of central relevance to many of the issues raised by this case study.”
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey admits ‘fobbing off’ sex abuse victims
July 24 2018
A former Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted “fobbing off” victims of sex abuse who complained about a paedophile bishop.
Lord Carey of Clifton said Lambeth Palace failed to deal properly with letters sent by victims and their families after the arrest of Peter Ball in December 1992.
Ball, then the bishop of Gloucester, was arrested following disclosures by Neil Todd, who had been a pupil on his scheme for young men considering a monastic life, that Ball had sexually abused him.
Lord Carey also admitted that the church had “mishandled” the case, after the inquiry heard evidence that many of the letters had received holding responses and victims had been forced to follow up to gain a proper reply.
“We have been fobbing people off. They should have had direct replies. We should have carried on our enquiries and dealt with it in a much more serious and adult manner than we did,” he admitted.
The inquiry also heard that a “personal message” from the former Archbishop had been sent to the diocese of Gloucester in January 1993, several weeks after the allegations had been received, expressing a hope that the ongoing police enquiry would “clear his [Ball’s] name”.
He also wrote to the chief constable of Gloucestershire and the director of public prosecutions in 1993 on Ball’s behalf after the bishop’s psychiatrist told him that he was suicidal, and wrote to Ball himself telling him “you are in my prayers”.
Lord Carey, who was Archbishop of Canterbury between 1991 and 2002, oversaw Ball’s return to ministry and the payment of thousands of pounds to the bishop, including money for holidays, which came from his own discretionary funds, used to support church leaders in need.
The inquiry also heard that Ball was given the role as Bishop of Gloucester in 1992 after then-appointments secretary to the Prime Minister Sir Robin Catford wrote a glowing letter recommending him, including mentioning that he was a “squash blue” at Cambridge and that he had a “quite extraordinary sparkling personality” and was “loved and revered by everyone who crossed his path”.
Powerful evidence by Rev Graham Sawyer, victim of Peter Ball : “ It is an ecclesiastical protection racket… anyone who threatens the reputation of the Church has to be destroyed. That is the culture within Anglicanism.”
Ball was able to call upon the “willing assistance of members of the establishment”… it included Prince Charles, the archbishop and a senior member of the judiciary…they provided Ball with money and accommodation, legal advice, a private detective, references and approaches to the police and the prosecuting authorities.
Peter Ball (right) and his twin brother Michael Ball, pictured in 1989
Bishops were ‘perfect accomplices’ for ‘nauseating’ Peter Ball, IICSA hears
23 July 2018
PETER BALL found the “perfect cover” for his sex-offending in the Church of England, and the “perfect accomplices” in fellow bishops who turned a blind eye to his actions, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) has heard.
The details of the abuse carried out against vulnerable adults by Mr Ball, the disgraced former Bishop of Gloucester, during his ministry were heard on Monday at the start of a week-long hearing being conducted by IICSA, as part of its investigation into the extent to which the Anglican Church failed to protect children from child sex abuse.
The first hearing, in March, used the diocese of Chichester as a case study (News, 9 March). This week is to focus on the repeated failures of the police, Crown Prosecution Service, and the Church to identify, prevent, and prosecute abuse carried out by Ball over several decades, the lead counsel to the Anglican investigation, Fiona Scolding QC explained.
Ball received a three-year sentence in 2015, having admitted to a series of indecent assaults and the abuse of 18 young men aged 17-25 (News, 7 October 2015).
The offences included praying naked with vulnerable young people who had joined the monastic-community scheme Give a Year to God, which Ball had founded and run in Littlington, East Sussex, in the 1980s, when he was Bishop of Lewes.
Summarising the evidence received by the Inquiry, which included more than 100,000 documents, Ms Scolding said that Ball had admitted to being naked with, caressing, anointing, and physically assaulting young men, who would sleep in his house, sometimes in his bed, and with whom he would prayer naked, embrace, and masturbate. The victims were told that these practices were an expression of humiliation, penitence, and devotion to Christ.
One of his victims was the late Neil Todd, who was repeatedly abused during the 1980s and ’90s, and who later took his own life. His allegations brought about the police investigation in 1993, which resulted in Ball accepting a police caution, thereby admitting his guilt.
Ms Scolding also quoted several senior clerics who had held Ball in high esteem, most of whom had “flooded to defend him” after the police investigation and, latterly, his conviction. It had become clear in the Chichester hearing that abusers were required to “manipulate and charm” everyone around them, not just their victims, she said.
Among his defenders was Michael Ball, his twin brother and a former Bishop of Truro, who repeatedly urged Lambeth Palace to restore Peter Ball to ministry during the 2000s in what has been described in evidence as “manipulative” campaign which drew on connections with senior figures, including the Prince of Wales.
A lawyer representing six survivors of Ball, Richard Scorer QC, said that in the Church Ball had found the “perfect cover” for his offending.
“If a charlatan with an insatiable appetite for abuse wanted to secure a continuous supply of vulnerable young victims, there was no better way of achieving this than by founding a religious order not subject to any external supervision, and by making his victims participation in the abuse a religious duty obligated by their oath of absolute obedience.
“Not for the first time, theology and religious ritual provided the ideal mask for abuse, with the evil of what Peter Ball did being compounded by his nauseating claim that the abuse was spiritually uplifting.
“Most of all, however, Peter Ball found in his fellow bishops in the Church of England the perfect accomplices, prepared to turn a blind eye to his abuse over many decades, to collude in the lie that the abuse of Neil Todd was an uncharacteristic aberration, to cast doubt on his guilt, to smear his victims, and to rehabilitate him.”
Mr Scorer also criticised Prince Charles for not making efforts to check the position of Ball in 1993, after the bishop accepted a caution. “This extraordinary lack of curiosity looks like wilful blindness. . . He failed in that responsibility and therefore failed the victims.”
At the start of the hearing, the chair of the Inquiry, Professor Alexis Jay, expressed her disappointment at the “serious breach of confidence” after the content of a draft witness statement of Prince Charles was leaked to the press last week (News, 13 July).
The statement from Prince Charles had been disclosed to core participants on 9 July, Professor Jay said. “The panel is disappointed by the leaking of the draft statement. Deliberate leaking of information to the media before evidence is made public by the Inquiry not only undermines the ability of the Inquiry to get to the truth, but can also erode confidence in the Inquiry at all levels.”
Sussex police documents, released under an Freedom of Information (FOI) request, indicate Ball associated with other sex offenders in the clergy and that he was investigated in 2008 for being part of a suspected paedophile ring.
You would expect that anybody with nothing to hide would be completely open and have no fear. This behaviour gives the appearance of someone feeling the need to hide something. It actually draws attention to what that ‘something’ could possibly be. Extremely odd.
LazerLight@Lazer_Light23
So, Inquiry has no power to insist on statements from anyone?
According to evidence given to iiCSA today, Peter Ball would spend an hour each day praying in the nude… next to an open window. He also watched young clergy take cold showers each morning.
InquiryCSA@InquiryCSA
Rev’d Graham Sawyer: Let me make this clear – the sexual abuse that I suffered at the hands of Peter Ball, pales into insignificance when compared to the cruel/sadistic nature metered out to me
Esther Baker@Esther9982
I do wonder if the lawyers acting for the CP’s ought to challenge the lawyers running the @InquiryCSA on the basis that they are now accepting the accused (and their reps) words rather than truth seeking as their powers allow?
Recent examples of this would be a) allowing royalty to not give pertinent evidence because he’s royalty. B) inaccurately issuing a statement that I am under investigation for PCJ, and only removing it at the insistence of the police – because an ex-MP said it so it must be true
Peter Ball was a governor of both Lancing College but also the wider Woodard Group, which is a group of Anglican boarding schools
Peter Ball appointed to the Anglican Scouting Fellowship
In January 1996 Lord Carey agreed that Ball should be permitted to preach at a public school, provided that the school were made aware of possible hostile press interest. He further agreed in March that Ball could conduct confirmations and preach at two more schools. Ball was still the President of the Anglican Fellowship in Scouting and Guiding 17 and the Archbishop agreed that he could attend their Annual General Meeting and celebrate the Eucharist at their headquarters in Gilwell
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Peter Ball developed a scheme called “Give a year to God”. He set this up informally with the approval of Bishop Kemp.
The Anglican Fellowship in Scouting and Guiding was formed in 1983. It is not clear when Ball’s involvement with the Fellowship came to an end. The Scout Association has advised that Ball was also
appointed to a subcommittee of the Association’s Board in 1983.
Robert John Alston, (right) retired British diplomat. Alston was educated at Ardingly College and New College, Oxford. He is Chairman of Governors at Ardingly College (2005 – 2010). He served as British Ambassador to Oman between (1986–1990)
Paul Righton attended Ardingly College from 1940 to 1944
Righton’s Ardingly College obituary – with mention of Richard D Alston (G1953-63)
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
“Evil bishop drove me to suicide”- Telegraph article about Ball’s abuse was published 14 Mar 1993 in the Sunday Telegraph
If he didn’t know, he’s hardly fit to be King …
2006 Prince Charles and Camilla with evil Bishop Ball
Richard Scorer: My clients accept the Prince of Wales (Prince Charles) has many interactions with Church of England clergy. However our clients do not accept that he claims he was not aware that a caution means an acceptance of guilt.
Scorer claims senior leaders in the Church knew of Peter Ball’s offending but Lambeth Palace did not hand over letters to police:http://ow.ly/M5yK30l4wJe
Mr William Chapman: There’s a reluctance to trust the secular authorities to handle the matter and a willingness to forgive and reintegrate Peter Ball, no matter what he’d done
Elizabeth Hall, Nat Safeguarding Advisor, recommending a further review of Peter Ball information which should involve trying to find all files/documents
Both Michael Ball and brother Peter Ball were not shy about using the name of the Prince of Wales to seek to influence others. Bishop Michael Ball wrote to Lord Carey in Dec 1992 saying that his brother was receiving support from 2 Cabinet Ministers and Prince Charles Peter Ball often mention their friendship.
On 8 March 1993 Peter Ball received a caution for one count of gross indecency against Neil Todd. He resigned immediately. Peter Ball alleged to the Church of England shortly that he either did not wish to resign, and accepted a caution to avoid a trial.
“This Inquiry has been provided with details of allegations made by a total of 32 individuals. These all relate to an alleged abuse of power by Peter Ball for the purposes of his sexual gratification.”
The former Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball was convicted of two offences of indecent assault, and an offence of misconduct
Peter Ball admitted when pleading guilty that he received sexual gratification from the deliberate manipulation of vulnerable young men, that the contact was consistent with grooming and that he abused his position as a Bishop in the Church of England
In January 1996, Ball was permitted by Archbishop Carey to preach at a particular public school and, to conduct confirmations at other specific schools later on in that year
(1) Why he was permitted to return to ministry in this fashion? (2) Why did no-one think to carry out some kind of risk assessment? (3) Whether or not senior clergy simply thought that Peter Ball’s pleas of innocence should be believed?
“I really appreciate your sympathetic understanding in preventing a scandal with a trial which would have affected the Royal family and establishments in this crucial time of turmoil within the Church of England.” Bishop Kemp comments on a 1990s investigation into Peter Ball
2006 Peter Ball former Bishop of Lewes with his good friends Prince Charles and Camilla at a memorial for her father Bruce Shand
Paedophile Peter Ball remained a confidant of Prince Charles right up until 2012
Although it took him time to accept the facts, the Prince has now cut the cleric out of his life. It was a difficult decision because Ball had become a spiritual advisor to the Prince
A risk assessment carried out by the Church in 2009 identified that Peter Ball could be identified as a sexual predator given the length and scale of his offending
Both Michael + Peter Ball were not shy about using the name of the Prince of Wales to seek to influence others. Bishop Michael Ball wrote to Lord Carey in Dec 1992 saying that his brother was receiving support from 2 Cabinet Ministers + the PoW. PB often mention their friendship.
Cassandra Cogno@CassandraCogno
Will we be told the 2 cabinet ministers didn’t understand a caution as an admission of guilt too? Or will they never be mentioned again
Gilo@seaofcomplicity:
That tiny handful of letters (I believe there were 2000+) shows the extent to which the great and the good brought undue influence to bear. Why write such letters … unless intending to influence judicial proceedings? There cannot be any other reason.
And Carey quietly sat on 6 letters from parents and victims – letters which had they gone to police in mid 90’s would almost certainly have led to prosecution. This was a cover-up involving lambeth palace archbishops, bishops, and other assorted figures.
Gibb Report said Lord Carey “set the tone for the Church’s response to Ball’s crimes and gave the steer which allowed Ball’s assertions that he was innocent to gain credence”. But will IICSA find anything more than this? In 5 days and with so few witnesses.
During his time in Lewes, Ball got to know Savile well and he was the bishop’s principal entree into the Waleses’ household
Peter Ball was propelled into the royal circle by two people, I understand. One was prebendary Willie Booth, a former chaplain at Westminster School, who’d taken over from Caesar. The other was Jimmy Savile.
During his time in Lewes, Ball got to know Savile well and he was the bishop’s principal entree into the Waleses’ household. After his appointment to Gloucester was announced, Ball became a regular visitor to Highgrove and was held in such high regard that Charles attended his enthronement.
Charles, meanwhile, must surely have been advised to keep Ball at arm’s length — just as he had been advised to distance himself from Jimmy Savile.
‘The Prince did receive letters from the public complaining about Savile,’ says a senior aide. ‘But the writers were dismissed [by him] as jealous or mad.’
Prince Charles kept in touch with ex-bishop later jailed for abuse
Prince told inquiry he was deceived by Peter Ball, who called him a ‘loyal friend’
20 July 2018
Prince Charles maintained contact with a former bishop who was later jailed for abusing young men and occasionally gave him money because he was deceived over the man’s crimes, he has told the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.
In a written submission to be read at the inquiry next week, the Prince of Wales has said he did not understand that Peter Ball’s caution for gross indecency in 1993 involved an admission of guilt, according to a report in the Times.
In the statement, described as a draft, Charles said he had “decades of correspondence” with Ball and occasionally sent him “small gifts of money, as I do for many people in need”.
The former bishop has described the prince as a “loyal friend”.
Ball was invited to give Communion at Highgrove, the prince’s home, preached at the funeral of Bruce Shand, the Duchess of Cornwall’s father, in 2006 and lived in a Duchy of Cornwall property from 1997 to 2011.
Charles said the bishop told him he had been involved in an “indiscretion” and that an individual with a grudge had been persecuting him.
The prince added: “I was certainly not aware at the time of the significance or impact of the caution … Whilst I note that Peter Ball mentioned the word in a letter to me in October 2009, I was not aware until recently that a caution in fact carries an acceptance of guilt.”
He expressed “deep personal regret” that he had been deceived by Ball.
Next week’s hearings at the inquiry are to investigate “whether there were inappropriate attempts by people of prominence to interfere in the criminal justice process after [Ball] was first accused of child sexual offences”.
Ball, 86, the former bishop of Gloucester, was sentenced to 32 months for charges relating to 18 teenagers and young men between the 1970s and 1990s when he was bishop of Lewes. He admitted one count of misconduct in public office and two counts of indecent assault relating to two young men.
Ball was first accused in 1993 by Neil Todd, who tried to kill himself three times as a result of his abuse, and went on to do so in 2012.
Sussex police investigated Todd’s claims, and six other victims came forward. But support flooded in for Ball from within the establishment and he was never charged. Instead he received a caution for gross indecency, resigned his post as bishop and was allowed by Carey to continue officiating at church services.
Last year, an independent review of the C of E’s handling of the Ball case, conducted by Dame Moira Gibb, found senior church figures colluded with the accused bishop over a 20-year period. The report said: “The church appears to have been most interested in protecting itself.”
George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, will also give evidence to the inquiry, in person and including cross-examination. He resigned his position as an honorary assistant bishop after being criticised in the Gibb report. His “permission to officiate” was reinstated earlier this year.
A Clarence House spokesperson said on Thursday: “IICSA has asked the Prince of Wales if he could help the part of their inquiry that deals with Mr Peter Ball. Whilst the prince made it clear that he was unaware of Mr Ball’s behaviour, he indicated that he was happy to volunteer context on his contact with Mr Ball if that would help.”
The spokesperson also referred to findings in the Gibb report, which said it had found no evidence “that the Prince of Wales or any other member of the royal family sought to intervene at any point in order to protect or promote Ball”.
The Rev Barry Kinsman or ‘Mr. Padstow’ as he was known locally was found dead in the sea off Padstow. Now why would a man of the cloth be worried about the coverage given to the Savile inquiry and of it spreading to Cornwall?
Barry Kinsmen may have known Jimmy Savile through the Ball brothers.
Kinsmen (Truro Diocesan Adviser in Religious Education (1979-95) would have known Bishop Michael Ball as Truro Bishop (and Peter Ball who was friends with Jimmy Savile) Peter Ball resigned as Bishop of Gloucester in 1993 after he received a police caution for gross indecency.
It has now emerged he replaced his identical twin Michael, then Bishop of Truro, at services and official duties on an unknown number occasions in the 1990s.
The Diocese of Truro has appealed for information from churchgoers to investigate what happened when the two men were together in Cornwall between 1993 and 1997.
Of course, affordable housing is always an important issue, but what did Kinsman know about abuse in Cornwall, after all he was a leading light at the Padstow Echo and a former head teacher.
Let’s stay in Padstow for a while because it’s such a nice place and home to eccentrics such as Ed Prynn and his ladyfriend Glynis, whose spiritual mentors were Billy Graham (friend of croaker Cliff Richard) and Jimmy Savile:
On March 5th, 1993, the paedophile Bishop Ball was notified by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that despite “sufficient admissible, substantial and reliable evidence”, it was prepared to deal with the matter out of court.
In October 1985 Daniel Bryant was pictured in the North Devon Journal receiving the British Empire Medal for services to youth from the Lord Lieutenant of Devon, the Earl of Morley, at a ceremony in Exeter.
Paedophile police officer Daniel Bryant brought to book FORTY years after abusing boys
He now faces jail after admitting abusing a string of boys in the 1960s, 70s and 80s
6 OCT 2013
Daniel Bryant served as a constable over three decades and was honoured for his youth work – but led a secret double life as a predatory pervert.
Russel first reported Bryant in 1987 but was told the allegations were uncorroborated, even though a second lad had also alleged abuse.
Bryant continued as a PC in Devon and Cornwall Police’s juvenile bureau for another five years until he was suspended when a third victim came forward in 1993.
Just a year later, aged 44, he retired on a medical pension on the grounds of ill health. He avoided prosecution until this year when he was finally charged.
Police surf club coach Danny Bryant took advantage of weekends away to commit abuse
On leaving the force Bryant became a leading figure in a club for the competitive sport of surf lifesaving, where he worked with many more children.
Bryant admitted ten indecent assaults, against five boys between 1969 and 1985, at Taunton Crown Court in August.
Russel was preyed on by Bryant after joining a police lifesaving club run by the pervert. Following one vile assault he quit the club but was tormented by flashbacks.
Gallingly, the following year Bryant was awarded the British Empire Medal for his youth work.
His family took out a private prosecution but police refused to reinvestigate until eventually a probe was launched in February. Bryant pleaded guilty.
Bryant helped run a Surf Life Saving GB club affiliated at Saunton Sands in the 1980s when Russel Dawson said he was abused a number of times.
Esther Pearson, chief executive of Surf Life Saving GB (SLSGB), said the organisation had been unaware of the allegations until it received a letter from Mr Dawson on 19 October last year.
A police officer continued to work with children at a force lifesaving club following accusations of child abuse, a BBC investigation has found.
Danny Bryant was jailed last November for abusing boys between 1974 and 1985, including at Devon and Cornwall Police Surf Life Saving Club.
Derek Fisher, the former police boss of Bryant and the then secretary of the Devon and Cornwall Police Surf Life Saving Club, told BBC Inside Out South West that he took action to remove Bryant immediately from the club in 1988 after an accusation was brought to his attention.
He said Bryant “took no further part in that club from that time on”.
However, BBC Inside Out has found evidence that Bryant was part of the club until 1993:
Devon and Cornwall Police correspondence in October 1989 showed Mr Fisher inviting Bryant to an award ceremony at the club
Further correspondence shows Bryant retained an organisational role in 1991
Minutes from 1992 show Bryant was listed as club captain
In the same year when Diana Princess of Wales opened the clubhouse, Bryant was part of the reception committee
In 1993, Bryant became the new chairman of Saunton Sands Surf Lifesaving Club after the original club was disbanded
Bryant also held a senior role with Surf Lifesaving GB until 2012 and in the previous year was awarded one of the sport’s highest accolades: Knight in the Order of Lifesaving.
Surf Lifesaving GB was aware of an accusation of assault in 1993, but said it was only told of another case in October 2012.
The case has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Nxivm: Nigel Havers’ step-daughter arrested over claims she funded secret ‘sex cult’ that branded women with symbol
Seagram heiress Clare Bronfman has been arrested on charges of racketeering conspiracy after allegedly using her fortune to help finance the group
25 July 2018
The step-daughter of actor Nigel Havers has been arrested over claims she funded a suspected US sex cult.
Investigators in America allege Seagram liquor heiress Clare Bronfman used her fortune to help finance the operations of Nxivm.
The 39-year-old is the daughter of Georgiana Bronfman, who is the Chariots of Fire star’s third wife.
Bronfman was arrested on Tuesday along with three others on charges of racketeering conspiracy.
She later appeared in a Brooklyn federal courtroom pleading not guilty to charges of running a criminal enterprise.
A judge ordered she be held under house arrest as the judge considered the prosecutor’s request for a $100 million bond.
Bronfman’s lawyer said her client “did nothing wrong”.
Her attorney, Susan Necheles, said in a statement that Nxivm was “not a criminal enterprise” but “an organisation that helped thousands of people”.
“The charges against Clare are the result of government overreaching and charging an individual with crimes just because the government disagrees with some beliefs taught by Nxivm and held by Clare,” Necheles said.
Nxivm co-founder Nancy Salzman, 64, her daughter, Lauren Salzman, 42, and the group’s 60-year-old bookkeeper, Kathy Russell, were also charged with racketeering conspiracy.
Six people have now been charged in the Nxivm inquiry, including 35-year-old actress Allison Mack, who starred in the TV show Smallville.
The US Department of Justice says all six committed “an array of crimes, including identity theft, extortion, forced labour, sex trafficking money laundering, wire fraud and obstruction of justice”.
They included Nicki Clyne, an actress who appeared on Battlestar Galactica, Bronfman’s sister Sara, a son of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and India Oxenberg, a daughter of Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg.
In an indictment, prosecutors said Mack, who played a teenage friend of Superman in the CW network’s Smallville, helped Raniere recruit women to a secret sub-society within NXIVM whose members were branded with a surgical tool with a symbol that resembled his initials.
Women were expected to be subservient to “masters”, prosecutors said, including giving in to demands for sex.
In February, Havers credited his wife for saving him from grief following the death of his second wife, Polly Williams.
The actor was happily married to Polly Williams for many years before her death from ovarian cancer in 2004 at the age of 54.
Despite criticism for years by ex-followers who called NXIVM a cult and a pyramid scheme, the organisation’s intense self-improvement classes had, at one point, earned it thousands of adherents, including some with Hollywood ties.
They included Nicki Clyne, an actress who appeared on Battlestar Galactica, Bronfman’s sister Sara, a son of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and India Oxenberg, a daughter of Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg.
In an indictment, prosecutors said Mack, who played a teenage friend of Superman in the CW network’s Smallville, helped Raniere recruit women to a secret sub-society within NXIVM whose members were branded with a surgical tool with a symbol that resembled his initials.
Women were expected to be subservient to “masters”, prosecutors said, including giving in to demands for sex.
In February, Havers credited his wife for saving him from grief following the death of his second wife, Polly Williams.
The actor was happily married to Polly Williams for many years before her death from ovarian cancer in 2004 at the age of 54.
The Bronfman family has very close ties to the Rothschild banking dynasty, with members of both families belonging to many of the same companies, including their joint financial firm, Bronfman & Rothschild.
At Bronfman & Rothschild, Donald Trump’s, the Clinton’s and Jeffrey Epstein’s friend, “Lady” Lynn Forester de Rothschild, is on the Board of Directors:
Edgar Bronfman Jr. is also in the “little black book” of paedo billionaire Jeffrey Epstein
Nigel Havers’ step-daughter, Clare Bronfman – her brother Edgar Bronfman Jr is in convicted billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s black book
The Havers family has a long history with paedophiles:
Nigel Havers’ father Lord Michael Havers tried to stop Geoffrey Dickens from naming Sir Peter Hayman
Brother of child abuse inquiry judge Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was accused of ‘cover up’
Late brother of Baroness Butler-Sloss, judge formerly in charge of Westminster child abuse inquiry, was attorney general who refused to prosecute paedophile spy Peter Hayman
Sir Michael Havers, the late brother of Baroness Butler-Sloss, was accused of a “white-wash” after he backed a decision not to prosecute Sir Peter Hayman.
Baroness Butler-Sloss, a former president of the Family Division of the High Court who led the inquest into the death of Princess Diana, has been appointed by Theresa May to lead an independent inquiry into allegations that child sex abuse was covered up by state bodies, the church, political parties and the BBC. The Home Office said she had “impeccable credentials”.
Elizabeth Butler Sloss covered up for Bishop Peter Ball
Elizabeth Butler Sloss, 1st IICSA chair, member of the establishment protected Bishop Peter Ball
Establishment ‘rallied to help ex-bishop later jailed for abuse’
Prince Charles and Lord Carey among powerful backers of Peter Ball, abuse inquiry told
23 July 2018
Members of the establishment, including the heir to the throne, the then archbishop of Canterbury and a senior member of the judiciary, rallied to the support of Peter Ball, a Church of England bishop accused of sexual abuse, an independent inquiry has heard.
“The story of Peter Ball is the story of the establishment at work in modern times,” said William Chapman, representing survivors. “It is the story of how the establishment minimised the nature of Peter Ball’s misdeeds … and silenced and harassed those who tried to complain.”
One survivor told the inquiry the C of E’s response to his disclosure of abuse amounted to “enduringly cruel and sadistic treatment”.
The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse is examining how the church handled allegations. A five-day hearing this week is scrutinising the church’s response to claims of sexual abuse against Ball, a former bishop of Lewes and then Gloucester, who was jailed in 2015.
Ball was able to call upon the “willing assistance of members of the establishment”, said Chapman. “It included the heir to the throne, the archbishop and a senior member of the judiciary, to name only the most prominent.”
Between them, they provided Ball with money and accommodation, legal advice, a private detective, references and approaches to the police and the prosecuting authorities.
“The alacrity and the extent of the response by Peter Ball’s friends to one of their own in trouble was impressive. It makes a horrible contrast to the way Peter Ball’s victims were treated,” Chapman said.
He told the inquiry: “These establishment helpers claim they were duped by Peter Ball … But you will have to consider if it is credible, given what they must have known or could easily have found out about Peter Ball, whether they were really as ignorant as they claimed they were about the nature of Peter Ball’s activities.
“Some claimed they did not know what a caution meant. Well, Prince Charles has many advisers; he only had to ask. So does the archbishop of Canterbury.”
Ball’s friends were willing to “add their weight” against the due criminal process. “They went far beyond the normal obligations of friendship.”
Allegations were first made against Ball in 1992, but he accepted a police caution and resigned his position as bishop. An independent review of the case commissioned by the C of E and published last year found evidence of collusion and a cover-up at the highest levels.
Richard Scorer, also representing survivors, said that Ball found in his fellow bishops the “perfect accomplices, prepared to turn a blind eye to his abuse over many decades”.
None bore greater responsibility than Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, Scorer said. “We fear that when we hear from him this week, the usual litany of excuses will be trotted out,” he said, adding that Carey must give a “transparent account of his actions”.
Prince Charles’s assertion that he did not understand the significance of a caution was “frankly astonishing”, he said. The prince has access to “the best legal advice that money can buy,” Scorer added.
The prince chose not to clarify the legal position. “To my clients, this extraordinary lack of curiosity looks like wilful blindness,” he said.
In her opening statement, Fiona Scolding, senior counsel to the inquiry, said that Ball’s “fall from grace was a huge shock to the church”.
She added: “He was a very senior clergyman with enormous spiritual authority. He also had power and charm.”
People inside and outside the church had attested to Ball’s charisma and oratorical brilliance. She said that power had been “further enhanced by his cultivation of influential friends both within and outside the church”.
As an example, Ball had told people after his arrest that four cabinet ministers had offered him a “bolthole from the press”.
“He did not stint from mentioning those friends in prominent places when he thought it would assist his cause,” Scolding added.
She told the hearing of a scheme set up by Ball for young men interested in religious life that gave him the opportunity to groom them for sexual abuse and exploitation. The men were encouraged to pray naked, and engage in massage and spanking. One, Neil Todd, who first made allegations against Ball, killed himself in 2012.
Scolding said that Ball, now 86, was too unwell to give evidence either at the inquiry or by video link. But in one of two statements he had submitted he made an apology and said he had “neither been open nor shown penitence in the past”.
The hearing heard from three survivors who described their abuse by Ball. One, the Rev Graham Sawyer, who has waived his right to anonymity, said: “The sexual abuse that was perpetrated on me by bishop Peter Ball pales into insignificance when compared to the enduringly cruel and sadistic treatment that has been meted out to me by officials, both lay and ordained, in the Church of England.”
He described the culture within Anglicanism as an “ecclesiastic protection racket – and anyone who seeks in any way to threaten the reputation of the church and institution has to be destroyed”.
Safeguarding should be taken out of the church’s hands he said, as “it cannot police itself with any credibility”.
At the start of proceedings, Alexis Jay, the chair of the inquiry, said she had ordered an investigation into the leaking to the media of the Prince of Wales’s letter.
She said the leak was a “very serious breach of confidence by someone with direct access to information in this investigation” and promised “firm action” should the source be uncovered.
Scolding said a suggestion reported by the Times that the timing of the statement, to be read on the final day of this week’s hearings, was to prevent the prince being called for cross-examination “could not be further from the truth”.
She said: “There is no requirement for him to attend in person as his evidence, whilst important, is not of central relevance to many of the issues raised by this case study.”
“within the records of the 1992 investigation…there are both oblique and direct references noting that Prince Charles or the royal family were interested inthe matter…there was also internal correspondence
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
If he didn’t know, he’s hardly fit to be King …
Richard Scorer: My clients accept the PoW has many interactions with Church of England clergy. However our clients do not accept that he claims he was not aware that a caution means an acceptance of guilt.
Scorer claims senior leaders in the Church knew of Peter Ball’s offending but Lambeth Palace did not hand over letters to police:http://ow.ly/M5yK30l4wJe
Mr William Chapman: There’s a reluctance to trust the secular authorities to handle the matter and a willingness to forgive and reintegrate Peter Ball, no matter what he’d done
Elizabeth Hall, Nat Safeguarding Advisor, recommending a further review of Peter Ball information which should involve trying to find all files/documents
Both Michael Ball and brother Peter Ball were not shy about using the name of the Prince of Wales to seek to influence others. Bishop Michael Ball wrote to Lord Carey in Dec 1992 saying that his brother was receiving support from 2 Cabinet Ministers and Prince Charles Peter Ball often mention their friendship.
On 8 March 1993 Peter Ball received a caution for one count of gross indecency against Neil Todd. He resigned immediately. Peter Ball alleged to the Church of England shortly that he either did not wish to resign, and accepted a caution to avoid a trial.
“This Inquiry has been provided with details of allegations made by a total of 32 individuals. These all relate to an alleged abuse of power by Peter Ball for the purposes of his sexual gratification.”
The former Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball was convicted of two offences of indecent assault, and an offence of misconduct
Peter Ball admitted when pleading guilty that he received sexual gratification from the deliberate manipulation of vulnerable young men, that the contact was consistent with grooming and that he abused his position as a Bishop in the Church of England
In January 1996, Ball was permitted by Archbishop Carey to preach at a particular public school and, to conduct confirmations at other specific schools later on in that year
(1) Why he was permitted to return to ministry in this fashion? (2) Why did no-one think to carry out some kind of risk assessment? (3) Whether or not senior clergy simply thought that Peter Ball’s pleas of innocence should be believed?
“I really appreciate your sympathetic understanding in preventing a scandal with a trial which would have affected the Royal family and establishments in this crucial time of turmoil within the Church of England.” Bishop Kemp comments on a 1990s investigation into Peter Ball
A risk assessment carried out by the Church in 2009 identified that Peter Ball could be identified as a sexual predator given the length and scale of his offending
Prince Charles gives evidence to inquiry into Peter Ball
The Prince of Wales says he was aware that Peter Ball, who lived in Aller, near Langport, had been given a police caution, but claims he did not realise it amounted to an admission of guilt.
Details of Prince Charles’s relationship with Ball will be revealed at an inquiry into the case on Friday.
The next in line to the throne had “decades of correspondence” with Ball and occasionally sent him “small gifts of money”, according to the draft copy of his statement to the inquiry, The Times has reported.
The statement will add that Ball confided in him in 2009 that he had been involved in an “indiscretion” years previously, which he blamed on a person with a grudge.
Peter Ball abuse inquiry requests statement from Prince Charles
Wed 06 Jun 2018
By Press Association
The Prince of Wales has been asked to give a witness statement to a public inquiry about a paedophile bishop who was jailed after abusing young men.
Peter Ball was sentenced to 32 months in 2015 for a string of offences between the 1970s and 1990s, and the handling of allegations against him is now being examined by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
At a hearing on Wednesday, counsel to the inquiry Fiona Scolding QC said that statements had been requested from the prince and his principal private secretary.
According to a transcript posted on the inquiry website, she said: “We have also requested a witness statement from both His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and his principal private secretary.
“The Prince’s solicitors have indicated their client’s willingness to assist us and have raised a number of important issues for us to consider.
“This has led to lengthy and complex discussions and we are currently considering the latest points they have raised. We hope to be able to provide an update to core participants on this in the next couple of weeks.”
Charles had exchanged a series of letters with Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester, whose diocese covers Highgrove, the prince’s country home.
A spokesman for the prince told the Daily Mail last year that the correspondence contained nothing of relevance to the clergyman’s offending.
Lawyer Richard Scorer from Slater and Gordon, who is representing complainants at the IICSA, said: “It is imperative that the inquiry leaves no stone unturned in its efforts to establish how Peter Ball was able to evade justice for two decades.
“If this means calling Prince Charles and other prominent establishment figures as witnesses then the inquiry should do so without fear or favour.”
George Bell was ‘fond’ of paeodophile bishop Peter Ball and sponsored him for ordination, an inquiry has heard.
As former bishop of Chichester, Bell is considered one of Anglicanism’s heroes. However, it emerged in 2015 the Church of England paid £16,800 to the woman, known as Carol, in a legal settlement after she accused Bell of sexually abusing her as a child.
Now it can be revealed Peter Ball, who was jailed for a string of sex offences against teenagers and young men in 2015, was close friends with Bell.
Bishop Ball sentenced to 32 months in prison but served only 16 months.
Ball was initially rejected in his attempt to become a priest in 1951 but Bell wrote to the selection panel in support of Ball’s application.
When Ball applied for ordination a second time it was Bell who sponsored him through the process.
In his witness statement to an inquiry investigating child sex abuse within the Church of England, Ball denied that Bell had ‘overruled’ the selection board allowing him to be ordained.
However he said that after his ordination Bell would visit his parish to take services, adding he was ‘aware that he was “fond” of me’.
In response to a question about Bell’s involvement in his ordination, Ball told the inquiry: ‘It is not right therefore to say that Bishop Bell “overruled” the selection board in order for me to be ordained.
Courtesy of Jimmy JamesBishop George Bell is an iconic figure for the Church of England and was bishop of Chichester from 1929 to 1958.
‘Although Bishop Bell had indicated in 1951 in a letter to the first Selection Board who did not recommend me for ministry that he would be “prepared to accept me for ordination” even though the Selection Board had not recommend me for training at that time, that is not how matters proceeded.’
He went on: ‘After theological college, it was Bishop Bell ultimately who did sponsored [sic] me for ordination, but with the approval of the Selection Board. Bishop Bell then placed me in the parish of Rottingdean where I undertook my first curacy.
‘He would visit my curacy on occasion to carry out confirmations and to take services.
‘We had a good working relationship; I was aware that he was “fond” of me. He was someone who I looked up to when I was a young curate starting out in the Church.’
Bell, who died in 1958, was revered by Anglicans before the abuse allegations against him emerged. However a report earlier this year heavily criticised the Church’s handling of the accusations and found it ‘rushed to judgement’ and failed to give proper consideration to Bell’s rights.
But the archbishop of Canterbury refused to back down and said a ‘significant cloud is left over his name’.
Ball went on to become bishop of Lewes in the diocese of Chichester and then bishop of Gloucester. He was accused of gross indecency against a 16-year-old in 1992 but escaped with a police caution after he received backing from a member of the Royal Family and a number of other establishment figures. He was told to step down from his role as a bishop. However he continued to minister in churches and schools until 2010 before he was eventually arrested.
At the age of 83 he was sentenced to 32 months for misconduct in public office and 15 months for indecent assaults in 2015. He was released after serving 16 months.
The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse has been investigation how the diocese of Chichester handled allegations of child sexual abuse as a case study for the wider Church of England.
In his concluding remarks today solicitor David Greenwood said the CofE was more ‘malign’ than the Catholic Church in its response to abuse and accused it of ‘a conscious effort to treat survivors badly’.
The archbishop of Canterbury in his evidence said he had ‘learnt to be ashamed again of the Church’ and warned child sexual abuse would ‘destroy the Church’ if not addressed.
Ex-Archbishop ‘faces probe into Church sex abuse cover-up’: George Carey accused of ‘colluding’ with senior clergy to protect jailed bishop
05 Mar 2018
The former Archbishop of Canterbury could face a police probe over claims the Church covered up the activities of a sex abuse bishop, it was reported last night.
George Carey was last year accused in a report of ‘colluding’ with senior clergy to protect Bishop Peter Ball.
Ball, who groomed and abused 18 vulnerable men from 1977 and 1992, was allegedly not added to a list of questionable ministers in 1993 that enabled him to carry on working.
Bishop Peter Ball, who groomed and abused 18 vulnerable men from 1977 and 1992, was allegedly not added to a list of questionable ministers in 1993 that enabled him to carry on working
Even though the Metropolitan Police has not started a criminal investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is discussing whether to press charges against Lord Carey, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Prosecutors are said to be reading a 70-page report by Dame Moira Gibb, which was released last summer, in order to decide whether to prosecute.
A spokesman for Operation Hydrant – the investigation into historical allegations of child abuse – said: ‘The matters under consideration are complex, and advice is currently being sought from CPS to understand whether anything contained within the report suggests criminal offences have been committed.
‘This does not equate to a criminal investigation being underway.’ Solicitor David Greenwood, who has represented several of Ball’s victims, criticised the length of time prosecutors were taking.
He said: ‘What’s taking the CPS so long? It’s a 70-page report which was published nine months ago.’ Ball, a former suffragan bishop of Lewes, was let off with a 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. Last summer the report into the scandal by Dame Moira, titled Abuse of Faith, described the Church’s handling of the scandal as ‘lamentable’.
It found Mr Carey ‘colluded’ with senior clergy to protect Ball. The 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.
Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, urged his predecessor 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.
In a Christmas letter last year, Lord Carey attacked his successor Mr Welby for commenting on his handling of allegations against Ball. The 82-year-old lashed out at the ‘unjust’ request for him to step down over his supposed failings 24 years ago.
The news comes as the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse prepares to begin today. The inquiry will spend three weeks analysing the actions of the Anglican Church, and is expected to hear from Mr Welby. A spokesman for the Church of England said it would always cooperate with police, but declined to comment.
A spokesman for the Carey family also declined to comment.
George Carey allowed church role despite part in abuse cover-up
Former archbishop of Canterbury was criticised in report into abuse by Peter Ball
13 July 2018
George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury who was heavily criticised in an independent report for his part in the cover-up of sexual abuse carried out by a bishop, has been allowed to resume an official role in the Church of England.
Lord Carey stepped down last year as an honorary assistant bishop at the unprecedented request of Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, after a damning report which found the church had colluded over the abuse.
But it emerged this week that Carey has been granted “permission to officiate” (PTO) by Steven Croft, the bishop of Oxford, allowing him to preach and preside at churches in the diocese. Croft is reportedly under police investigation for allegedly failing to respond properly to a separate report of clerical sexual abuse.
The decision to grant the PTO was made in February despite expectations of further revelations this month about Carey’s role in the case of Peter Ball, a former bishop of Gloucester, at the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA).
The inquiry will spend a week scrutinising the C of E’s handling of the Ball case, starting on 23 July. Ball was jailed in 2015 for the grooming, sexual exploitation and abuse of 18 vulnerable young men between 1977 and 1992. Prince Charles has been asked to give a witness statement to the inquiry about his correspondence with Ball.
Carey, who was archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, resigned his honorary post after the publication of an independent report on the Ball case by Dame Moira Gibb.
She concluded that senior figures in the church had “colluded [with the abuser] rather than seeking to help those he had harmed”. She said: “The church appears to have been most interested in protecting itself.”
Carey had “set the tone for the church’s response to Ball’s crimes, and gave the steer which allowed Ball’s assertions that he was innocent to gain credence”, said Gibb.
The former archbishop responded to the report, saying it made “uncomfortable reading” and that he accepted its criticisms of him.
In February this year, Carey contacted the diocese of Oxford to request a PTO, which was granted by Croft. It followed letters from members of the congregation where Carey worships that requested he be allowed to resume ministry at their church.
A spokesperson for the diocese of Oxford said: “The granting of PTO enabled Lord Carey to preach and preside in the church where he worships, a church where his ministry is much valued. The granting of a PTO does not indicate a planned return to the role of assistant bishop.”
It is understood that Carey underwent fresh checks on his criminal record and C of E safeguarding training.
The church’s national safeguarding team was not consulted on whether the PTO should be granted.
A survivor of abuse by Ball said he was extremely concerned to learn that Carey had been granted a PTO. “It’s a real stab in the back for Ball survivors,” he said, adding that it would have been prudent to wait until further evidence had been heard by IICSA.
Croft is one of several senior church figures, including John Sentamu, the archbishop of York, who are reportedly being investigated by South Yorkshire police over alleged failures to act on disclosures of an alleged rape of a teenage boy by a clergyman in the 1980s. The force declined to confirm or deny an investigation was under way.
Matthew Ineson claims he was raped by the Rev Trevor Devamanikkam, and in 2012 and 2013 reported the crime to senior figures in the church, including Croft. He alleges they failed to follow proper procedures and did not advise him to tell police.
Devamanikkam was later charged with indecent assault and buggery without consent, but killed himself in 2017 before coming to trial.
A spokesperson for the diocese of Oxford said: “Written records and notes taken at the time give a different picture to the one Mr Ineson is presenting about how his case has been handled.”
An independent review had been commissioned by the C of E’s national safeguarding team, the spokesperson said.
Ineson told the Guardian: “Steven Croft may disagree about the wording of my disclosures, but nonetheless accepts I did tell him of my abuse. No word of apology has ever been forthcoming for what I have been put through.
“Given the circumstances it is incredible that Croft is still in a position to decide whether PTO should be given to George Carey or anybody else who has been so involved in the dreadful case of Peter Ball or any other safeguarding case.”
PTOs are mostly granted to retired priests who wish to continue their ministry by preaching, taking communion and providing holiday or sickness cover to serving clergy. PTOs are granted at the discretion of the local bishop.
And he didnt even consult the National Safeguarding Team.
NST deal with all high profile cases. @Steven_Croft didn’t even consult them. Another failure. Bishop under investigation for safeguarding failures gives PTO to a bishop under investigation for safeguarding failures etc
If anyone has doubts about @Steven_Croft poor safeguarding record, have a look at the independent Scie safeguarding audit on Sheffield diocese covering Crofts time-scary reading. Add to that my case & now he gives PTO back to Carey who had to resign cos of the Peter Ball cover up
Revd Canon John Rees with Archbishop Welby
Gilo @seaofcomplicity
This is just plain weird that Archbishop Welby’s provincial registrar kept such conflict-of-interest hidden. Not good. Whole structure needs reform if CofE legal officers can do this?
Legal advisor to the worldwide Anglican Consultative Council is Canon John Rees – chaplain to the Queen. His first curacy was in a parish in Yorkshire where he was trianied by parish priest Rev Trevor Devamanikkam – Ineson’s abuser. Small world!
Canon Rees said he was “deeply honoured” to become a Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II
England: Anglican legal advisor named Queen’s Chaplain
March 17, 2014
The legal adviser to the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) and Provincial Registrar for the Archbishop of Canterbury has been appointed as a Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II.
Canon Rees is currently Registrar for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Diocesan Registrar for Oxford, Legal Adviser to the ACC (since 1995) and Senior Partner of Winckworth Sherwood – Vice-Chair of the Legal Advisory Commission of the C of E, an honorary Provincial Canon of Canterbury Cathedral.
His primary employer Winckworth Sherwood – described as a lawyer who, “specialises in ecclesiastical, educational and charity law and has a wealth of experience in advising on charity constitutions for national and international bodies; financial structures; disciplinary issues, subsidiary companies and asset management; press handling issues. As well as the full range of freehold and leasehold, registered and unregistered matters; and all types of ancillary issues e.g. rights of way; complicated redevelopment schemes, title investigations, contaminated land remediation issues, boundary disputes, unusual property matters such as dealing with consecrated land, burials and exhumation.”
Now the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is discussing with Scotland Yard detectives whether to pursue criminal charges against Lord Carey, the Telegraph understands.
The Metropolitan Police said it had not launched an official criminal investigation into Lord Carey. A spokesman for the Carey family declined to comment.
Sex abuse bishop Peter Ball and brother seek Catholic switch
06 December 2017
A former bishop jailed for sex offences and his twin brother have said they are looking to join the Catholic Church to “live and worship in anonymity”.
Peter Ball, who is now 85, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences against 18 teenagers and men.
The former Bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester carried out the abuse between the 1970s and 1990s.
Ball’s identical twin and former bishop Michael Ball said in an email events had “wearied and reduced us”.
In the email, mistakenly sent from Michael Ball to BBC South East’s Colin Campbell among others, the brothers said having been “battered by the Church” they would be looking to join the Roman Catholic Church.
They said they would like to “end our days in a church where we can live and worship in anonymity and without constant fear”.
The BBC contacted Michael Ball about the email and he said a move to the Catholic Church was “a possibility”.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton said in a statement: “We confirm that Peter Ball has been in contact with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton, in which diocese he now lives, expressing an interest in becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“This matter is subject to discussions between Clifton Diocese and the statutory authorities, who are the lead with regards to Peter Ball’s risk management in the community.”
Dame Moira said he had received seven letters from families and individuals following the arrest and cautioning of Ball in 1992 for gross indecency – when he stood down as Bishop of Gloucester – but failed to pass six of them to the police.
Lord Carey had also failed to put Ball on the the “Lambeth List” which names clergymen whose suitability for ministry had been questioned.
Dame Moira also heard Bishop Michael Ball allowed his brother to attend functions in his place, even after his resignation, and on one occasion Peter Ball had introduced himself as his brother.
In 1994 Michael Ball campaigned to Lord Carey to return his brother to the ministry, with one bishop calling the brothers’ activities “manipulative”, Dame Moira reported .
Between 1995 and 1997, with Lord Carey’s backing. Peter Ball returned to church ministry, eventually undertaking duties such as confirmations.
After a series of investigations Balls’ ministry ceased in 2011, Dame Moira reported.
Former Bishop of Truro Michael Ball and his paedophile ex-bishop twin Peter want to become Catholics so they can live in anonymity
8 DEC 2017
Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, has asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol, a spokesman for the Church confirmed.
His identical twin brother Michael Ball, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997, also sent an email to friends telling them of the idea.
From the email…”The events of the last years and rightly or wrongly the battering by the Church have totally wearied and reduced us.
“We will probably be joining the Roman Catholic Church soon.
…Michael Ball’s complaint of taking a “battering” from the Church was “flippant” and it was “disgusting” the pair were acting as though they were the victims.
A spokesman for the Roman Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton said: “We confirm that Peter Ball has been in contact with the Roman Catholic diocese of Clifton, in which diocese he now lives, expressing an interest in becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“This matter is subject to discussions between Clifton diocese and the statutory authorities, who are the lead with regards to Peter Ball’s risk management in the community.
Disgraced paedophile former bishop Peter Ball with close friend Prince Charles
Peter Ball’s sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault.
The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey resigned as honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford after the public inquiry into child sex abuse last year heard he delayed a “proper investigation” into Peter Ball’s crimes for two decades by failing to pass information to police.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Now it has emerged the Archbishop of Canterbury’s headquarters received at least six letters from other alleged victims detailing “potentially criminal” and “totally inappropriate behaviour” by Peter Ball in the early 1990s but did not pass them on to police until years later.
“The Church appears to have resorted to staggering levels of deceit in order to prevent the true extent of Ball’s offending coming to light,” said Richard Scorer, a solicitor who is representing victims of Peter Ball.
Details of the letters, all sent to the Church between December 1992 and February 1993, reveal that Peter Ball encouraged victims to pray naked, perform sex acts in front of him and share his bed.
Anglican officials who reviewed the letters in 2009 suggested that, had such evidence been given to detectives in 1993, Peter Ball may have been convicted of serious sexual offences rather than merely cautioned.
But instead of being made public, the letters were kept in confidential files at Lambeth Palace.
It was not until 2012, after several internal inquiries, that the Church finally released documents to police.
An independent review is also currently under way into the way the Church of England responded to the case involving Peter Ball.
Church knew about allegations before Cornish preacher went on to abuse boys, investigation reveals
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling
25 MAY 2018
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009
A leading figure in the Church of England in Cornwall went on to commit child sex offences for several years after allegations about his behaviour with young boys were raised with the diocese and not acted upon, an official investigation has revealed.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released today, says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
After the first allegations of Dowling abusing boys at a North Cornwall school where he taught were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions – because of a lack of corroborative evidence – the then Bishop of Truro Maurice Key wrote: “I suppose the problem will now be to find him some other work”.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
The report’s author said the lack of action by the diocese allowed Dowling to gain credibility and authority.
“Because they didn’t take it any further it enabled Jeremy Dowling to reach a position where he made up his own rules, and his position within the church lent him credibility and authority,” said Dr Andy Thompson, an academic, magistrate and member of the Diocesan Council.
The Bishop of St Germans, Rt Revd Dr Chris Goldsmith, apologised for the lack of action and the suffering that resulted.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released on Friday (May 25), says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
One of the leaders who was named in the report was Michael Ball, 86, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997. The Right Reverend Ball told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations about Dowling but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
His identical twin, Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences dating back to the 1970s against 18 young men at his home in East Sussex.
His sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault. The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Last year the brothers decided they wanted to become Catholics so they could live in anonimity. Peter Ball asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol and both said they wanted to switch faith from the Church of England so they could “live and worship in anonymity” within the Catholic Church.
Former Bishop of Truro was Michael Ball, twin brother of convicted paedophile/friend of the royal family and Jimmy Savile – Bishop Peter Ball.
Jeremy Dowling
The Right Reverend Michael Ball – Bishop of Truro from 1990-97 – told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
BIG SOCIETY: Pictured above, with Prime Minister David Cameron and North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson, are Co-founder of Community Action Through Sport (CATS) and volunteer Denise Jane May, CATS trustee and volunteer Jeremy Dowling, CATS Project Development Manager Karen Hemmings, CATS Project Development Assistant Louise Anne Harris and CATS trustee and volunteer Sharon Caroline Marshall.
Ex Truro Diocese worker Jeremy Dowling sexually abused boys
5 June 2015
An ex-Diocese of Truro press officer has admitted sexually abusing boys over a period of more than 10 years.
Jeremy Dowling, 76, carried out the assaults on five children, aged between 12 and 15, from 1959 to 1971.
Truro Crown Court heard Dowling abused the boys at sporting events and in toilets while working as a teacher in Devon.
The Bishop of Truro described Dowling’s offences as “deeply shocking” and said his thoughts were with the victims.
Sentencing was adjourned until July 10 for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.
Dowling, of Church Path, Bude, retired from the Diocese of Truro in 2009 after 25 years of service.
‘Damaging impact’
He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault on boys aged 12 to 15 and two counts of indecency with a child.
The court heard one assault was carried out on a boy at a cricket match. Others took place in an attic, in storage rooms at a sporting pavilion and in outside toilets.
The Right Reverend Tim Thornton, Bishop of Truro, said many people would have known Dowling as a reader at St Michael’s Church and St Genny’s Church in Bude and as a member of the Diocesan and General Synods.
Bishop Thornton said: “Offences like this will have a damaging and lasting impact on people’s lives.
Former Cornwall preacher Jeremy Dowling ‘assaulted boy’
The assaults happened when Jeremy Dowling was a lay preacher at two churches in the Bude area of Cornwall, Truro Crown Court was told.
Mr Dowling met the boy when he was 10 through church activities and “took him under his wing”.
He has denied six counts of indecent assault on a child and two counts of gross indecency with a child.
The assaults happened in the 1970s before Mr Dowling became a press spokesman for the Diocese of Truro, the court heard.
‘Long time ago’
Jo Martin, prosecuting, said some of the assaults took place at Mr Dowling’s house after the boy had been invited for dinner and on one occasion he was taken to a church on the north coast.
She said Mr Dowling took him up a tower and showed him the view, then took him to a room and assaulted him.
The alleged victim did not tell anyone when he was a child but later, when he was married, told his wife about the assaults.
He said when his wife rang up Mr Dowling, accusing him of being a paedophile, Mr Dowling replied “that was a long time ago”.
He said he eventually went to the police after reading in news reports that Mr Dowling had admitted abusing five boys when he was a teacher at a private school in the 1960s.
Mr Dowling is currently serving a jail term for those offences.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
Former Archbishop of Canterbury could face police probe into whether he broke the law by covering up for a paedophile bishop
Police are considering a formal inquiry into Church of England’s former leader
Lord Carey, 82, could face being interviewed under caution in investigation
Rev Peter Ball indecently assaulted 18 boys and young men from 1977 to 1992
Former leaders could face criminal charges for not passing on abuse complaints
25 November 2017
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, could face a police investigation into whether he broke the law by covering up for a paedophile bishop.
Officers are understood to be considering a formal inquiry to determine whether the former leader of the Church of England and other senior church officials should face criminal charges over their failure to pass on sex abuse complaints made against ex-bishop Peter Ball.
Such an investigation would be highly controversial and may involve 82-year-old Lord Carey being interviewed under caution.
Sources say police are collecting evidence and scrutinising a scathing Church of England report commissioned by the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
It concludes that senior church figures ‘colluded’ to protect Ball and says the decision by Lambeth Palace not to pass the complaints to police ‘must give rise to a perception of deliberate concealment’.
Lawyers representing victims of Ball, who have called for a police investigation, believe the former Archbishop could face a charge of misconduct in a public office, for which the maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
Ball, a friend of the Prince of Wales, (and other members of the royal family) was jailed for 32 months in 2015 after indecently assaulting 18 boys and young men between 1977 and 1992 in one of the biggest scandals ever to rock the Church of England.
It has been claimed, however, that he might have been convicted more than 20 years earlier had Lord Carey and his staff at Lambeth Palace not withheld from the police six letters making other claims about his behaviour. The letters were sent in by members of the public after allegations against Ball surfaced in the 1990s. Ball was arrested and subsequently resigned as Bishop of Gloucester in 1993.
But his only punishment at that time was a caution for gross indecency for molesting a teenage monk and he was later allowed a licence to work as a retired priest.
Peter Ball, pictured with Prince Charles, was jailed for 32 months in 2015 after indecently assaulting 18 boys and young men between 1977 and 1992
Last year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Anglican officials who had privately reviewed the case suggested that had the letters been given to detectives in 1993, Ball may have been convicted of serious sexual offences.
The report commissioned by Archbishop Welby, published this summer, concluded that the ‘greatest failure’ of the handling of the case was the ‘management’ of the correspondence, in which Lord Carey was ‘significantly involved’.
Lord Carey strongly denies any cover-up or collusion. His supporters have also argued that Ball could still have received a caution in 1993 even if Lambeth Palace had handed the letters to the authorities.
David Greenwood, the head of the child abuse department at Switalskis solicitors and who represents a number of victims of Peter Ball, said the failure to pass them on provided ‘reasonable grounds’ for the Metropolitan police to open a formal investigation.
The Met and Lord Carey both declined to comment.
Lord Carey is already facing questioning next year by the Government’s independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.
The court heard that police documents in the 1990s revealed they received telephone calls of support for the disgraced bishop from dozens of people, including MPs, former public school headmasters, magistrates and a judge. In addition, his defence team claimed to have more than ‘two thousand letters of support… including letters from cabinet ministers and Royal Family,’ said prosecutor Bobbie Cheema-Grubb QC at the Old Bailey.
Keith Porteous Wood, National Secular Society executive director, commented: “Such volumes could not have been achieved without an huge orchestrated campaign. Copies of the letters should be examined, as complete a list as possible of writers and callers obtained, particularly for those of high profile as their support would have been especially influential. It should be established whose idea this was, who masterminded it and who carried it out.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has recently commissioned an independent review of how the Church dealt with the allegations, but the National Secular Society has expressed concerns that the review will not have the scope required to establish the full extent of wrongdoing.
Speaking after sentence was handed down, Mr Wood said: “Much more important than Ball’s sentence is that this case has demonstrated the power the Church which has even recently bullied victims into silence and sought to curry favour with the law to let off perpetrators, or let them off lightly and impose reporting restrictions.
“Ball’s case is a disgraceful catalogue of the legal system letting him off at every juncture. Just last month, two serious charges were inexplicably ordered to ‘lay on the court file’ – presumably to be ignored at least until Ball becomes too old or unfit to stand trial, a ruse he has already tried.
“Abuse victims’ lives are often ruined by the abuse, they are much more likely to be substance abusers and vulnerable to suicidal impulses. One of Ball’s victims, Neil Todd, killed himself and another, Graham Sawyer of Briercliffe, said that he had wished at times that he were dead. He was adamant that ‘people at the highest levels of the Church are more concerned with ‘saving face’.”
Mr Wood said there were numerous examples of this evident in Ball’s case alone.
“Evidence abounds of an institutional culture of intimidation of victims, in effect compounding the abuse, robbing the victims of justice, and not just allowing the perpetrator to escape justice, but enabling them to continue the abuse.
“The extent to which the Church’s attitude has changed is as yet unclear. Several survivors were recently reported to have been told by Paul Butler, Bishop of Durham (responsible for dealing with abuse), that ‘the Church was too busy working on banking reform’ to have time for abuse responses, and his statement when Ball pleaded guilty was perfunctory, given the depth of the Church’s complicity and the extent to which that had increased the suffering of victims. Sawyer maintains that Bishop Butler ‘is out of his depth, and should step aside’.
Moira Gibb Report on the Church of England and convicted paedophile Bishop Ball:
25 June 2017
The report of Dame Moira Gibb into the Church of England’s handling of the abusive bishop Peter Ball makes shocking reading. It reveals a concern for appearance over reality, for the institution over the individual and, most of all, for the strong and powerful over the weak and vulnerable. From the moment the first victims came forward, the response of the church up to the highest level was one of institutional self-protection.
The complaint was not reported to the police, but only to the archbishop of Canterbury, then George Carey, who persisted long past the point of reason in hoping that his colleague was innocent.The police were not told until after the first victim to come forward, Neil Todd, had attempted suicide twice – and even then it was his parents and not the church who made the complaint. The diocese of Gloucester hired a former policeman to investigate, and if possible discredit, the witnesses.
After news of Bishop Ball’s arrest broke, Lambeth Palace received seven independent accusations about his earlier behaviour. Two were seen by Archbishop Carey, who replied to them personally. Only one of the seven, though, was passed to the police, and that the least damning. Lord Carey’s message to the diocese after Bishop Ball was arrested urged prayers for the bishop and said nothing about victims. After Bishop Ball had retired on spurious grounds of ill health and accepted a caution – though remaining in denial about his crimes – Lord Carey worked to have him rehabilitated. True, he did so with less ingenuity than Peter Ball’s identical twin Michael, himself a bishop, who has admitted allowing his twin to deputise for him at “one or two events”, even after his disgrace.
Lord Carey nevertheless gave Peter Ball £12,000 from church funds, leading to loud complaints from the brothers, who had wanted £20,000. He deliberately kept Peter Ball’s name off the Lambeth blacklist of unemployable clergy; he had the disgraced bishop to stay at Lambeth Palace twice; he attempted to find him work in South Africa (writing to Desmond Tutu for this scheme) and in prisons; he wrote to an American parish that “Peter was possibly the victim of a plot but that, of course, cannot be proved”. Lord Carey’s only objection to a full rehabilitation of Bishop Ball as a retired bishop was that it might provoke unfavourable publicity.
This was disgraceful, and the result has been a deserved disgrace. But it was part of a culture of privilege, power and make-believe that corrupted more than one bishop. Lord Carey’s successor, Rowan Williams did nothing to help Bishop Ball but very little and very slowly to hinder him either.
In 1993 the CPS agreed to issue Ball with a caution, rather than prosecute, after the personal intervention of then-Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.
Alun:
In no way would I wish to influence the decision about Bishop Ball. No? But you did so pull the other one next time!
Alun:
I have only 2 explanations for this: 1) Carey condones abuse, or 2) he was protecting a friend of Bishop Ball.
Dr Andrew Watt@DrAndrewWatt
It’s important to know if Prince of Wales helped Ball. cf
Goddard inquiry: Outrage as bishop Peter Ball jailed for sex offences given public funding for legal team
30 July 2016
A lawyer close to the inquiry said: “I was really surprised Ball was given funding. The issue is about how he was allowed to get away with it by the Church not about his offending. He has already been investigated and pleaded guilty.”
Bishop Peter Ball, convicted, to Enoch Powell, fascist and alleged satanist and child abuser:
Peter Ball sending the love of God to Enoch and Pam! What a mistake!
Further evidence of close relationship between godly convict Bishop Ball and ‘Rivers of Blood’ Enoch:
Oh, just remind me again who were Enoch’s two aides and buddies! Ah, yes. Proctor and Denby!
Denby – Powell aide on the run
It is thought the armed hold up incident in Down St not far from MI5 offices, may have been linked to Ulster Loyalist terrorist organisations. The following day, Denby phoned an old friend – far right Tory MP Harvey Proctor – and told him he was going abroad.
Denby is said to have visited Ulster several times.
A specialist on shipping law, Denby visited both Iran and Iraq,
He is also alleged to have twice broken into the home of a former senior partner to search for private papers and to have falsified information to a building society so he could extend the mortgage on his Islington home.
Interesting that Barbara Hewson says satanic sexual abuse doesn’t exist while her cousin worked for Enoch Powell who is accused of just that
Why does the Gin Goblin so categorically deny the existence of satanic child abuse like this in Proctor’s home county?
Satanism in Sussex
LazerLight @Lazer_Light23
‘Four months earlier, in the weeks before Christmas, someone had visited churches in Lewes and smashed the model nativity scenes, tearing the heads off the plaster figures.’
Interesting that Enoch Powell corresponded both with Ball and Montagu who were both let off the hook by Skelhorn.
Can you see what it is yet?
Rev Peter Ball was one of many to correspond with Enoch. Others included Atkinson friend Tonypandy, another alleged abuser.
MI5 knew of cover-up over Cyril Smith child abuse, inquiry hears
9 Oct 2017
MI5 knew the country’s chief prosecutor had covered up a sex abuse inquiry into Cyril Smith but did nothing because it was not its job to expose paedophiles, an inquiry has heard.
Files released by the intelligence agency show it was aware that the Director of Public prosecutions (DPP) had lied to a newspaper over its decision not to prosecute Smith. But it decided not to make the information public because its duty was to ‘defend the realm’ rather than to expose a prominent politicians accused of being a paedophile.
The disclosure came during the first day of hearings into how Smith, the former Liberal MP, was able to abuse boys at Cambridge House hostel and Knowl View residential school in Rochdale. Smith died in 2010, having never faced prosecution.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) last night released an MI5 briefing note which showed how Sir Thomas Hetherington, the then DPP, had lied to a local newspaper about the existence of a 1970 police inquiry into allegations of gross indecency made against Smith.
Had the DPP admitted Smith had been under investigation, it would have led to a new inquiry and Smith being put on trial in his lifetime.
Hetherington had called a legal adviser in the intelligence agency to inform him of the press interest from David Bartlett, a journalist with the Rochdale Alternative Press. The briefing note states: “After consultations, the DPP’s press representative had untruthfully told Bartlett that they had no record of this case. In fact their file closely accorded with the details given by Bartlett.”
The MI5 file from 1979
The memo, from the MI5 legal adviser and written in April 1979, goes on to suggest that the South African intelligence agency had been “trying to obtain compromising information about political figures” and that Smith was one of them.
The police investigation into Smith had been closed nine years earlier in 1970 by Hetherington’s predecessor Sir Norman Skelhorn who decided it was unlikely to lead to a prosecution.
Skelhorn’s decision was made despite a senior detective warning that the “sordid” accusations against Smith “stood up”.
Brian Altman QC, IICSA’s lead counsel, told the inquiry: “The documents show that the Security Service’s legal adviser was informed of the false representations to the press from the DPP’s office.
“Based upon their review of the information they hold, the Security Service considers they took active steps to ensure that those involved in investigating allegations of child sexual abuse against Smith were made aware of all information of relevance to their inquiries.
Rathbone was not only David Cameron’s godfather; he was also a relative. David Cameron is related to Queenie. Is that the secret to the support to Ball?
Establishment figures who helped disgraced bishop avoid prosecution for sex abuse revealed
Harvey Proctor being pronounced a saint by his buddies reminds me of the way Don’t-Carey took Ball under his wings.
Alun:
Interesting how Ball associated with Apartheid supporters but was in turn aided by Rathbone, an opponent of Apartheid.
Former Lord Justice Anthony Lloyd and David Cameron’s late godfather Tory MP Tim Rathbone among figures who wrote in support of former Bishop of Gloucester, Peter Ball, one said he was a “saint”
Interesting how Ball associated with Apartheid supporters but was in turn aided by Rathbone, an opponent of Apartheid.
Bishop of Chichester Eric Kemp labelling Ball’s accusers as ‘mischief makers’
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
Northleach = Ball = Harding = Jennings (lifelong Ball friend) = Prince Charles Coincidence?
Church of England colluded with bishop who abused boys, says Welby
Report about bishop Peter Ball, finding collusion over 20 years, is ‘harrowing reading’
Collusion: Secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy
Senior figures in the Church of England colluded for a period of 20 years with a disgraced former bishop who sexually abused boys and men, a damning independent report has found.
The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said the report on the church’s handling of former bishop Peter Ball made “harrowing reading”.
“The church colluded and concealed rather than seeking to help those who were brave enough to come forward. This is inexcusable and shocking behaviour,” he said.
“To the survivors who were brave enough to share their story and bring Peter Ball to justice, I once again offer an unreserved apology. There are no excuses whatsoever for what took place and the systemic abuse of trust perpetrated by Peter Ball over decades.”
Two former archbishops of Canterbury, George Carey and Rowan Williams, apologised to the victims of Peter Ball after being criticised for their failures in relation to him.
Ball, the former bishop of both Gloucester and Lewes, was jailed in October 2015 for the grooming, sexual exploitation and abuse of 18 vulnerable young men aged 17-25 who had sought spiritual guidance from him between 1977 and 1992. He was released from prison in February after serving 16 months.
His trial heard that after Ball was first accused in 1993, a string of senior establishment figures – including Carey, an unidentified member of the royal family, cabinet ministers and a high court judge – came forward in his support, writing letters to the police and Crown Prosecution Service.
Ball was cautioned by police. He resigned his post as bishop and retired to a rented cottage on the Prince of Wales’s Duchy of Cornwall estate butcontinued to officiate in 17 public schools until 2007. A fresh investigation was opened in 2012 which led to his conviction.
One of Ball’s victims, Neil Todd – the first to come forward with allegations of abuse – attempted suicide three times before killing himself in 2012.
Welby ordered an independent review of the church’s handling of the case, chaired by Dame Moira Gibb, former chief executive of Camden council.
The report said Ball’s case was dealt with at the highest levels within the church. He “was seen by the church as the man in trouble who the church needed to help”.
Ball was portrayed as a victim, and the review found “little evidence of compassion for Neil Todd even though from the outset it was clear that he was a vulnerable young man who had come to harm”.
It added: “The church appears to have been most interested in protecting itself.”
In the foreword to her report, An Abuse of Faith, published on Thursday, Gibb said the serious sexual wrongdoing of Ball “is shocking in itself but is compounded by the failure of the church to respond appropriately to his misconduct, again over a period of many years”.
“Ball’s priority was to protect and promote himself and he maligned the abused. The church colluded. The church colluded with that rather than seeking to help those he had harmed, or assuring itself of the safety of others.”
The report added, “progress has been slow and continuing, faster improvement is still required”.
Gibb made 11 recommendations in her report, including improving support to survivors of clerical abuse and taking steps to “demonstrate the individual and collective accountability of bishops”.
Peter Hancock, the C of E’s lead safeguarding bishop, who received the report on behalf of the church, said it had failed Ball’s survivors. “Having read the report I am appalled and disturbed by its contents … As a church we colluded, we failed to act and protect those who came forward for help. There are no excuses. We accept all the recommendations and are working to action them.”
Rowan Williams: ‘It is clear I did not give adequate priority to sorting out the concerns and allegations surrounding Peter Ball.’
He added: “For the survivors, it may feel this is all too late.”
According to the report, Ball intimated “on many occasions, to Lord Carey and others, that he enjoys the status of confidant of the Prince of Wales” and “sought to exploit his contact with members of the royal family in order to bolster his position”.
Bishop Ball with Prince Charles and Camilla. Ball gave the homily at the funeral of Camilla Parker Bowles’s father, Major Bruce Shand, in 2006
Moira Gibb is made a Dame CBE by the Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace back in 2012
However, Dame Moira Gibb’s report went on, it “found no evidence that the Prince of Wales or any other member of the royal family sought to intervene at any point in order to protect or promote Ball”.
Carey was criticised in the report, which said he “set the tone for the church’s response to Ball’s crimes and gave the steer which allowed Ball’s assertions that he was innocent to gain credence”.
In a statement responding to the report, Carey said it made “uncomfortable reading” and he accepted its criticisms of him. “I apologise to the victims of Peter Ball. I believed Peter Ball’s protestations and gave too little credence to the vulnerable young men and boys behind those allegations.”
Carey said he regretted not putting Ball’s name on the Lambeth List – names of people whose suitability for ministry is under question – after he was cautioned.
Under the leadership of Williams, the church began reviewing past cases, a move which ultimately led to the criminal case against Ball being reopened, the report said. However, he was criticised as being “lamentably slow” in making change.
In a statement, Williams said: “Having read the report and reflected on its details, it is clear I did not give adequate priority to sorting out the concerns and allegations surrounding Peter Ball at the earliest opportunity. I recognise such a delay is likely to have increased the pressure and distress experienced by the survivors of his abuse and I am sincerely sorry for this.”
He’s one of the gatekeepers I’ve seen campaigning in Lords to clear name of another Bishop Bell from 1950s. Children don’t feature at all
Sex abuse bishop Peter Ball released from prison
4 February 2017
Peter Ball, 84, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 after admitting a string of historical sex offences against 18 teenagers and young men.
The former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester was released from jail on Friday after serving 16 months.
Phil Johnson said he had served “less than a month for each of the victims”.
Richard Scorer, a lawyer representing a number of Ball’s victims, said his early release was “an affront to justice” and “a huge blow to his victims”.
“This was a man whose appalling crimes represented a gross and systematic abuse of trust spanning decades,” he said.
He said the sentence handed down to him was “in no way proportionate to the crimes committed”, and it seemed he had been freed “at the earliest opportunity”.
Mr Johnson said its publication was not likely “for several more months”.
“I think it’s utterly ridiculous that it’s taken longer to write a report on what happened than it has for Peter Ball to serve his jail sentence,” he said.
Prince Charles’ bishop ‘friend’ is freed from prison early – despite committing horrific sex offences against 18 teenagers and young men
4 February 2017
A predatory bishop who had links to Prince Charles has been freed from prison halfway through his sentence for sex offences.
Peter Ball, described as a ‘monster’ by his victims, served only 16 months for grooming and molesting aspiring novice monks. One victim committed suicide while others have suffered long-lasting trauma.
Survivors condemned the early release of the 84-year-old former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester.
He was jailed for 32 months in 2015 for offences against 18 teenagers and young men between 1977 and 1992, but was allowed out on licence at the halfway point of his sentence.
Richard Scorer, an abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon who represented some of Ball’s victims, said his early release after ‘a gross and systematic abuse of trust spanning decades’ was ‘an affront to justice’.
Ball was first investigated in 1992 but escaped with a caution. It emerged later that an unnamed royal was among Establishment figures who had written in support of Ball at the time.
After his caution, Ball was provided with a Duchy of Cornwall home by Prince Charles. Ball counted Charles as a ‘loyal friend’
Mr Scorer added: “What is equally frustrating is that despite his conviction we still have not got to the bottom of which establishment figures – including MPs, cabinet ministers and members of the Royal Family – came out in support of him in the 1990s and prevented justice being served then.
“This is a disgrace and those who suffered at Ball’s hands deserve answers.”
One of Ball’s victims said: “Ball’s crimes led to one of his victims committing suicide so how can 16 months in jail be justice?
“There are still many questions that need answers about who helped him cover up his crimes and what happened.
“What is crucially important is that the inquiry into child abuse answers these questions before it is too late.”
The CoE said Ball has been prohibited from ministry for life.
However the National Probation Service has had to draw up “bespoke” licence conditions with the Church so he can continue to exercise his right to worship.
It is understood that the bespoke licence conditions in place are very strict, and include Ball being forbidden from doing or wearing anything that would give him clerical status, or from leading a service.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said sex offenders are “robustly risk assessed and subject to a strict set of conditions”.
“If they fail to comply, they can be recalled to prison,” the spokesman said.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Most Rev Justin Welby, has commissioned an independent review – led by Dame Moira Gibb according to reports – into how the Church dealt with the allegations against Ball.
Revealed: Charles’ dozens of letters to ‘calculating’ paedophile bishop as victims demand they are made public
Jan 27 2017
Prince Charles is believed to have written to paedophile bishop Peter Ball
Ball was jailed two years ago for using his position to groom 18 young men
The former Bishop of Gloucester exchanged letters with Prince Charles
Clarence House stressed the letters are not connected with Ball’s case
Victims of a paedophile bishop last night called for dozens of letters he received from Prince Charles to be made public.
Extensive correspondence is understood to exist between the future king and Peter Ball, the ‘calculating’ former Bishop of Gloucester, who was jailed after admitting exploiting his position to groom and abuse 18 young men.
The prince’s letters now have been handed to an independent inquiry into the case, launched after Ball was convicted two years ago.
It is not clear what role, if any, they will play in the inquiry which is examining the Church’s handling of the Ball case, but Charles has not given any evidence to it either formally or informally nor has he or his team been asked to.
The content of the letters is unknown, but in a statement yesterday, Clarence House said they believed there was nothing in them which pertained to the case.
A spokesman for the prince said: ‘We do not believe that the letters have any bearing on the issues before the inquiry, but we have not objected to them being shared for their consideration.’
Royal sources insist it would be perfectly normal for the future king to write to the priest, who in 1992 became Bishop of Gloucester, the diocese in which Charles’ country home, Highgrove, sits.
One said that the existence of letters between the two simply reflected their ‘long-standing acquaintance’.
Ball was Bishop of Gloucester which covers Prince Charles’s Highgrove Estate
It is not clear if the prince continued to write to Ball after his well-publicised earlier arrest and police caution for gross indecency against a 17-year-old boy in 1993.
Ball escaped prosecution for this offence, despite investigators knowing of ‘many’ more allegations against him, after the police received dozens of supportive letters and calls from MPs, former public headmasters, JPs and even a Lord Chief Justice.
At the time his lawyers also told the police they had a letter of support from a member of the Royal Family, but prosecutors said they had not seen this correspondence and there is no evidence that this letter even existed.
However, Ball clearly did continue to enjoy cordial relations with the royals as he read the homily at the funeral of the father of the Duchess of Cornwall in 2006
Prince Charles awarding honour toDame Moira Gibb. Moira Gibb is made a Dame CBE by the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace back in 2012
The letters from Charles are understood to have been handed to the Church of England’s independent inquiry, which is being led by former council chief executive Dame Moira Gibb.
A Church of England spokesman said: ‘We are supplying the inquiry with all information relevant to the inquiry’s purposes as set out in its Terms of Reference.’
The Government’s separate child abuse inquiry is also due to investigate whether there were ‘inappropriate attempts by people of prominence to interfere in the criminal justice processes’ after Ball was first accused of child sexual offences 24 years ago.
Phil Johnson, one of Ball’s victims and chairman of the Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors group, last night called for the letters to be made public in the ‘spirit of openness.’
He said: ‘I think the victims have a right to know what is in them. They may of course just be innocent letters between friends. But given the grave concerns about how the case was handled, the public also have a right to know what the future head of state wrote to Ball for the avoidance of any doubt.’
After his second arrest in 2015, Ball claimed his victims had been ‘spiritually uplifted’ by his treatment of them. The court heard how he targeted young men seeking spiritual instruction on the Bishop’s ‘Give a Year for Christ’ scheme.
He changed his plea at the last minute and admitted to offences against 18 teenagers and young men between 1977 and 1992. He was sentenced to 32 months for misconduct in public office and 15 months for indecent assault, to run concurrently.
The lawyer for some of those he abused said the way establishment figures closed ranks around him had ‘compounded his victims’ anguish’.
Two years ago, 27 letters that Charles sent to ministers between September 2004 and April 2005 were published after a decade-long legal battle over their release that went to the Supreme Court
Second member of Fiona Woolf inquiry admits controversial links with Lord Brittan
Dame Moira Gibb, who is to sit with Fiona Woolf on the Government’s child sex abuse inquiry, confirms she also has a link with Lord Brittan
Dame Moira Gibb – who was appointed to sit on the panel along with a number of other experts – has admitted a close personal friend worked with Lord Brittan during part of the period which will be closely scrutinised by the inquiry.
In a letter to Theresa May, the Home Secretary, on October 17 Dame Moira said she had no “direct interest in the matters to which the inquiry relates”.
But just five days later she was forced to write to Mrs May again.
She wrote: “I would like to set out that Mr Gerald Malone, whom I declared as a personal friend, informed me last night that he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Brittan in 1985 when Lord Brittan was Secretary of State for Trade and Investment, and a Government whip from 1986-1987.
Gerald Malone was a Conservative MP in Baroness Thatcher’s and Sir John Major’s governments.
As a trusted worker for Lord Brittanin the 1980s it is conceivable the sex abuse inquiry may wish to take evidence from him about Lord Brittan’s tenure at Home Office.
Other career politicians on the board of General Mediterranean or its subsidiaries are former Liberal party leader Lord Steel, former president of the European commission Jacques Santer, former Conservative chancellor Norman Lamont and former Tory health minster Gerry Malone, who is chairman of Regent.
People don’t like Gerry Malone much. He’s seen as arrogant, unclubbable. ‘I had few friends in politics and it remains so.’ He’s a pal of Andrew Neil’s. John Major’s, too.
He now has a non-executive role in several companies, including Regent GM Laboratories, Ultrasis and Chiltern Invodex.
link
20 May 2003
It has been a long and varied career path from engineering student to teacher, social worker and senior director. …management experience on a four-strong executive board running Kensington and Chelsea council, west London.
She joins a growing list of social services directors making it to the very top in local government, moving to the north London borough of Camden as its £140,000-a-year chief executive.
Director of social services in Kensington and Chelsea since 1990
Gibb’s long path to the top began after a two-year engineering course at Glasgow University. She decided it was not for her, moved into teaching – secondary modern in Newham, east London -but soon decided to move on.
“I had a friend who was a social worker and, while I did not know what they did, I was enthusiastic,” Gibb says. She returned to Scotland for a social work degree course in Edinburgh, and then spent five years in Newcastle upon Tyne, working in the city’s tough Scotswood area.
After a spell teaching social work in Preston, she moved south to Surrey, becoming an adviser in child care, then joined the west London borough of Ealing – rising to assistant social services director, before joining Kensington and Chelsea in 1988 as deputy director. She was promoted to director two years later.
Dame Moira Gibb is a non-executive member of the UK Statistics Authority.
Dame Moira is Chair of Skills for Care and Chair of City Lit Adult Education College.
She is a non-executive director of the NHS England and chairs its Investment Committee.
She is a member of the Council of Reading University. Her career was in social services and local government, latterly as Chief Executive of Camden Council. She was a Civil Service Commissioner from 2012-15 and a Director of the London Marathon from 2005-11.
Malone is married to a leading Scottish doctor, Anne Blyth. He made tabloid headlines in 1995 when, still a minister, he attended a live sex show.
Mr Malone, who was a health minister in John Major’s government and is now editor of the European, has issued a formal apology to the title’s features editor, Nicola Davidson, after making a drunken sexual approach to her and then hitting her around the head when he was rebuffed.
…He initially became chairman of Regent GM, one of Britain’s biggest suppliers of generic drugs to the NHS, before moving to his current role as chairman of Ultrasis, which specialises in computerised cognitive behavioural therapy software.
But controversy has never been far away where Malone is concerned, and last year he faced an unprecedented challenge to his role in a shareholders’ revolt. Susan Malin, a 42-year-old accountant, stood for election to the board following a row over executive pay, claiming the company was being run “like an old boys’ network”. Unlike the people of Winchester, however, the shareholders stood by him, and the former Tory minister lives to fight another day.
He re-entered parliament in 1992, representing the “safe” Conservative seat of Winchester. He was appointed a Minister of State at the Department of Health in 1994, when Virginia Bottomley was the Secretary of State.
Production of Award Ceremony in the presence of the Prime Minister (1991): The Princess Margaret (1992); Virginia Bottomley (1993); Gerry Malone (1994); Secretary of State (1995).
Nurses jeer Minister as strike looms Threat of action by 900,000 NHS staff
May 1995
NURSES were poised to tear up their long-standing no-strike rule after Ministers yesterday refused to back down on controversial local pay deals.
Junior Health Minister Baroness Cumberlege was booed and heckled by members of the Royal College of Nursing meeting in Harrogate for their annual congress, when she claimed that local pay bargaining was here to stay.
She ended with a defiant message for the Prime Minister, Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley, and Health Minister Gerry Malone.
”We will fight for nursing and for the health services of this country, to ensure that our campaign marks a turning point for nursing, and to use the tremendous support we have received to create a better future. We will fight to win this battle and move on to win the war.”
Anger over massive pensions gulf between local authority bosses and ordinary workers
24 March 2009
At least seven London local government bosses are heading for final salary pensions of more than £100,000 a year, the Evening Standard has learned.
They are the first of a new generation of high-earning council chiefs, now in their fifties, who can look forward to six-figure retirement incomes once their careers are over.
The size of the pensions has angered union leaders, who have drawn attention to the vast gap between the “fat cat” bosses at the top of the local authority earnings league and the average London council worker pension of around £4,000.
And three of those due for a windfall have been criticised for serious failings in their social services department after children died.
But councils said the pensions were justified. A spokeswoman for Camden council, where chief executive Moira Gibb is set to retire on a pension of more than £109,000, said: “All local government pension holders pay a proportion of their own wage into these pension schemes and for some people these reflect years of service.
Moira Gibb
Chief executive of Camden
Age: not disclosed
Salary: £210,000
Estimate local government career at retirement: 40 years
Annual pension: £109,375 (£2,187,500 pot)
Lump sum: £267,750
Moira Gibb qualified as a social worker after a short teaching career. She has worked in social services departments in Newcastle, Surrey, Ealing and Kensington and Chelsea. Since being appointed as Chief Executive of Camden, four serious case reviews have been carried out into the death or serious injury of a child as a result of abuse or neglect. One, a six-year-old girl, was murdered in 2005 by her mother’s boyfriend, despite being on the child protection register. Ms Gibb announced a restructuring of children’s services “to improve the welfare of all children”. The next year a two-month-old boy died after “horrific” abuse.
THE woman leading the Baby P taskforce faces questions after two children died from abuse on her watch, the Evening Standard can reveal.
Children’s Secretary Ed Balls appointed Moira Gibb from Camden council to review social services across England in the wake of the Baby P scandal. But a series of failings by Ms Gibb’s social workers in two separate cases raised concerns over her suitability for the role.
An Evening Standard investigation found that four inquiries have been held into the death or serious harm of a child from suspected abuse or neglect in Camden in the last five years.
Among the victims was a six-year-old girl, Ukleigha Batten-Froggatt, who was murdered in 2005 by her mother’s boyfriend, despite being placed on Camden’s child protection register. Her mother was also killed in the attack.
Social workers failed to check the police records of his mother’s boyfriend, who was revealed as a convicted child sex attacker with a “troubled” past.
Children’s Secretary Ed Balls appointed Moira Gibb from Camden council to review social services across England
Haringey’s MP, Lynne Featherstone, questioned the appointment of Ms Gibb in light of the other cases in Camden.
“This is concerning information,” she said. “It must, unfortunately, put a question mark over Ed Balls’s choice. He should look into the background here so we are reassured over his choice to lead the taskforce.”
Ms Gibb, who has been chief executive of Camden since 2003, said she did not “seek” the role but was asked to take it on.
Dame Moira Gibb: Non-executive Director and Chair of the Investment Committee
Dame Moira Gibb is Chair of Skills for Care and Chair of City Lit Adult Education College. She is a non-executive director of the UK Statistics Authority and a member of the Council of Reading University.
Her career was in social services and local government, latterly as Chief Executive of Camden Council. She was a Civil Service Commissioner from 2012-15 and a Director of the London Marathon from 2005-11.
Paedophile bishop and a cover-up by the Church lasting 23 years: Scandal deepens
24 February 2016
Peter Ball – who was eventually jailed after admitting the abuse last year – benefited from a ‘deeply sinister cover-up’.
Secret documents claimed that he had been let off 23 years ago to ‘prevent a scandal in the press’ – despite the Church of England being told he was a serial abuser. Ball resigned as Bishop of Gloucester in 1993, but returned to work within two years.
The report was compiled at the time by a private detective working for Ball’s legal team. It warned senior figures that Ball had been ‘abusing not only his office but many young men’ and had confessed to his behaviour.
Its existence was reported by the BBC and it was described as being for the information solely of the Bishop of Chichester, the late Eric Kemp, and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey.
The documents also indicate the private investigator frequently got to his victims before police did. They also made it clear that Ball had confessed to abusing boys.
However the documents alleged the bishop was let off with only a caution after his lawyers spoke with a ‘sympathetic’ police officer, Wayne Murdock. He returned to work within two years and moved to the Bath and Wells diocese until 2010.
Now details have emerged for the first time of a secret report by a private detective to help Ball’s defence.
According to the BBC, the documents showed that Mr Murdock had discussed with Ball’s legal team ‘the need to prevent a scandal, especially as Peter was a frequent visitor to Sandringham and is friendly with Prince Charles’.
A source, who has seen some of the secret documents, told the Daily Mail: ‘After Ball was arrested the Church hired a private detective to aide his defence.
Prosecutors have already conceded that the decision not to prosecute Ball in 1993 was ‘wrong’ as there was enough evidence to bring charges.
But it emerged that at the time of his arrest, leading Establishment figures – including two Archbishops of Canterbury, Tory MPs, a senior judge and public school headmasters – mounted an extraordinary campaign to protect hi
In 1993, Ball resigned in disgrace after receiving a police caution for committing an act of ‘gross indecency’
“Evil bishop drove me to suicide”- this Telegraph article about his abuse was published in Mar 1993
Ball escaped with a police caution despite statements from other young men who claimed to have suffered at his hands and Prince Charles provided Ball with a grace- and-favour mansion on his Duchy of Cornwall estate in Somerset.
The mother of one of Ball’s victim’s said: “This is quite unbelievable. I don’t know what Prince Charles thinks he is doing.
“The man ruined my son’s life and should have been locked away.
“Instead he now lives in luxury on one of the finest estates in the country.
“I don’t feel Ball was ever properly punished – but the fact that the prince has given sanctuary to this pervert is staggering.
Lord Carey told the BBC that he had placed Peter Ball on a list of priests banned from the ministry.
But Sussex police documents, released under an Freedom of Information (FOI) request, suggest Ball’s name was not included.
The documents also indicate Ball associated with other sex offenders in the clergy and that he was investigated in 2008 for being part of a suspected paedophile ring.
Peter Ball with Peter Canon Gordon Rideout, from Polegate, East Sussex, who was jailed for 10 years in May 2014. He was found guilty of 36 separate sex offences by a jury at Lewes Crown Court.
Canon Gordon Rideout was the vicar of All Saints Church in Eastbourne for 25 years.
Clergyman Canon Gordon Rideout was chaplain at Moira House School, Eastbourne, until 2003, and chairman of governors at Bishop Bell C of E School in Eastbourne until November 2011.
Clergyman Canon Gordon Rideout was a serial sex offender who preyed on young children across the south of England.
In 2013, Rideout, 74, was jailed for 10 years at Lewes Crown Court after being convicted of two attempted rapes and 34 indecent assaults on 16 boys and girls
In the 1970s Canon Gordon Rideout was taken to a military court on child sex-abuse charges.
At that time Rideout was chaplain on a military base.
Peter Ball was in regular contact with Vicar Roy Cotton, a convicted paedophile priest. Cotton took children to visit Ball.
2011 Baroness Butler-Sloss was appointed by the Diocese of Chichester to carry out the review which looked into the behaviour of Cotton and another paedophile priest, Colin Pritchard.
Bishop turned ‘blind eye’ to Bexhill vicar’s abuse, inquiry hears
06 March 2018
A damning image of ‘wilful blindness’ in historic cases of sexual abuse of children who were ‘terrified and silenced’ by clergy in Sussex has been set out at a public inquiry. Fiona Scolding QC, lead counsel to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said yesterday that abuse that left an ‘indelible scar’ on children was often ignored or forgiven.
In one segment, Miss Scolding described abuse by a Reverend Colin Pritchard, former vicar of St Barnabas’ Church in Bexhill and a church in Sedlescombe. She said: “There have been suggestions about the culture of abuse operated by Reverend Pritchard and that Bishop Peter Ball turned a blind eye to that abuse.” Pritchard was arrested in 1997 on suspicion of sexual offences, and again in 2007. Miss Scolding said: “There were no restrictions upon his ability to attend church or be involved in ministry with children from his arrest until July 2007.
Reverend Pritchard, who was vicar of St Barnabas in Bexhill, pleaded guilty in 2008 to seven counts of sexual assault on two boys and was jailed for five years. Pritchard – now known as Ifor Whittaker – was convicted last month of sex offences against a boy and jailed for 16 years. The crimes were when he worked in Sedlescombe, police said. Speaking on behalf of the Diocese of Chichester and Archbishops’ Council for the Church of England, Nigel Giffin QC said the Church’s response to abuse in the last few decades was ‘not nearly good enough’. The IICSA inquiry will look into how far institutions failed to protect children from sexual abuse within the Anglican Church. It focuses on abuse within the Diocese of Chichester, which covers all of Sussex, as a case study. Miss Scolding said: “As a society we have over the past 10 years had to examine some uncomfortable truths about our wilful blindness to such abuse.” Richard Scorer, speaking on behalf of many of the victims, said: “The Church of England claims to offer moral guidance to the country yet clerical sexual abuse cases powerfully undermine the claim. This leads to the cover-up of abuse. “The question is whether the Church can be trusted to put its own house in order.” In a statement, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said: “The failures that we have seen are deeply shaming and I personally find them a cause of horror and sadness. “That children have been abused within the communities of the church is indeed shameful.” The inquiry continues.
Former Sussex priest jailed for sex abuse against boy
Feb 22 2018
Ifor Whittaker was previously known as Colin Pritchard
A “disgusting and despicable” ex-Anglican priest has been jailed for sexually abusing a boy and conspiring with another priest to abuse the child.
Ifor Whittaker, formerly Colin Pritchard, was convicted of abusing the boy, aged between 10 and 16 when the abuse happened in the 1980s and 1990s.
The 73-year-old also conspired with ex-clergyman Roy Cotton, who has since died, to commit sex acts.
Whittaker, of Rectory Road, Sutton, south London, was jailed for 16 years.
He was told he will serve a minimum of 10 years in prison. He is already a registered sex offender for life after a previous conviction.
Sentencing Whittaker, Judge Paul Tain described the priest’s behaviour as “disgraceful, disgusting and despicable”,
He said: “It was an obvious and clear case of grooming, where he carefully manipulated a vulnerable child.”
Whittaker had “attempted to bamboozle, cheat and mislead the jury”, the judge said.
He said the abuser had “plied the victim with alcohol” and “emotionally blackmailed the boy by saying ‘no one would believe you over a priest'”.
The boy had been invited by Whittaker to do gardening work at the church
Whittaker, a former rector of Sedlescombe, near Battle, was convicted of seven counts, which also included gross indecency and inciting the boy to commit gross indecency.
The offences took place between February 1987 and February 1993 in East Sussex, Hove Crown Court was told.
The jury was told Whittaker was a “predatory paedophile” and had organised and facilitated the abuse with Cotton, who worked as a priest in Brede, near Rye, in the 1990s.
He died in 2006 and was never prosecuted.
The victim, now in his 40s, told the court Cotton had been the main abuser and had “just passed me over like a toy to be borrowed by a friend”.
‘Quite forceful’
The court heard the abuse began after he was invited to do gardening work at the church by Whittaker in return for pocket money.
Whittaker and Cotton “had an agreement” and Cotton would often take the boy to and from Whittaker’s house, it was said.
There were also occasions at Cotton’s house when, after abuse had taken place, Whittaker would “suddenly immediately appear in the room as if he had been watching”, the jury heard.
Whittaker’s victim described him as “quite forceful, quite scary”.
The jury was told Whittaker had previously pleaded guilty to gross indecency and indecent assault in 2008 over offences which had take place in Wellingborough in Northamptonshire against teenage boys in the 1980s.
The diocese apologised “unreservedly” after Baroness Butler-Sloss’s report criticised both senior clergy and Sussex Police over how they dealt with historical claims of abuse by Cotton and the then Colin Pritchard.
Following Whittaker’s latest conviction, the Diocese of Chichester issued a statement saying: “We express our profound sorrow and regret to the victim in this case and our admiration for their courage and determination in coming forward.
“The abuse of children is both a travesty and a tragedy and a complete betrayal of the Christian faith.
“This case demonstrates once again why it is so important to listen to those reporting abuse.”
THE former Bishop of Blackburn has been criticised in an inquiry report into child sexual abuse in his former diocese.
The Right Rev Nicholas Reade, the Bishop of Blackburn from 2004 to 2012, has been held to account by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse over his time as Archdeacon of Lewes, in the Diocese of Chichester.
The Rev Robert Coles admitted the alleged sexual abuse of a teenage altar server in the 1980s to Bishop Nicholas and a fellow clergyman, the inquiry was told.
But despite Coles confessing to sexual activity with the 15 or 16-year-old boy at his home, neither Bishop Nicholas nor his colleague disclosed this information to police, following the former’s arrest in 1997.
Coles, who was a parish priest across the southern diocese, faced no criminal action at the time.
But an investigation was relaunched in 2012 and he was later convicted on two separate occasions of serious sexual offences involving young boys and given substantial jail sentences.
Referring to the 1997 disclosures, Prof Alexis Jay, the inquiry’s chairman, said in a final report: “Archdeacon Reade declined to report a serious indecent to the police, yet repeatedly sought to justify this failure on the basis that ‘he had not raped the boy’.
“Coles should have been reported to the police and subject to disciplinary action or a risk assessment.”
The inquiry heard that Coles sexually groomed a child in 2007-08. He was officially retired but still continued to officiate.
Mr Reade was also found to have defended another minister, Rev Roy Cotton, who had a past conviction for indecent exposure involving a boy in a church organ loft in the 1950s.
Cotton, an ‘Anglo-Catholic’ was supposed to only be allowed to celebrate Mass at his retirement home but officiated in public several times when children were present, the inquiry report disclosed.
He was investigated twice over allegations that he abused boys in the 70s and 80s, with another disgraced minister. Three victims came forward to make accusations. No criminal action was taken but Sussex Police’s inquiry was found to be ‘inadequate’. Cotton, who was the subject of later church and judicial inquiries, died in September 2006.
Prof Jay, referring to Cotton’s case, added: “This was a clear example of the diocese failing to prioritise its responsibilities for children and young people.
“Its concerns seem to have been led by pastoral concerns for Cotton, rather than the danger he posed to children.”
The current Bishop of Blackburn, the Right Rev Julian Henderson, this week wrote to all clergy in the diocese, calling on them to learn lessons from the inquiry’s findings.
Mr Reade was Archdeacon of Lewes before being appointed Bishop of Blackburn in 2004. He retired in 2012.
The child sex abuse inquiry was prompted by revelations that no fewer than 20 individuals with connections to Chichester Diocese had been convicted of sexual offending against children, including Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and later Bishop of Gloucester, over the past 50 years.
In her findings, Prof Jay said: “The Church must take action to ensure that this catalogue of errors does not occur again.”
The police investigated allegations of sexual offences by Ball against 19 young men and boys, in East Sussex and elsewhere between the 1970s and the early 1980s.
Vincent S. aged 10 yrs, from Grafton Children’s Home, was taken to Elm Guest House and to a house in Bexhill, in East Sussex.
John Stingemore lived in Bexhill in East Sussex.
John Stingemore was deputy head of Grafton Close children’s home
John Stingemore at the trial of Peter Sutcliffe..linked to Savile..linked to McSweeney…
Sussex Police received a complaint about a sexual assault by Sir Jimmy Savile in Worthing in Sussex.
Nicholas Rabet ran a children’s activity centre in Sussex.
He lived at Cross-in-Hand, near Heathfield, for five years before moving to Asia, and was suspected of having had sex with up to 300 underage boys.
Adrian Johns, former resident of Bryn Alyn children’s home, died in a 1992 fire aged 32 in Brighton, East Sussex. Verdict – unlawful killing
Peter Bick lived in Bexhill in East Sussex.
On 23 April 2012, a former altar boy, Christopher Hunnisett, 28, appeared in court accused of murdering Peter Bick, 57, as part of a campaign of hate against paedophiles.
Bick is believed to have been a friend of Prince Philip. Bick shared a love of carriage racing with Prince Philip.
Police found Peter Bick, 57, dead in his flat on January 11 201.
Hunnisett, alleged that he was abused by Rev Ronald Glazebrook, above.
2001
The Oxford-educated cleric, who was a headmaster at schools in Pakistan and Zimbabwe before returning to Britain to become the warden at an East End drop-in centre, retired to the Sussex resort almost 20 years ago.
Many knew him through Christ Church in St Leonards-on-Sea.
2005 The wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles
Lambeth Palace was warned that Peter Ball, a close friend of Prince Charles and who attended his wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005, was a serial abuser of boys and young men shortly before he resigned as Bishop of Gloucester in 1993.
Ball resigned as Bishop of Gloucester following the caution and a short time later Prince Charles invited him to live in a lodge house owned by the Duchy of Cornwall in Aller, Somerset.
He described the Prince of Wales at the time as ‘a loyal friend’.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey wrote to police in 1993 with letters of support for the then Bishop of Gloucester Peter Ball who was being investigated for sex offences
1993 Rt Rev Michael Ball and twin Brother Rt Rev Peter Ball – Church House – Westminster
In one of Lord Carey’s letters he told police it was “improbable” that Peter Ball was guilty.
The Old Bailey was told a member of the Royal Family and other establishment figures backed Ball while he tried to avoid charges of sexually abusing young aspiring priests in the early 1990s.
He courted a niece of Sir Anthony Eden (former prime minister)
Peter Ball was governor of Radley, Wellington and Lancing
2 March 1977
The Queen has appointed a monk as – Church of England bishop for only the third time in living memory…Father Peter Ball. The two other modern monk-bishops have been the late Rt Rev Walter Frere, Bishop of Truro, 1923-35 and the Rt Rev Trevor Huddleston, the present Bishop of Stepney
Truthseeker1@thewakeupcall09
Bishop Peter Ball, Tom Driberg & Trevor Huddleston all went to Lancing College and are all paedophiles.
Some of Peter Ball’s “schemers” were sent to work with the Community in Uruguay
Neil Todd, the teenage aspirant monk who was sexually abused by Ball, said bishop Ball told him that ‘the Prince had written him personal letters. He didn’t say what was in them …Then he told me they were in his safe and added: “One day they will be very valuable.”’
Peter Ball and Jimmy Savile were close and visited Prince Charles at Highgrove often.
Staff at Highgrove, the Prince of Wales’s country home, had grown accustomed to these intimate exchanges when the Rt Rev Peter Ball, the now disgraced Bishop of Gloucester, came to offer solace and enlightenment to their boss.
Prince Charles has a strange temple at Highgrove.
During his time in Lewes, Peter Ball got to know Jimmy Savile well.
This York Student Television project from 1992 makes clear reference to Jimmy Savile’s paedophile tendencies. The source description says it originates from 2nd February 2011 but the end credits twice state clearly 1992. It seems to attempt to shy away from literal sodomy on Savile’s part but there are clear and unambiguous sexual references including a direct allegation of paedophilia.
Description
Jim’ll Sodomise You was a one-off short spoof of Jim’ll Fix It. It features David Bartlett wearing a tracksuit and glitzy wig and covered in bling, doing a not-bad impression of Jimmy Saville.
The idea being that Jim in this case would not fix it, and would thereby sodomise your ambitions (rather than literally sodomise you).
Bishop Peter Ball and Jimmy Savile were close and visited Prince Charles at Highgrove often.
Peter Ball was propelled into the royal circle by two people… One was prebendary Willie Booth, a former chaplain at Westminster School,the other was Jimmy Savile.
Jimmy Savile committed a number of sex offences in Sussex at the time when Ball was bishop
After his appointment to Gloucester was announced, Ball became a regular visitor to Highgrove and was held in such high regard that Charles attended his enthronement.
Ball dined with Thatcher at the Savoy and Margaret Thatcher’s former Chief Whip Tim Renton MP said any criminal action against Ball was “far too great a punishment”. link
Peter Ball saw a good deal of the Norfolks and Abergravennys, and
Peter Ball was a friend of Lord John Wakeham and Sir Ian Gow.
MINISTER BEDDED JUDGE’S WIFE AND DAUGHTERS (Underage) News of the World 1994
Alan Clark MP who was involved in a scandal with two 14 yr old girls –
Clark was involved in a sex scandal with a woman and her daughters — ‘the coven’
The Trouble with BBC ‘Children in Need’ Ambassador Max Clifford and Tory MP Alan Clark
In the leaked video Clifford, the legendary PR Guru to the stars and elites let slip that he had successfully hid away the sins of one Tory MP, and ‘diarist’, Alan Clark.
was the first Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex from 1974 to 1989. Lord Hampden, Anthony David Brand was Deputy Lord-Lieutenant for East Sussex from 1986 until 2000
Lord Hampden, Anthony David Brand and Peter Ball, were involved in the 1986 Derry Mainwaring Knight Satanist trial
Anthony John Leslie Lloyd, Baron Lloyd of Berwick (left)
He held the office of Deputy Lieutenant of East Sussex in 1983.
Anthony Lloyd, who was a Lord Justice at the time, wrote a letter of support for Peter Ball and described Ball as a “saint” in one of more than 2,000 letters sent to the Crown Prosecution Service and Gloucestershire Police in his support from acquaintances.
In 1969 Lloyd was appointed Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales, serving until 1977.
1984 – made a Privy Counsellor
Camilla’s father Bruce Shand – was a Deputy Lieutenant of Sussex, and Vice-Lieutenant of East Sussex from 1974 until 1992.
Peter Ball preached at Bruce Shand’s funeral
Lord Wakeham, center with Prince Philip
Lord Wakeham aka “Lord Fix-It” He tried to protect the rich and the famous from intrusions into their privacy
Director, NM Rothschild & Sons 1995
He was a director of Enron (close ties with George Bush) from 1994 until its bankruptcy in 2001.
As a non-executive director and a member of Enron’s auditing committee, paid a reported £80,000 a year, Lord Wakeham was meant to ensure that the company’s accountants were happy with the way that it was reporting to Wall Street.
It was in another role, as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission from which he stepped down last week, that Lord Wakeham was able to show his prowess as a fixer, defusing the continuing battles between the tabloids and Buckingham Palace, placing a restraining hand on editors here, holding back politicians there from legislation to impose new privacy laws on the press.
Peter Ball spent hours comforting Lord Wakeham after his wife was killed in the 1984 Brighton bombing and was a staunch friend to Jane Gow when her husband was murdered by the Ira.
The Rt Rev Peter Ball, the Bishop of Lewes, blesses a plaque in memory of those who died in the Grand Hotel bombing of 1984, at St Paul’s Church in Brighton. He is watched by Prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Sir Donald Maclean, left, and MP John Wakeham, who both lost their wives in the IRA blast.
1st August 1990 – Mrs Jane Gow stands with her two sons James, right, Charles and The Rt Rev Peter Ball, the Bishop of Lewes, at the spot her husband, Conservative politician Ian Gow, died when his car was blown up by the IRA at their home in Hankham.
Ian Gow was PPS to Margaret Thatcher 1979-83.
He was deeply involved in the workings of Thatcher’s private office.
Gow was killed by a car bomb attack in 1990 . Irish republican paramilitaries claimed responsibility in both cases, butnobody was ever charged with causing the deaths andrumours later circulated concerning possible involvement of the CIA and intelligence community
Ian Gow was very close to Margaret Thatcher. And Peter Morrison
He made an offer to the black MP, Paul Boateng: “He must visit me in my home in Sussex, The Doghouse, where I shall be delighted to receive him, despite his unwise views. And I shall offer him one, perhaps more than one, White Lady.”
Soon after becoming prime minister, Thatcher writes to Ball …she was “deeply grateful”
1979 May 17 Th
Archive (Thatcher MSS)
MT: MT letter to Suffragan Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball (thanks for letter) [“Letters like yours are a great source of strength”] [released 2010]
Peter Ball was on close terms with the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, and was invited to preach at Sandringham.
Even the Queen supported him after his police caution. In 1994, when she was distributing Royal Maundy money in Truro, Ball was there with his brother, who was Truro’s bishop.
After lunch in the Chapter House, the Queen, who had been on the high table with local dignitaries, went across to Ball, held out her hand and said in the clearest of voices: ‘My love and encouragement, Bishop.’
The Rev John Robson, chaplain to the Queen was a friend of pervert Bishop Ball
The Rev John Robson, chaplain of the Savoy Chapel
1992
The lasting image I retained
from the service was that evoked by
the chaplain in his sermon. Mr
Robson is a friend of the Bishop of
Gloucester, the Right Rev Peter
BaH who has preached at the
Savoy Chapel Bishop Ball was the
only bishop to abstain during the
televised debate on women priests,
said Mr Robson: “He pulled his
monk’s cow} over his head and sat
in deep, profound and tortured
prayer.”
https://archive.org/stream/NewsUK1992UKEnglish/Dec%2005%201992%2C%20The%20Times%2C%20%2364506%2C%20UK%20%28en%29_djvu.txt
Queen’s chaplain, RevJohn Robson, friend of Peter Ball was a chaplain at Christ’s Hospital School:
From the Worshipful Company of Gardeners Autumn 2017 Issue 42
Judge Christine Henson said Karim displayed a “complete disregard” and “continued arrogance” towards his victims, adding: “I’m in no doubt that you used your popularity as a teacher to groom your victims.
“They should have been safe and secure, sadly they were not.
“You have betrayed everything a teacher should stand for.”
He left the school after complaints from four pupils surfaced between 1990 and 1993.
Senior staff came under fire from victims over the way they handled the allegations.
Teachers never reported him to the police and he was initially allowed to carry on working, even with the girls in question.
‘Hugely traumatic’
Reading a victim’s statement, Oliver Dunkin, prosecuting, said the victim was “deeply disappointed” with the school’s handling of the incidents, which made it “hugely traumatic”.
“For 32 years I have lived with the deeply buried memory of events that took place with Mr Karim,” the statement read.
“Until recently I believed the impact had been minimal and I got on and lived my life.”
An NSPCC spokeswoman said Karim displayed a “shocking breach of trust”.
She added: “We hope today’s sentencing provides some sort of closure for those cruelly targeted by Karim.”
Karim was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order.
WALES: Ex-N.Wales Teacher Denies Sex Assaults; ‘Drunken Party Led to Offences against 4 Teen Boys’
Daily Post (Liverpool, England), October 24, 2008
Byline: By CARL BUTLER
A FORMER North Wales teacher has denied sexual assaults against four teen age boys after a drunken Christmas party.
Robert Charles Durrant – who is on trial in Dorset – spent four years at the Rydal Penrhos School in Colwyn Bay, before he moved to Ruthin School where he spent the next 16 years. He also taught on the Wirral.
Durrant, 60, who got married while teaching at Ruthin, is an English teacher at Milton Abbey School, Dorset, and has denied eight charges that are all alleged to have happened after a drunken Christ mas party at Milton Abbey School on December 6.
He faces six charges of sexually as saulting four teenage boys and two fur ther charges of battery that evening.
Dorchester Crown Court heard yester day Durrant targeted a ‘shy and isolated pupil’ after an alleged night-time assault in the Dorset private school.
Durrant, of Milton Abbas, Blandford, told jurors at Dorchester Crown Court he was very friendly with many of the boys he taught and he would often hug them and give them massages in a friendly way.
Earlier in the trial a schoolboy in his late teens said Durrant came into his room after midnight and touched his leg and tried to kiss him.
Another said Durrant had come into his room and kissed him on the arm and chest.
One boy said Durrant came into his room and put his hands down his trousers.
The final sexual assault was alleged by another boy in his late teens who said Durrant touched his backside twice that evening.
He denies any accusation he touched any of the boys in a sexual manner and said he has little recollection of that evening.
The jury heard after a schoolboy had burst into the room where Durrant was with another pupil, Durrant followed him angrily into his room.
He denies grabbing one boy around the neck but said he did shout at him and the boy reacted by threatening him that he would make up accusations about having his arm twisted by Durrant.
Durrant told the jury he had been drinking wine all evening and he and the other pupils were drunk.
Durrant said after sitting and talking to a schoolboy for a few hours he then hugged him and left and walked around the school stopping at different rooms.
He then admitted he drove two miles home to his house.
Prosecutor Robert Griffiths accused Durrant of targeting one of the school boys because he was a shy and isolated boy.
Mr Durrant replied he resented the accusation.
Mr Griffiths added: “I am going to suggest that over the years you may have got the odd grope off these boys but on that night you went far beyond that.”
When asked in a police interview about his sexuality Durrant said: “I am heterosexual with a hint of bisexual.”
Durrant clarified in court he had ex perimented sexually with other boys when he was at school himself.
The court heard Durrant has been a teacher since 1971 and had previously taught at the Calday Grange School in Wirral and the Christ’s Hospital School in Sussex before moving to Wales.
There he spent four years at the Rydal Penrhos School in Colwyn Bay before he moved to Ruthin School and spent the next 16 years there and got married.
Durrant then left this school, divorced his wife and moved to teach in Zimbab we and then Kuwait before taking the post at Milton Abbey School in 2003.
He now lives alone and is currently suspended from the school, the court heard.
The trial continues.
carlbutler@dailypost.co.uk
CAPTION(S):
Robert Durrant faces charges of sexual assault on four teenage boys
ks wrote:George Bell was certainly a very charismatic as well as a theologically sound Bishop, and his work is still recognised. He took office as Bishop of Chichester in 1929 and (I think) died in post in 1958.
I THINK he had retired when he died, but only very shortly before. Of course it was 1958, in fact the 50th anniversary of his death was last week (sorry about that mistake further up). His CH Leaving Bible was presented to him in the spring of 1958, on the day after he carried out Confirmations at CH for the last time.
As for chaplains, an interesting part was played by John Robson, who might be considered the first “modern” chaplain of CH. As assistant chaplain he introduced things like holy communion in houses. But his other contribution to CH was the mutual introduction of the school and his lifelong friend the then Dean of Westminster, Eric Abbott. This was a piece of social climbing on the school’s part which it exploited for all it was worth.
by CZ » Wed Oct 15, 2008 4:55 pm
I went to Eric Symes Abbott’s memorial service as SG. John Robson was a great guy and in my time it was the great trio of Robson, Atkinson and for a while Godfrey Hall. Porteous came in in my last year.
House Communions were great as were Confirmation lessons in Robbos house.
Does anyone remember the fantastic colorful garments the chaplains wore in the 80s and maybe beyond? It was always a treat to see what garb John Robson would be wearing on the Sunday evening service. Ian Atkinson was always dressed in a monk like white …it did look a bit like a Klu Klux Klan garb.
Robson followed Newsome to Wellington…
George Bell also at Christ’s Hospital School – carrying out confirmations
His CH Leaving Bible was presented to him in the spring of 1958, on the day after he carried out Confirmations at CH for the last time.
George Bell was ‘fond’ of paeodophile bishop Peter Ball and sponsored him for ordination, an inquiry has heard.
As former bishop of Chichester, Bell is considered one of Anglicanism’s heroes. However, it emerged in 2015 the Church of England paid £16,800 to the woman, known as Carol, in a legal settlement after she accused Bell of sexually abusing her as a child.
Now it can be revealed Peter Ball, who was jailed for a string of sex offences against teenagers and young men in 2015, was close friends with Bell.
Princess Margaret would take communion at The Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy, just by the Savoy Hotel.
It was noted how she would always attend before flying off to Mustique
Mr Robson remembers her infectious laughter and wit but has no illusions as to how fearsome the Princess could be with a cutting remark. I am thankful to say I have never been on the receiving end of that aspect to her character,” he said. “Like all of us, she had a dark side – that was part of her attraction.
Charles, meanwhile, must surely have been advised to keep Ball at arm’s length — just as he had been advised to distance himself from Jimmy Savile.
‘The Prince did receive letters from the public complaining about Savile,’ says a senior aide. ‘But the writers were dismissed [by him] as jealous or mad.’
Neil Todd, the teenage aspirant monk who was sexually abused by Ball, said bishop Ball told him that ‘the Prince had written him personal letters. He didn’t say what was in them …Then he told me they were in his safe and added: “One day they will be very valuable.”’
Todd also said: ‘We knew that Bishop Peter and the Prince were good friends. He didn’t refer to him as Prince Charles. He would always say just Charles.’
Files obtained by the BBC indicate Lambeth Palace received six letters detailing indecency allegations shortly after an arrest in 1992.
Ball was cautioned but worked in churches and schools for 15 more years.
Richard Scorer, a lawyer at Slater and Gordon, said: “It’s an absolute scandal. It is wrong and unacceptable that the Church of England sat on the information and didn’t pass it to the police.
“There is no question Peter Ball would have been prosecuted, convicted and jailed for child abuse at that time.”
The Church of England has declined to comment.
Ball was Bishop of Lewes between 1977 and 1992 and Bishop of Gloucester from 1992 until his resignation the following year
The police files also suggest Ball covered for and helped other priests accused of sex abuse, including:
In 1978, Ball failed to take appropriate action against a priest who abused a child and went on to abuse others. In 1985, Ball let a priest who had abused a 14-year-old boy stay in his home after his release from prison, and provided the abuser with a positive report enabling him to return to work. In 2009, Ball tried to persuade a teenage boy to apologise to a priest who had allegedly abused him.
These files give a further insight into how the church handled Ball’s case. It seems the Diocese of Chichester did not share documents which could have jailed Ball earlier.
There is no explanation about how he was able to gain a clear Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check, so he could continue working in the church.
The documents reveal Bishop Peter Ball considered asking the home secretary to overturn his caution in the 1990s.
They also detail the “limited disciplinary action” taken by the-then Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey in relation to Ball and “his return to ministry”.
In February, it was announced Dame Moira Gibb was chairing an independent review of the Ball case to consider what information was available to the Church of England, who had it and when.
A month later, Justice Lowell Goddard’s inquiry into historical child sex abuse announced it would consider whether there was interference by the Church in the Peter Ball case.
Lord Carey’s spokesman, his son Andrew, declined to comment on the new claims but said: “Lord Carey is working with and cooperating fully with two ongoing enquiries – Dame Moira Gibb’s review and the Goddard Enquiry”.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey wrote to police in 1993 with letters of support for the then Bishop of Gloucester who was being investigated for sex offences, it can be revealed. Ex-archbishop George Carey said Peter Ball was in “torment” as a result of a police investigation, letters released by the Crown Prosecution Service show. Ball, 83, was jailed in October for a string of offences against young men. The Church of England apologised “unreservedly” to Ball’s victims. He was sentenced to 32 months for misconduct in a public office and 15 months for indecent assaults, to run concurrently.
In one of Lord Carey’s letters he told police it was “improbable” he was guilty. He also wrote in a letter to Barbara Mills – then the director of public prosecutions – that Ball’s health was fragile and the decision to prosecute should be made “as speedily as possible”. The letters have been released by the CPS in response to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by the BBC and others, after it emerged that personal letters had been written which were supportive of Ball. Ball was eventually told he would not be prosecuted but received a caution instead. He resigned as Bishop of Gloucester in 1993, a position that followed a previous period as Bishop of Lewes. However in October 2015, following repeated claims of a church cover-up, Mr Ball pleaded guilty to abusing 18 young men in the 70s, 80s and 90s. He was jailed for two years and ten months.
One of his victims was Neil Todd, whose attempts to take his own life triggered the police investigation 1993 which prompted hundreds of letters of support for the Bishop. In his two letters Lord Carey said he had no wish to influence the legal process. He makes no reference to the allegations of sexual abuse or Mr Todd, who finally took his own life at the end of 2012.
Throughout the years, Prince Charles and Peter Ball would pray together in the Sanctuary – a Harry Potteresque temple built by Prince Charles deep in a glade in Highgrove’s grounds.
09 Sept 2007 The Tampa Tribune
Bishop of London Richard Chartres was invited to consecrate it in 2000
There are stain glass windows dedicated to poet Ted Hughes* and and another mentor of Prince Charles – writer Sir Laurens van der Post*
Bishop of Lewes, Ball, of Langport, Somerset, had hand-picked vulnerable victims to commit acts of “debasement” in the name of religion, such as praying naked at the altar and encouraging them to submit to beatings, a court at the Old Bailey heard.
...when night falls here on Dartmoor, that last great wilderness of southern England, some visitors clearly have a sinister purpose.
In recent weeks a series of satanic ceremonies have taken place on the vast 69,000-acre Dartmoor estate owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, the royal Trust which pays Prince Charles his £14 million annual income.
Sheep have been sadistically slaughtered; necks broken; eyes, tongues and sex organs often gouged or cut out. It is possible some were still alive as the mutilations took place.
Police have reports of a crude stone altar, possibly bloodstained, next to a wooden stake and a roughly-built den has been found near the scene of an attack.
On one occasion sheep carcasses were laid in the shape of a seven-pointed star, a symbol closely linked to the notorious Victorian occultist Aleister Crowley, once described as ‘the wickedest man in the world’.
More recently the animals have been left in lines, their heads grotesquely twisted as though looking back through nearby gates or field entrances.
Most bizarrely of all, these sacrificial rituals appear to be triggered by phases of the moon.
Duchy officials are aware of the livestock attacks but insist there is no evidence that the organisation is itself being targeted – even though Prince Charles is the future head of the Church of England.
Almost all the rituals have occurred three miles west of Princetown between Sampford Spiney, Merrivale, and the picturesque market town of Tavistock, Devon.
The area includes one of Dartmoor’s most important Bronze Age sites – the Merrivale stone circle and ritual complex – which local folklore describes as the ‘Gateway of the Dead’.
Other legends mention a sadistic witch called Vixiana who lived on Vixen Tor – one of Dartmoor’s best known granite outcrops. She is said to have conjured up dense fogs to lure travellers off the old trans-moor path between Tavistock and Princetown and into a deep bog.
Another favourite of the princes was The Horses, a poem about 10 greys “megalith-still” in “the hour-before-dawn dark”. The recitals took place mainly at Highgrove, the Gloucestershire home of the Prince of Wales, in the early 1990s before William and Harry entered their teens. Hughes also read to Prince Charles and the Queen Mother, to whom he was close.
Details of the private readings have been recounted by Roy Davids, former head of the books department at Sotheby’s auction house, who knew Hughes well in the last 20 years of the poet’s life.
“Ted’s relationship with the royals was much closer than anybody has so far known.
Even more astonishing than his story was the fact that he managed to persuade a group of pious Anglican churchmen and landed gentry in East Sussex to underwrite his struggle with cash.The money was needed, he confided, both to free him from debts that bound him to the Devil and to buy various objects of Satanic regaliaenabling him to gain control of the cult.
In order to allay the suspicions of Lord Whitelaw and others he also needed a Rolls-Royce with a telephone since the Satanists had his other phones tapped.
The parish priest in the village of Newick, the Rev. John Baker, organized a donors’ group to back Mr. Knight in his struggle and mobilized the support, among others, of Viscount Hampden, Viscount Brentford, the Earl of March and Mrs. Susan Sainsbury, the wife of a Conservative Member of Parliament.
Knight claimed that he financed his lifestyle from a vice-ring. He earned up to 12.000 pounds a week running a private clinic which turned prostitutes into “bona fide” virgins.
May 4, 1986
Derry Knight told an astonishing story about his membership in a secret Satanic cult called the Sons of Lucifer and his heroic efforts to take over the leadership of the cult to free himself and 2,000 members from the coils of the Devil.
As he told it, it was an incredibly dangerous mortal struggle he was waging against the most evil forces in the universe, personified by some prominent politicians, including Viscount Whitelaw, the deputy Prime Minister, who were, he said, the secret masters of Britain’s Satanic orders.
Their efforts won the support of the Anglican Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball, a member of a small monastic order who shuns ecclesiastical vestments and worships in a converted pigsty.
Would this by any chance explain why Baker/Ball turned to Sue Sainsbury for a donation for Mainwaring Knight? Sainsbury – Gatsby – BASW – Peter Righton …
‘Men Who Are Attracted to 13-Year-Old Boys Make the Best Teachers’ – Director of Kent Social Services ’74-’85
“It’s terribly sad when you’re sexually orientated towards children,” he said, while defending a Canadian child sex offender who was a church organist.
Stacey describes how he frightened the other Directors of Social Services because he was “a different beast.” But his tone becomes almost sinister when talking of rules he set down with his six thousand member staff about dealing with accusations of abuse. “Nobody was to go to the police about accusations against staff without my approval. And it is incredible the way times have changed. I could never begin to do that now. But children, especially children in care, are incredibly manipulative.” Nicolas Stacey should never have been director of Kent social services.
Children were physically pinned down in Kendall House, drugged with excessive doses of controversial medications, beaten regularly, mentally abused, sexually abused, and in some cases raped. Nicolas Stacey states, “I never once went to the police. This was because I never felt that we had a serious case and never in the eleven years I was there did a scandal occur. I mean no scandal that I know of, or none that got out in the public.” Louise Brodie cuts in on the recording and asks Stacey, “No scandal about your staff?” Stacey replies, “About my staff. Now what I did do, I said ‘Look, I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to resign. I am going to have you put on the register of “at risk”.’” A clear admission by Rev. Nick Stacey that he had covered up abuse whilst head of the Kent Social Services. This was Stacey’s “Frost-Nixon” moment. “I would try and get them to go to counselling, had it emerged, you know, that… rampant abuse of kids had occurred, you know.”
Nick Stacey openly admitted on tape that there were cases of abuse, but that he had not informed the police, and instead offered voluntary counselling to the abuser. No mention of the abused at all. But the shock confessions don’t stop there. Stacey went on to say, “A member of staff once hit a child very hard and we had to go to the police. But I went into the dock. I got one of the best QCs. In fact, he was a son of Canon John Collins, you would know from your South African experience. And I went to court and spoke. I said you’ve got no idea how these children wind care staff up. You know, we sit comfortably at our home, we expect care staff with small pay to look after some of the most admittedly tragically deprived. It’s not their fault that they wind people up, and they’re aggressive. Once somebody loses their cool and they do hit somebody then, you know, you say they should be locked up. And I got them off.” Stacey seemed to be very focused on his staff and never on the service users in his care. How many other cases of abuse did he cover-up?
What’s clear from listening to the seven hours of interviews, is that Nicolas Stacey was very much a part of the establishment. Rev. Stacey admitted to hiding cases of abuse while he was responsible for the safety of the children in care homes around Kent. This admission should be enough to deserve a public inquiry into Kent Social Services during his reign as well as the Kent Police force’s response to the recorded confessions.
Peter Righton was of a close associate of Nick Stacey, a man of God, who played a central role in the protection of paedophiles. As Director of Social Services, he instructed his staff not to report alleged paedophiles within Kent Social Services.
Social worker, Tony Graham, jailed for sexual acts with under-age girls. The Rev Nick Stacey, a former director of Kent social services, said that he had appointed Graham in 1982
On the face of it, the Gatsby Project, a distance learning project for residential child care workers, was a good thing – except that it was carried out with Peter Righton, who was an active member of PIE and was convicted of possessing child abuse images in the early 90s
LazerLight @Lazer_Light23
Bloody Hell, this is all making sense now. Social Work Today’s Margaret Jervis, who went on to become a legal adviser for the ‘False Memory Syndrome Society’. No wonder the animosity.
The role of Rev. Nicholas Stacey and his associates (incl. Claire Jervis) should be subjected to greater scrutiny.
Nick Stacey, a man of God, plays a central role in the protection of paedophiles. Later a Director of Social Services, he instructed his staff not to report alleged paedophiles within Kent Social Services.
Righton and Stacey
Stacey, formerly a vicar, was very close to Peter Righton, and was based in Maidstone, where Righton also lived for a time. They cemented their friendship via Social Work Today and were on a steering committee together, training those working with disturbed young people.
Just to show how close Righton and Stacey were, here they are on the same committee. Note also: John Rea Price of Islington
Also in this group were John Rea Price, Director of Islington for 19 years while every one of its kids’ homes was run by paedophiles. When Liz Davies blew the whistle on Islington, the coward Rea Price quickly legged it to become CEO of NCB, also based in Islington.
Nicholas Stacey and Claire Jervis: What is it about Islington?
Also close to Righton and Stacey was Chris Andrews, Chair of BASW and another force within SWT alongside Margaret Claire Jervis.
When Righton was arrested in 1992, Chris Andrews, who spoke for BASW, was one of the first to jump to Righton’s defence.
Read here how Andrews rushed to the defence of paedophile Peter Righton:
Chris Andrews, of BASW, described Righton at the time of his arrest as follows: He [Righton] is a highly respected figure within the residential field, particularly working with highly disturbed children. He is very much concerned with therapeutic work in child care’ (cited in Burden and Rose, ‘Porn Squad quiz Child Care Expert’).
Complimentary tickets to PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange) event from convicted paedo Tom O’Carroll to Chris Andrews of BASW, colleague of Hewson friend Claire Jervis.
It would appear that Nick Stacey turned first to the Sainsburys for funding:
The Sainsburys also backed the Tear Fund, a Christian relief organisation closely associated with Cliff Richard, a man accused of child abuse whose name appeared as a patron of the Elm Guest House child brothel.
All for the love of Vaz: The Sainsburys were also close to Keith Vaz, a man who rarely fails to get a mention in threads of mine. This time the link is Auchi, a man guilty of fraud whose extradition Vaz tried to prevent:
Cyril Smith molested boy, 11, at National Liberal Club – and introduced him to David Steel: Further embarrassment for the Lib Dems after another shocking revelation
29stone paedophile MP took schoolboy from Rochdale to London
Introduced him to party leader David Steel, molested him later at HQ
Victim, now 49, claims he was ‘suicidal’ until the age of 25 after assault
29 May 2014
A man told yesterday how he was molested as an 11-year-old by Cyril Smith in a bedroom at the National Liberal Club.
The paedophile MP took the schoolboy from his Rochdale constituency to London and introduced him to Liberal Party leader David Steel at Westminster.
Hours later, 29stone Smith sexually assaulted the boy at the club which housed the party’s headquarters.
The schoolboy’s sordid encounter with Smith took place in 1978 after his mother spotted a story in the Rochdale Observer newspaper. It said the MP had been invited to nominate a Rochdale boy from a one-parent family for a free place at public school.
She contacted Smith and was told it was Reed’s School in Cobham, Surrey, founded in 1813 as a boarding school for children who had lost one or both parents. After visiting the family, Smith took the 11-year-old by train to the capital.
Smith’s victim, who is now 47 and doesn’t want to be identified, said: ‘He sat next to me on the train. I remember he ate a massive breakfast of fried eggs and bacon.’
The MP first took the schoolboy to the Houses of Parliament where he met Mr – now Lord – Steel.
The victim recalls little of the meeting save for a brief introduction but said: ‘I remember telling all my friends at the time that I had met the leader of the Liberal Party – it was something to brag about.’
In the afternoon he travelled to Surrey to tour the school whose former pupils include Tim Henman and where current boarding fees range from £22,000 to £27,000 a year.
On returning to London he and Smith arrived at the National Liberal Club near Parliament. The Liberal Party HQ was based in offices in the building and it also provided accommodation for members.
Smith was ‘disappointed’ when told the boy had decided not to take up the Reed’s School offer. The victim finally told his mother what had happened some ten years later. ‘She was mortified,’ he said. His mother added: ‘I was terribly anguished and have been since. But Smith was extraordinarily plausible.’
Her son said: ‘If my small story can encourage other people to get in touch and flesh out the real truth here and prompt a public inquiry, then so be it.’
Job title Organisation Date Trustee Parliament Choir 2011 – Chairman CORESS 2006 – 2012 Joint Life President Reed’s School 2002 – Chairman Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth 1999 – 2007 Trustee Music at Winchester 1995 – 2006 Treasurer Florence Nightingale Art in Sickness Trust 1995 – 2006 Treasurer New England Company 1995 – 2006 Chair of Governors Reed’s School 1994 – 2002 Chairman Friends of Lambeth Palace Library 1992 – 2008 Special Trustee Hammersmith and Queen Charlotte’s Hospital Authority 1992 – 2000
ob title Organisation Date Director Guinness Mahon and Co. Ltd 1988 – 1990 Director Nestor – BNA Plc. 1988 – 2000 Partner Henderson Crosthwaite and Co., Stockbrokers 1973 – 1986 Director The Bridgeman Art Library Ltd. 1972 –
UK Parliament Committee House Date Consolidation Bills (Joint Committee) Jul 2017 – Consolidation Bills (Joint Committee) Jun 2015 – Apr 2017 EU Sub Committee F – Home Affairs, Health and Education May 2012 – Mar 2015 EU Sub-Committee G – Social Policies and Consumer Protection Oct 2011 – May 2012 Information Committee (Lords) Jun 2010 – Sep 2011 House of Lords Offices Committee Jun 2001 – Nov 2002 Standing Orders (Private Bills) Committee (Lords) Jun 1997 – May 2001 EU Sub-Committee C Nov 1993 – Apr 1997 Ecclesiastical Committee (Joint Committee) Nov 1990 – Oct 1991 Statutory Instruments (Joint Committee) Jun 1990 – Nov 1993
Category 10: Non-financial interests (a) Member of Court, New England Company (missionary charity) (interest ceased 7 November 2017) Director, Bridgeman Art Library Limited Category 10: Non-financial interests (b) Joint President, Reed’s School Category 10: Non-financial interests (e) Trustee, CORESS (medical research charity) (interest ceased 7 November 2017)
Policy Interests Asylum, immigration and nationality Energy and environment European Union Health services and medicine Home Affairs Local Government Northern Ireland Social services World Areas European Union Greece UK Areas County Down and Northern Ireland Hampshire Yorkshire
Luke and his father are part of the New England charity:
The Court
The New England Company is managed by a Court, who are Trustees of the Charity, chaired by a Governor. Members of the Court are required to be practising Christians.
The role of the Court is to oversee the management of the New England Company’s assets and investments and to make grants to support its objectives.
The Court meets at least four times a year to consider applications for grants, to consider how the New England Company’s income should be spent and generally to oversee the good management of the Charity.
The Virginia Company comprised of two branches, the London Company and the Plymouth or New England Company. The former was responsible for the first permanent colony in America at Jamestown on May 14th 1607 and the latter were the so-called ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ who arrived at Cape Cod in the ship the Mayflower, in November 1620, and went on to land in Plymouth Harbour on December 21st. The ‘Pilgrims’ of American historical myth were, in fact, members of the second Virginia Company branch called the New England Company
Given the royal family’s extremely close links to the Sainsburys, it is highly unlikely that Prince Charles would be unaware of Peter Ball’s involvement in the Derry Mainwaring Knight case …
The last two checks Mrs Sainsbury wrote to satanist Derry Mainwaring Knight were to purchase a satanic throne.
The biggest contributor was Mrs. Sainsbury, who wrote checks totaling $116,000. Next came the chief magistrate and former high sheriff of East Sussex, a wealthy farmer named Michael Warren, who is reported to have given nearly $80,000
Theresa May’s, (the new prime minister) first choice to head the designed to fail inquiry into establishment child abuse…Elizabeth Butler-Sloss … who tried to cover up for bishop Peter Ball
The Home Office has again been forced to defend the appointment of Lady Butler-Sloss to run the inquiry into allegations of historical child abuse amid claims she refused to go public about bishop Peter Ball implicated in a scandal.
Rev Michael Turnbull, who scheduled the graveyard dance at which Bishop Peter Ball spoke,…was domestic chaplain to the Archbishop of York Donald Coggan
Turnbull was asked what his policy regarding gay clergy would be. He replied that: “An admitted and open lifestyle is incompatible with full-time ministry.”[8]
Despite his speaking out against homosexual clergy, in 1994 the News of the World reported that the bishop had been convicted of an act of gross indecency with a Yorkshire farmer. The offence occurred on 30 August 1968, as undercover policemen kept watch on public toilets in Hull. On 13 September at Hull magistrate’s court, Turnbull, who at the time was chaplain to the Archbishop of York, pleaded guilty and was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay costs of £6.30.[11]
The disclosure of Turnbull’s gross indecency conviction came just four weeks before his scheduled enthronement. His past was known to the archbishops of Canterbury George Carey and York Stuart Blanch, to Lord Runcie, the previous archbishop and to Lord Coggan, whom Turnbull had acted as chaplain when the offence took place.[12]
According to close associates, Turnbull “seriously considered withdrawing” from his enthronement “when his past was revealed.” In his sermon during his enthronement, Turnbull spoke of the “gravity of sin” and of his “repentance”. He told the congregation that he had been “through a private and now public process of repentance”, and that he was “deeply sorry” that friends had to share in the consequences of his past. His sermon also touched on the “depth of forgiveness” by many fellow Christians.[12]
Outside the cathedral, the leader of the pressure group OutRage!, Peter Tatchell, and others protested “against what they saw as [Turnbull’s] hypocrisy”.[12]
In 1995, George Carey appointed Turnbull as chair of the Commission on the Organisation of the Church of England with the task of producing a plan to save the Church of England. The commission was given the nickname “Turnbull Commission.”[10][14]
Queen Elizabeth II has approved a nominee to replace a controversial Anglican bishop who is retiring this summer. The Rt. Rev. Michael Turnbull is the nominee to be the new bishop of Durham in northern England, succeeding the Rt. Rev. David Jenkins
1995 Turnbull report: “Working As One Body” – “A clause allowing people convicted of child abuse to become churchwardens in a package of changes to the lay office provoked bitter criticism.
alun:
The 1995 Turnbull Report ‘Working As One Body’ included a clause allowing people convicted of child abuse to become churchwardens in a package of changes to the lay office. This, unsurprisingly, provoked bitter criticism.
alun:
The Rev. Turnbull who organised the 1965 graveyard bop and hot dog roast at which Bishop Ball spoke went on to become domestic chaplain to Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of York, and later, in 1984, Bishop of Durham.
So, once again as with Bishop Ball, we have Don’t-Carey turning a blind eye to a pervert bishop, even tasking him with producing a plan to save the Church of England! The commission was given the nickname ‘Turnbull Commission’.
While the pervert Ball was counselling his friendPrince Charles, the pervert Turnbull was busy paving the way for Charles to remarry …
On 30 August 1968, as undercover policemen kept watch on public toilets in Hull, Turnbull was caught committing an act of gross indecency with a Yorkshire farmer. On 13 September, Turnbull, still chaplain to the Archbishop of York, pleaded guilty to the offence.
Prince Charles’ card and gift to Jimmy Savile:
Charles, who led tributes when Savile died, aged 84, in October 2011, had sent him cigars and gold cufflinks on his 80th birthday.
A note with the gifts read: “Nobody will ever know what you have done for this country, Jimmy. This is to go some way in thanking you for that.”
AnnaStillHereRaccoon@AnnaRaccoon2017
who they are so when they try to write about JK they will have the same treatment I’ve had. Not hide behind false names. They call him ‘Sir’ Same as Savile. They had meeting up in Leeds. Amanda, Johnny, Hewson, rabbit don’t know about moor or jervis, can’t remember.
Alun:
So the Gin Goblin (Hewson) met up with Savile’s (niece Amanda?) who has boxes of savile’s correspondence
LazerLight@Lazer_Light23
Hewson was meeting Savile’ s niece, Amanda? Why would she do that? What interest for an Irish barrister?
Alun:
Gin Goblin, is it malicious gossip when @AnnaRaccoon2017maintains you were at Leeds meeting with Amanda McKenna, niece of Jimmy Savile?
Anna Racoon:
Big Ears wrote to Savile about many things……..of cabbages and kings….
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
We know BigEars (Prince Charles) wrote to Bishop Peter Ball and Bishop Peter Ball wrote to Enoch. But did BigEars (Prince charles) write to Savile about Cleveland? Now that’s one for you, eh?
Did BigEars (Prince Charles) urge Savile to get involved with the Cleveland scandal? See what it was all about? If so, why? And with what intention?
But why would he do that? Why would he be interested in Cleveland?
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
Sounds like Jimmy was his private emissary. But he must have had a vested interest!
Lazerlight:
Jimmy Savile:
“I am also the eminence grise: the grey, shadowy figure in the background. The thing about me is I get things done & I work under cover”
And why do you think the diaries disappeared, Anna? Are they the ones that his secretary had in her garage in one of the documentaries?
AnnaStillHereRaccoon@AnnaRaccoon2017
Nope, they were ‘day books’ went missing in the first hours after Savile died. Only funeral bods, Ms McKenna and Police had access to flat.
I heard that Osborn Clark returned 25 boxes of spidery missives to Ms McKenna. Wonder if they will disappear down the same rabbit hole Savile’s diaries did.
Lazerlight
But would withholding them from Savile Inquiry not be perverting the course of justice? Who would gain?
Alun:
*Ted Hughes was a close friend of the Queen Mother.
Ted Hughes is said to have learned about Wicca and mind control from his mother: see Popular Witchcraft page 149
*Van der Posta spiritual adviser to Prince Charles; In 1982 Charles made him godfather to his heir, Prince William. Van der Post was also a close friend of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, exerting an influence on her policy in South Africa.
In the early 1950’s, when he was 46, he seduced the 14-year-old daughter of a wealthy South African winemaking family, who had been entrusted to his care during a sea voyage. She became pregnant, and although he sent her a small stipend, he never publicly acknowledged the daughter born of the relationship.
…the Queen Mother’s cousin Lilian Bowes Lyon, with whom he was having a relationship.
Even intimates of the prince knew little of the nature of the relationship he
forged with Hughes. Now he has made it tangible by placing a plaque in his
private sanctuary.
The recognition given by Charles to Hughes's role had previously been given
only to one other person: the late Sir Laurens van der Post, who once led the
prince on retreat into the Kalahari desert and became godfather to Prince
William.
Hughes, poet laureate from 1984 until his death at 68 from cancer in 1998, was
a frequent guest at Highgrove and he shared with the prince an unconventional
spiritual curiosity. His presence will now live on in two commemorative stained
glass windows installed in the prince's private temple, hidden in a glade in
the grounds.
Hughes's reputation has also been questioned since his death. Former lovers,
including Emma Tennant, the novelist, have come forward to destroy the myth
that he lived for years as a saintly recluse after the suicides of Plath and
his common-law wife Assia Wevill, who also killed their four-year-old daughter
The existence of a secret stone memorial to Ted Hughes has emerged after being found by walkers on a remote hillside on his beloved Dartmoor.
Prince Charles, a close friend of the poet laureate, gave special permission for the plain piece of granite to be laid on land owned by his Duchy of Cornwall estates near the Fernworthy forest, it was revealed yesterday
A spokeswoman for Prince Charles said the Duchy of Cornwall operates a blanket ban on such memorials but the prince intervened, although he has yet to visit it.
She said: “Ted Hughes had a very special link with the Royal family as poet laureate and moreover he was a special and dear friend of the Prince of Wales and so a rare exception was made to enable the memorial to be laid.”
The Sunday Times revelations were followed four years later by further scandal in the Vestey family, this time involving not tax but a headless corpse, lesbianism, drugs, alcohol, insanity and depravity. In 1984, Lord Vestey’s cousin, Michael Telling, killed his American bisexual wife Monika, butchering her body. Telling was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and jailed for life.
1992
21 NOVEMBER 1992
`We want a carnival atmosphere here,’ said Lord Vestey, chairman of Cheltenham Racecourse
Bishop Peter Ball led a prayer
‘This is a day for families to have fun and show the Government that the people want proper racing on a Sunday.’
He was not the strangest sight of the day. That prize must go to the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Peter Ball, who enjoyed a large congregation for his short service of prayer in the winners’ enclosure. This may have been due, in part, to the presence of Desert Orchid, who was doing a parade of honour at the time.
…several thousand children who were admitted for free..the occasion was deemed suffi- ciently respectable for Cheltenham Ladies’ College to bring along two busloads of junior girls for the first time.
Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles, enduring a painful weekend of speculation about his wife’s friendship with the Prince of Wales, attended
It is quite Eye Opening Info, that Lord Mountbatten, Charles’ mentor, who introduced Jimmy Savile to the Royal Family, used to have Charles and Camilla visiting regularly in the early 70s around the time that Judge Goddard was in Britain with Camilla’s friend [11]
Truthseeker1@thewakeupcall09:
Lord Louis Mountbatten former chauffeur Norman Nield exposed him
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, there have been such newspaper headlines as, “‘Uncle Dickie’ the Sex Pervert” (N.Z. Truth, Sept. 8, 1987), since Mountbatten’s former chauffeur, Norman Nield, started revealing details of the late Lord Mountbatten’s alleged sexual exploitation of boys.
Paedophile Lord Louis Mountbatten
Edward Prince of Wales and his cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten “relax” in a canvas swimming pool on board H. M. S. Renown during their 1920 Empire Tour.
Lord Louis was a great grandson of Queen Victoria and the uncle of Prince Philip (consort of Queen Elizabeth II). Mountbatten was also a promiscuous bisexual who was famously rumored to have had an affair with Edward VIII (who was Prince of Wales at the time) when he accompanied him on his Empire tours (see photo above).
The Queen. Like any human being, she is subject to the influence of those around her. While he lived, Lord Mountbatten was a persuasive counsellor, and he formulated the plan for Prince Charles’s unusually rigorous education.
Through her marriage to Sir Johnny Scott, the current head of the Home Office‘s ‘independent’ inquiry into child abuse, Judge Lowell Goddard, has links with Camilla and Prince Charles
Sir Johnny Scott (IICSA Chair’s ex-husband) also grew up with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall[3], both their parents being involved in the Southdown hunt; Camilla’s father, Bruce Shand, the Master and Walter Scott (Johnny Scott’s Father) the chairman [4].
Isn’t there a conflict of interest for Goddard in regards to Peter Ball? Her ex-husband, Sir Johnny, father of her child, was good friends with Camilla Shand – who was close to convicted establishment paedophile Peter Ball. Ball attended her wedding to Prince Charles and Peter Ball ‘preached at the funeral of Camilla’s father’s in 2006, which indicates his standing in their household.’
Goddard inquiry: Outrage as bishop jailed for sex offences given public funding for legal team
30 July 2016
A disgraced bishop jailed for a string of sex offences has been given public funding for a legal team at the Government’s child sex abuse inquiry, The Telegraph can disclose.
The decision to pay for lawyers, costing taxpayers up to £200 an hour, to defend the reputation of Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester and of Lewes, has outraged his victims.
Ball is the first convicted sex offender to be granted taxpayer funds, setting a precedent that could pave the way for dozens of paedophiles to get the same deal.
He received the legal funding because he “may be subject to explicit criticism by the inquiry”.
A lawyer close to the inquiry said: “I was really surprised Ball was given funding. The issue is about how he was allowed to get away with it by the Church not about his offending. He has already been investigated and pleaded guilty.”
(Notable Crusader Peter Broadbent was at St Nicholas’ Church til 1980.
Ordained in 1977, Broadbent’s first parish job was as Curate to George Carey, when he was Vicar of St Nicholas, Durham and he was an Islington Labor councillor 1982-1990.)
Mark Carey, now 51, would have been no more than 17 years old at the time.
(Mark Carey was, born in 1965, he was 17 in 1982. If the woman is in her 30s now, she would have been born between 1977-1986, so in 1982, the oldest she would have been was 5 years old.)
Rev Carey was released on police bail and has since been suspended by the Church of England pending inquiries.
Father of three Rev Carey, who followed his father into the church in 1995
Rev Carey’s father was Archbishop between 1991 and 2002
He was joined at his home in Harrogate, North Yorks, yesterday by his father and mother Eileen. His wife Penny, 53, whom he married in 1988, refused to comment.
The alleged victim approached Durham Police to make the complaint. Officers from North Yorkshire police arrested him.
The former social worker– was ordained in 1995 at Wakefield Cathedral, witnessed by his father.
He had previously been curate of Christ Church in South Ossett, West Yorks and went on to be a parish priest in Sheffield and then Harrogate in 2007.
Last night, a Church of England spokesman said: “A 51-year-old priest in the Diocese of Leeds has been suspended by the Bishop following his arrest by Durham Constabulary concerning allegations of historical abuse.
His brother Andrew, who works at the Christian charity Barnabas Fund, told the Sunday Telegraph that his family did not wish to comment on the allegations against Rev Carey.
Lord Carey ‘may face explicit criticism’ from abuse inquiry
21 Oct 2016
THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has been granted core-participant status at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) after Professor Alexis Jay, who chairs it, ruled that he “may be subject to explicit criticism by the Inquiry in due course”.
Core participants are entitled to legal representation at the Inquiry and to receive advance disclosure of evidence. They may also cross-examine witnesses when the public hearings begin, something that is expected to happen next year.
In his application for core participant status, lawyers for Lord Carey explained that, as a retired office-holder, he was led to be believe that he would be represented at the Inquiry by lawyers for the Archbishops’ Council, which also has core-participant status. “Once the Archbishops’ Council indicated to Lord Carey that there might be some conflict between their interests and those of Lord Carey, he made contact with alternative legal representatives,” Professor Jay said.
In granting core-participant status, Professor Jay said that “Lord Carey was Archbishop of Canterbury at the time when [the former Bishop of Lewes, then of Gloucester] Peter Ball’s sexual abuse came to light in 1992, and when he received a police caution in 1993, and it is stated in Lord Carey’s application that he had a pastoral and disciplinary role in relation to Peter Ball at that time. I also understand that Lord Carey was involved in deciding on Peter Ball’s further officiation within the Church of England after he received that caution.
”The Inquiry will consider the extent to which any failings identified in relation to the diocese of Chichester and Peter Ball are representative of wider failings within the Church of England and/or the Anglican Church in general, and the nature and extent of any failings of institutions to protect children from abuse.
Police urged to investigate Lord Carey, former C of E head
A lawyer representing victims of an abusive Church of England bishop has called for an investigation into the ‘misconduct’ of former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton, above.
According to this report, David Greenwood, representing several of Peter Ball’s victims, said he was sure the Church had covered up evidence and urged Scotland Yard to:
Consider opening an investigation into perverting the course of justice by church officials.
Greenwood spoke out after the release of documents that suggest the head of the Church of England knew about the abuse allegations but failed to act.
Sussex police documents, released under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act last week, reveal that Lambeth Palace, the residence of the head of the Church, received six letters and a number of verbal reports detailing allegations of abuse shortly after the initial investigation into Ball in 1992.
In the letters, Ball is accused of encouraged victims to pray naked, perform sex acts in front of him and share his bed.
The files indicate the Church failed to pass this evidence on to police. In February 1993, Lord Carey wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions and a chief constable in support of Ball.
During Ball’s trial last year, Lord Carey denied that the correspondence with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) amounted to a cover-up.
Last October, current Archbishop Justin Welby launched an independent review into the Church of England’s response to the allegations.
A spokesperson for Lord Carey declined to comment but said Carey was cooperating fully with Welby’s inquiry.
The newly released documents also suggest Ball associated with other known sex offenders in the clergy and was investigated in 2008 for being part of suspected pedophile ring.
The documents show Ball covered for and helped priests accused of sex abuse.
I used to work with children and young people as a Residential Social Worker in Bristol before becoming a C of E Vicar. I now lead Kairos Church, formerly St Mary’s Harrogate with All Saint’s, Harlow Hill.
A NEW vicar at St Mary’s and All Saints Church has been welcomed with open arms to a congregation displaced after their church building was made redundant. Rev Mark Carey, who is the son of former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey, was delighted at his reception.
Since 2006 when their building was declared unsafe, the congregation have been worshipping at Harrogate Grammar School where Mr Carey was licensed as Priest in Charge during a ceremony at the beginning of this month. The Bishop of Leeds and Ripon was there to lead the ceremony.
Mr Carey was previously vicar at St Mark’s Church Grenoside, Sheffield, where he had been for eight years. His wife Penny, and three children joined him at the vicarage in September as they embarked on their new life in Harrogate.
In England his time saw notable national events: he took part in the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997, led worship for the nation in the Dome for the new Millennium;quoted at the Service commemorating the victims of the 9/11 attacks; led the tributes at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 2001 and preached memorably at Golden Jubilee of the Queen in 2002
He retired in 2002 at the age of 66 and was made a life peer, taking the title Lord Carey of Clifton, reflecting appreciation of his time as Bishop of Bath and Wells.
Peter Alan “Pete” Broadbent is a British Anglican bishop. He is the current Church of England Bishop of Willesden, an area bishopric in the Diocese of London. He was also the acting area Bishop of Stepney
He was 15 when he became a committed Christian through the Crusaders youth organisation. He studied English at Jesus College, Cambridge and then studied theology at St John’s College, Nottingham before being ordained.
Broadbent’s first parish job was as Curate to George Carey, the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, when he was Vicar of St Nicholas, Durham
Broadbent moved to the Diocese of London in 1980 to be curate of Emmanuel Church, Holloway and theBishop of Stepney‘s Chaplain for Mission.
Broadbent is a member of the Labour Party and was a councillor for the London Borough of Islington from 1982 and 1990, being the chair of their Development and Planning Committee.
George Carey’s wife, Eileen, was won over by Billy Graham Crusade
When Eileen was sixteen the young American preacher, Billy Graham, was conducting his London Crusade and once a week Eileen took a chartered bus to London.
Later she welcomed Billy Graham to Canterbury Cathedral for the enthronement of her husband.
Jun. 20, 1967 – Evangelist Billy Graham visits the set of the new Cliff Richard film ”Two a Penny”: Evangelist Billy Graham today paid a visit to the set at Goldhawk studies, London W. C. where he met pop star Cliff Richard, actress Dora Bryan and Ann Holloway, stars of his film ”two a penny”, which has a religious theme. The film is financed by the Graham organisation and the profits will go to help their work. Cliff Richard, who is quitting show business at the end of the year, is working in the film without pay.
Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey made a personal and pastoral visit to the Revd Dr Billy Graham today. Archbishop George and Eileen Carey are close friends of Dr and Mrs. Graham.
Billy Graham and George Carey
Dr Graham was present at the Archbishop’s enthronement 10 years ago and met together several years ago during a meeting at Kanuga Episcopal Conference Centre in North Carolina.
Who is John Smyth? Barrister who led Iwerne Trust accused of physically abusing boys from Winchester College in Christian group
John Smyth QC ‘forced public schoolboys to strip naked before subjecting them to savage beatings’
Mr Smyth, a moral crusader who made his name as a barrister representing the Christian campaigner Mary Whitehouse in a landmark prosecution against the Gay News newspaper, went on to live in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Coincidence never ceases to amaze me. Look at these Royals in photos with convicted paedophiles they befriended. What rotten luck.
QUEEN’S PORNO BUTLER
Former QE2 steward Nicholas Greaves, 33, had 458 images of youngsters from two months to 16 years old on his computer – 13 in the most serious category – and 15 films.
He worked for the Royal Family between 2002 and 2004 at Buckingham Palace, Sandringham and Balmoral.
A former royal butler who opened doors for the Queen downloaded obscene images of young children, including scenes of torture and babies just months old.
Favoured butler to the Queen butler jailed for child porn offences
31 July 2006
A FORMER favoured butler to the Queen has been jailed for two years for a catalogue of sick child porn charges. Pervert Nicholas Greaves, 33, worked at Buckingham Palace for two years before leaving to become personal butler to the King of Jordan. He was caged at York Crown Court today/yesterday(THURS) for swapping depraved child porn on the internet. A police man described some of the 473 sick photographs and films – which included images of children being tortured – as among the worst he had seen.
The 16 charges date between February, this year, and April, 2004, when gay former QE2 steward Greaves still worked directly for the Queen.
He was employed by the palace between May 2002 and June 2004, before spending a year serving King Abdullah II in London. He then moved to Whitby, North Yorks, to open a cafe but still worked for the royals on a casual basis until his arrest in February this year.
Shortly before his arrest, Greaves helped with the Queen’s 80th birthday celebrations.
Queen Elizabeth II accompanied by the Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon (centre) received flowers from a young guest at Marlborough House in central London. The Queen marked her 80th birthday at a special Commonwealth celebration held in her honour in 2006
Greaves, who is thought to have been a favourite of the Queen, would help out at state functions and important events, including her 80th birthday celebrations at Windsor Castle.
Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said the images showed the degradation of children, aged from a baby of a few months to 16, of both sexes. “The depravity to which they have been subjected beggars belief,” he said. “It is not suggested that you were involved in the making of any of these images, but by downloading them and distributing some of them as you did you contributed to that very degradation of these young children.” Greaves admitted five offences of distributing indecent images of children and three counts of possessing indecent images with a view to distribute. He also accepted seven counts of possessing indecent images and one count of possessing indecent films of children. The ex-butler also admitted failing to surrender to police bail in May, when he went on the run for a month, claiming to be suicidal. Simon Reevell, mitigating, said as a result of the case Greaves had lost his social standing, home and business. “This is the same man who not very long ago was one of 16 under-butlers who were responsible for serving the Royal Family,” he said. “In two years he travelled to Sandringham, he was with them in Scotland, he served them in Buckingham Palace. “
He left that employment because he was promoted and he became the butler at a private residence in Belgravia of the Jordanian royal family, serving directly the King himself. “He moved from that to a failed suicide attempt, waking up surrounded by left over tablets, standing at the sea edge looking for a cliff and sufficient courage to hurl himself into oblivion.”
Prosecutor Andrew Hatton said police became aware of Greaves’ interest in child porn after searching the computer of a suspected paedophile, in Twickenham, who is facing child rape charges. An email from NewkyBrown2004 – a nickname traced back to Greaves – was found to contain five pictures of young boys being abused by adult males.
Greaves was questioned by police and immediately admitted owning indecent images of children and distributing them on the Internet. He said he used a one to one messenger service to chat with paedophiles and swap images of children but denied it was for sexual pleasure. “In interview he said he was not interested in the content of the photos but instead in the people who sent them,” Mr Hatton said. “He said he wanted to know what made them tick.” The former butler told police he thought they would only find six images on his computer as he regularly deleted them and had not built up a large collection. But when they searched the machine they found 453 indecent photos of children and 15 sick films. These had been categorised using a scale of one to five, where five indicates the sickest type of child porn. There were 13 pictures and one film in the top category and over 250 images at level three and above. Greaves told police he was surprised by the find and said he thought there was only around 100 deleted images. He could not account for over 300 pictures and 12 films not deleted and still stored in his MyPictures and MyDocuments files. The ex royal servant failed to answer police bail on 8 May, this year, but handed himself in at a police station a month later on 12 June. Greaves claimed he had tried to kill himself by taking over 100 pills the night before he was due to answer bail and was shocked to wake up alive. He said he panicked and drove off on his moped to Redcar and Blackpool looking for cliffs he could jump off but failed to find any. He then travelled round the country for a month, feeling suicidal, before handing himself in. Mr Reevel said Greaves was of previous good character and now realised how wrong his actions had been. Judge Marson ordered him to sign on the sex offenders register and disqualified him from working with children. He added: “There is no reason for the possession and distribution of these images other than for sexual gratification. “There is no other logical explanation and were it not for people like you those who make and distribute these dreadful images would have no market for them.” Speaking after the verdict Sgt Darrin Knight said: “I have a great deal of sympathy with the children depicted in the images, some of which are were the worst I’d seen in 17 years. “The judge understands the link between the people who download these images and the people who make them.” Sgt Knight said Greaves’ royal duties had included opening doors for the Queen and added: “As I understand it she has preferred butlers and he was one of them.”
A Westminster Abbey chorister who sang at Wills and Kate’s wedding was arrested over child sex allegations. Simon Gay, 61,...It is thought the case relates to his involvement in a monastic order set up by Bishop Peter Ball, jailed in 2015 for indecent assaults on young men.
Williams resign? Welby didn’t notice abuse at a camp. In another case revd James Francis arrested for procurement. He is Mr A in Gibb report
Graham@Graham1munro
Calls for Carey to stand down. But Welby sat on the Smyth abuse in 2013 and made no attempt to contact the reporting victim ? No one has !!
Omg any other job and sex offence = sack. @RoyalNavy = fast track for Revd James Francis arrested for procurement. Also Mr A in Gibb Report
#resign Rowan Williams @JustinWelby dean of @wabbey too little too late. Still covering up abbey scandal Simon Gay and Revd James Francis RN
Rev Revelation@revelation_rev
Revd James Francis RN Chaplain outed +Peter Ball yet he was linked with Ball and Simon Gay. How many other connections?
Appointments
11 August 2017
FRANCIS. The Revd James Francis, Royal Navy Chaplain, now Royal Naval Chaplain of the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre, Amport House (Royal Naval Chaplaincy Service).
The original church was built in 1704, on the site of what is now Admiralty House. The present church was opened in 1786,[3] and is built in red brick in Flemish bond. It was possibly designed by Marquand, a Navy Board surveyor, working under Samuel Wyatt at Admiralty House. The contractors were Thomas Parlby & Sons. The church suffered some bomb damage in May 1941, and was restored in 1955-6.
As the oldest surviving chapel in a navy yard, it was Grade II listed on 25 September 1972.[4]
In October 2012, the church held ceremonies marking the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War, attended by Princess Anne. [5] As of 2015 the current chaplain is Revd. James Francis, RN.
Royal harpist faces sexual offences trial with partner
June 23, 2017
A HARPIST who has played for the Queen and other members of the royal family is facing child sex abuse charges.
...has also played for four consecutive prime ministers — ‘
Perrett’s former partner Richard Barton-Wood, 68, denies five charges of indecent assault, one of attempted assault and other two charges, all relating to the same teenager.
Perrett, from Alpheton near Sudbury in Suffolk, performed at Prince Philip’s 70th birthday party and has also played for Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Princess Anne, Prince Edward and the Duchess of York.
Barton-Wood, from Wymondham in Norfolk, is a warden and publicity officer at 12th century Wymondham Abbey.
He is said to have been working as a teacher in Suffolk when the offences allegedly took place.
Charlotte and Danielle have worked together since 1993 and are one of the most successful soprano and harp duos around. In the past decade they have toured France, South Korea, Japan, USA and UK.
World-renowned harpist who played for Queen jailed for sexually abusing schoolboy
27 FEB 2018
Danielle Perrett, who has performed for the Queen and several Prime Ministers, had earlier been convicted of separately indecently assaulting the boy while he was in his early teens
Perrett, from Alpheton near Sudbury in Suffolk, performed at Prince Philip’s 70th birthday party and has also played for Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Princess Anne, Prince Edward and the Duchess of York.
Her ex-fiance Richard Barton-Wood, 68, was also found guilty of separately indecently assautling the boy in the 1980s.Barton-Wood had worked as a substitute teacher at his school.He said Barton-Wood sexually assaulted him on sailing trips and camping trips, and that on separate occasions Perrett took his virginity and performed sex acts on him.
Barton-Wood, from Wymondham in Norfolk, is a warden and publicity officer at 12th century Wymondham Abbey.
He is said to have been working as a teacher in Suffolk when the offences allegedly took place.
That this House, noting that the Prince’s Youth Business Trust is 10 years old, views with approval its continuing contribution to the creation of small enterprises by young people in all parts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland; recognises the importance of the Trust’s support which enables young people to develop their self-confidence, achieve economic independence, fulfil their ambitions and contribute to the communities in which they live; records that, since its launch, the Trust has helped more than 32,000 young people to make the transition from unemployment to viable self-employment; congratulates the volunteers and staff of the Trust and those individuals, companies, trusts and foundations, together with local and central government, whose gifts in cash and in kind make the vital work of the Trust possible; congratulates the Trust on achieving 10 years of growing success since its foundation in 1986; and commends the work of the Trust to the interest and support of all honourable Members.
Some notable signers to the EDM- Peter Bottomley, Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Greville Janner, Tim Rathbone – he wrote a letter in support of paedophile Bishop Peter Ball
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey visiting Sir Peter Bottomley’s local Sunday school group
A review by Dame Moira Gibb found he had failed to pass on information about abuse carried out by Bishop Peter Ball.
Ms Racine’s abuser, Michael Walsh, was convicted of five indecent assault charges and confessed to sexual relationships with a further eight children.
He was sent to prison in 1990.
He had been a teacher, a lay vicar at Chichester Cathedral and also ran a choir at a church in Chichester.
Child abuse ‘inevitable’
After his release in 1992, Walsh returned to the same church to be part of the choir.
Concerned for the safety of other girls, in July of that year Ms Racine wrote to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, requesting his help.
Speaking after Lord Carey’s resignation, Ms Racine, 54, said: “I was very concerned that my abuser had just come out of prison and it appeared that he’d just gone straight back into the parish church where he’d originally worked, and was again in a position of authority in the choir there where young children – specifically girls – sang.
“I was really worried that these girls were at a huge risk. I felt it was inevitable that children would be abused.”
Three months after writing her letter she was told Lord Carey had been unable to consider her concerns because he was “committed to a series of visits overseas, together with his summer break”.
‘Duty of forgiveness’
She was informed one month later that the “Archbishop had been assured that there was no question of Michael Walsh being reinstated in the choir,” but nine months after raising her concerns she received a letter from the Archbishop’s chief of staff confirming her abuser was back in the choir.
Lambeth Palace wrote to Ms Racine saying the parish authorities had taken “great care” in coming to their decision to allow Walsh’s return to his position “weighing carefully the risk of re-offending against… the Christian duty of forgiveness”.
Michael Walsh, seen here in the 1990s, was allowed to return to the same church choir after his release from prison
The letters revealed Lord Carey regretted the decision which allowed Alesha’s abuser back into churches and offered her his sympathies.
Ms Racine said: “I thought his response was deeply hurtful, in that it had taken me a lot of courage to write to him at all.
“Most of what he said was in defence of the Church and the people in it, rather than try to reach out to me as a victim.
“I do feel it was a complete failure on his part.”
A spokesman for the former Archbishop of Canterbury said the correspondence with Ms Racine had been conducted on Lord Carey’s behalf by his chief of staff.
He said: “Lord Carey has absolutely no memory of this chain of correspondence or these events. He cannot therefore comment.”
The Sanctuary, built for the new millennium- four knobs which must be turned in a special way…
Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles plan to ring in the new year with a “bring-a- bottle” party for their neighbors in Gloucestershire
How the ghost of Diana still haunts Highgrove: As Charles stages a festival to celebrate his beloved garden, RICHARD KAY reveals a poignant secret
Charles to open up beloved 15-acre estate with Highgrove Garden Festival
Garden features busts of influential poets, religious figures and relations
But it still holds signs it was family home to Charles, Diana, and princes
Sundial they got as a wedding present and places boys played are there
11 April 2016
Once a week, Prince Charles takes out a pen and writes knowledgeably about a matter close to his heart.
Nothing unusual about that — he is famous, notorious even, for his ‘black spider’ letters, unfailingly courteous but often couched with just a hint of princely menace, addressed to ministers, civil servants and other public figures.
But this correspondence is different. For a start, he writes in red ink, not black. And rather than the anguish so often evident in the missives which have thumped onto the desks of Whitehall ministries for the past three decades, these are not introspective but full of practical good ideas.
What’s more, they are acted on at once. For they are the letters the Prince writes to his head gardener at Highgrove, his country home for the past 36 years.
Every week, Debs Goodenough, who has been in charge of the 15-acre formal garden since 2008, writes her own note to her boss.
These weekly reports outline what work has been done over the previous seven days and raise issues about new features, such as a new border or what replacement plants he wants.
The points are answered elaborately. Also included are reminders of tasks requiring urgent attention.
This is Prince Charles at his most relaxed: at home in the place where he is undisputed king of all he surveys.
Today, the fruits of his horticultural achievements will echo to the footfall of the curious who will arrive for the inaugural Highgrove Garden Festival.
As well as wandering around the lavishly tended grounds and buying plants and flowers that have inspired the Prince’s displays, visitors will be able to listen to talks from 24 speakers, including some who helped create the garden’s many spectacular features.
Highgrove garden is full of surprises and is constantly changing. By turns breathtaking and colourful, it can also seem ostentatious and eccentric.
Take the ‘Wall of Worthies’, where busts of some of the most influential people in the Prince’s life have been assembled into a screen. They include composer and musician Sir John Tavener, Debo Cavendish, the late dowager Duchess of Devonshire, poet and scholar Dr Kathleen Raine and the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.
Elsewhere, other busts of people Charles admires include his spiritual guru Sir Laurens van der Post and Dr Alan McGlashan, the distinguished psychiatrist whose patients included Princess Diana.
A memorial is dedicated to the Queen Mother, to whom the prince attributes his love of gardening. A bronze frieze depicts her in her favourite gardening hat and pearls.
Not far away, a patch of long grass marks the grave of Tigga, the Prince’s much-missed Jack Russell. Nearby is a stone carving of the dog snoozing and there is another likeness of Tigga woven from willow.
Royal experts will recognise the two massive earthenware jars that William and Harry clambered inside to pose for their father’s 1995 Christmas card. Only some will know that when they were sent to the Prince of Wales, care of Tetbury, Glos’, the jars were delivered not to Highgrove but to the local Prince of Wales pub, much to the landlord’s surprise.
Another terracotta pot — lying on its side in the Mediterranean garden — was at the centre of a mini-drama when a young Prince Harry hid inside, to the consternation of his bodyguards, who feared he had vanished from the estate.
But what is perhaps most striking about the garden is the extent to which the shadow of Diana still hangs over it. Highgrove was, of course, a family home and an idyllic playground for the young Princes William and Harry.
Traces of Diana are easily spotted — the sundial, for instance, a wedding present from the Duke of Beaufort, and a bank of rhododendrons given by the late Edmund de Rothschild, also to mark the 1981 royal wedding.
The haunts where Diana played with her children are evident, too — she must have watched fretfully as William and Harry clambered up to their tree house, accessible by rope ladder and with trap door.
PRINCE CHARLES AND HIS KINGDOM OF ECCENTRICITIES
Potted history
Charles bought Highgrove in 1980 shortly before meeting Diana, and it became their country home after their marriage.
He described it as ‘stark and exposed, without a trace of any shelter and without a single flower-bed beside the house. It needed hedges, enclosures and vistas, so bit by bit I tried to tackle it.’ There was no grand plan, he says. Instead ‘it just grew like Topsy’.
Helping hands
The Prince was determined to create a self-sufficient organic garden where he could ‘restore lost habitats and plant lots of hedgerows and trees to heal the landscape’.
In 1982 he entered into a partnership with Dame Miriam Rothschild, the late natural scientist, and they planted an experimental 25 acres with 130 native wildflower varieties which became the celebrated meadows.
Together with Mollie, dowager Marchioness of Salisbury, he started work on three key features — the sundial garden, the terrace garden and the kitchen garden, where rows of vegetables and fruit trees are set out.
In 1989 art historian and landscape designer Sir Roy Strong was brought in to shape the topiary, and gardening writer Rosemary Verey designed a cottage garden which was dug with help from five-year-old Prince Harry.
Generous pals
Throughout the gardens are examples of gifts from the prince’s friends, from plants and trees to sculptures and carvings. At the end of the third-of-a-mile-long avenue of lime trees, which was planted in 1994, is a 40ft obelisk topped with a gilded phoenix, given to Charles on his 50th birthday by the Sultan of Oman.
The cast iron column on which the bird stands was salvaged from Victoria station in London and given to Charles by construction tycoon and railway enthusiast Sir William McAlpine.
In the arboretum, there is a bronze of the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and called the Daughters of Odessa, which was a gift from the U.S.
Near to the lily pool is another bronze of a Borghese gladiator copied from the original which is in the Louvre in Paris and given to Charles by his friend, the Marquess of Cholmondeley.
An ornate timber bee house, holding ten hives, was presented from the people of Slovenia. Elsewhere, an Indian bean tree was a 50th birthday gift from Elton John, while the Monarchist League of Australia gave 60 ferns for his 60th in 2008.
Among the rare species, are a Manchurian ash, planted and blessed by the Dalai Lama during a visit in 1999, and a magnolia tree donated by ex-James Bond star Pierce Brosnan to mark the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002.
Nooks and crannies
Chickens with their own police guards: In the early years of the garden, the free-range chickens roamed near the houses where the police were billeted. ‘There was an officer known as the “sergeant of the coop” who kept an eye on them,’ recalls Ken Wharfe. Today, there are 100 hens, whose much-prized eggs are sold locally.
The sanctuary: This is out of bounds to all but invited guests. It’s the tiny woodland chapel, built to mark the Millennium, where Charles likes to pray.
The Stumpery: Conceived in the Eighties after the Prince received a lorry full of old, rotting tree stumps from Lord Cowdray’s estate in Sussex. Bedded in with the roots of ancient trees, this Victorian concept was planted with ferns and foliage. Prince Philip famously asked him: ‘When are you going to set fire to this lot?’
Paying guests
This week’s festival will see 4,000 visitors tramping round the garden. By the end of the year — visitors are permitted from mid-April to mid-October — 40,000 people will have paid a total £650,000 in entrance fees (which the Prince donates to charities).
Eye-watering cost
The precise number of plants, bulbs and trees is not known but one estimate puts it above 750 varieties. There are 21 gardeners and estate workers at all his homes. Over the years, he has lavished many millions on the garden. The Stumpery alone cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The legacy
Regardless of what he achieves as king, Charles’s greatest legacy may be his enchanting garden, where he has allowed his imagination to run riot and created a landscape — as he puts it — to ‘feed the soul, warm the heart and delight the eye.’
As the Prince told Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time last week, there was particular concern over this feature. ‘All the ladies were in despair that they were going to drop out (of it) . . .’ Though he did not name them, those ladies were almost certainly Diana and the Queen.
Wherever you turn there are associations with Diana. Once, when Charles was away, she asked royal protection officer Ken Wharfe if he could arrange for some go-karts to be delivered to Highgrove for the weekend. William laid out a track through the vegetable garden and Charles’s cherished wildflower meadow.
‘The area got churned up but he made sure it was all put back,’ says Wharfe. Fearing the worst when he next saw the Prince, he was surprised when Charles told him: ‘I hear you had a marvellous weekend with the boys — you’re not thinking of becoming the next Bernie Ecclestone are you?’
It’s true that Charles has expunged some traces of his ex-wife. The small cottage garden, on to which her sitting room opened, was dug up soon after her death and replaced with a yew hedge.
One observer commented tartly: ‘It is so very masculine. We called it Charles’s “Ego Garden”.’ The joke stuck and even Charles now refers to it as his ego garden.
The Prince also redecorated Highgrove after the couple divorced, ridding the house of Diana’s touches.
In contrast, Diana kept Kensington Palace just as it had been during their marriage — she felt the young princes would benefit from the familiarity of its decor.
In time, however, Charles learned from her example and ensured that mementoes of Diana were kept at Highgrove to please his children.
One unexpected sight is a statue of Diana, Goddess of Hunting. According to Highgrove biographer Bunny Guinness, it’s positioned at the end of one of the garden’s ‘most inspiring vistas’.
Visitors looking for more historical flourishes can see a mulberry tree which grew from a cutting taken from a tree planted by Henry VIII at Hampton Court.
And there is the Boscobel oak, grown from the tree which reputedly hid Charles II from Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers after the Battle of Worcester in 1651.
Of course, most will be coming for the magnificent array of spring flowers, and they won’t be disappointed, the coronation meadow is ablaze with daffodils and the magnolia and cherry blossom trees are in their pomp.
Times 27/7/18 : Peter Ball: the sinful bishop and a very English cover-up
Peter Ball escaped justice for decades, at a terrible cost to his young victims, thanks to his many establishment friends, argues Sean O’Neill
The tale of the paedophile bishop and the heir to the throne — private prayer sessions, gifts of money and a 20-year correspondence — is the stuff of a conspiracy theorist’s dream. Except that the story of Peter Ball and the Prince of Wales is not a theory. It is a key element in a real, modern-day account of how powerful people in Britain formed a protective shield around a predatory sex offender.
This Very English Scandal is not yet the stuff of a TV drama like the recent dramatisation of the Jeremy Thorpe affair. It is too raw, too real and too recent — a scandal that involves not just the prince but also an archbishop, a senior judge, government ministers and MPs, public school headmasters and the country’s top prosecutors and policemen.
They did what they did because he was one of their own. He was educated, articulate, plausible and his word was taken at face value while the young men who said he abused them were condemned as “mischief-makers”.
Despite strong evidence and a police desire to put him on trial for serious offences in 1993, some of his influential friends helped Ball to escape with a caution in return for resigning his ministry. Those friends then spent two decades rehabilitating him in the Church of England and the upper echelons of society before justice finally caught up with him and he was jailed in 2015.
A handful of key players have appeared this week at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. We have seen the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton — a man who wrote a few months after Ball admitted guilt that he believed the bishop to be “basically innocent” — stumbling through hours of public questioning.
Also giving evidence was Wayne Murdock, the police detective who investigated Ball in 1992, recalling how the “hot potato” case drew letters and phone calls from bishops, MPs and even a senior appeal court judge.
Much attention has focused on Ball’s relationship with the Prince of Wales, who fought to avoid providing evidence. He hired the law firm Harbottle & Lewis to argue that demands from the public inquiry for “intensely private and confidential material” were a breach of his human rights. In the end, Clarence House insists, the prince gave his evidence voluntarily. His written submission is just seven pages long but remarkable details have emerged about his closeness to the disgraced bishop.
Ball had what was described as a “ministry with the Prince of Wales” and gave him “spiritual counselling”. In return, the prince provided Ball with “small gifts of money” and a sympathetic ear. The Duchy of Cornwall provided a newly purchased house in a Somerset village. Above all, his connection to the prince — which Ball made sure everyone knew about — gave him royal approval for a return to society after his police caution.
Ball relished his royal connections. He preached at the funeral of Bruce Shand, the Duchess of Cornwall’s father, in 2006 and was reported to be a guest at the duchess’s wedding to the prince in 2005. One document suggests he was invited to the Highgrove Millennium Eve party. He also claimed to be a friend of the Duchess of York.
In 1998, Ball wrote to Lord Carey boasting of the number of invitations to preach he was receiving: “I have spoken to 400 voluntary workers in Eastbourne with the lord lieutenant . . . I am shortly to preach to the Grenadier Guards in their chapel; preach at Wellington College, confirm at Radley College and next year preach at Dartmouth to what looks like a full turnout of the royal family.”
Only snippets of his correspondence with the prince have been made public. They are full of self-pity from Ball and lavish support from the prince. In February 1995 Charles wrote to Ball: “I wish I could do more. I feel so desperately strongly about the monstrous wrongs that have been done to you and the way you have been treated.” In 1997 he referred to a “frightful and terrifying man” and added: “I’ll see off this horrid man if he tries anything again.” The prince now says he cannot recall who he was referring to, but Ball had repeatedly claimed that his “accusers” were persecuting him.
The prince admits that his relationship with Ball only ended when the bishop, who cannot be stripped of his title under church rules, was convicted and jailed at the Old Bailey in 2015 for the sexual assault and exploitation of 13 young men. Charges relating to two boys aged under 16 were left on file.
The prince has expressed “deep personal regret” that he was “misled” by Ball. He maintains that he was “not aware until recently that a caution in fact carries an acceptance of guilt”.
That excuse has upset many of Ball’s victims. The Bishop of Gloucester’s resignation after being cautioned in 1993 was a national news story and can hardly have escaped royal attention. The Times reported on its front page that Ball had quit after a formal caution, “a legal step that is taken only after a clear admission of guilt”.
Richard Scorer, solicitor for five of the bishop’s victims, thinks the prince has been afflicted by “wilful blindness”, while William Chapman, counsel for another group of victims, says: “Prince Charles has many advisers — he only had to ask what a caution meant.”
The prince was not alone. The bishop cultivated friends in high places and drew on their support when he was threatened.
As they considered the case against Ball in the early 1990s, Albert Pacey, chief constable of Gloucestershire, and Dame Barbara Mills, the director of public prosecutions, received 24 letters from people in public life expressing support or sympathy for Ball. One letter to Dame Barbara came from Tim Renton, the former Conservative chief whip, who urged that “criminal action” should not be taken against a “man of immense kindness, charity and humour dedicated to serving God in the community”. Renton and his wife, according to inquiry evidence, “decided to write on House of Commons headed notepaper about Peter Ball, precisely so that they would get a more elevated and serious response”. CPS policy was that letters from MPs “had to be responded to at a senior level and required internal investigation and briefing at this stage from the DPP”.
Matthew Parris noted this week that “it’s friendship not money that most corrupts British politics”. The same is true of the corruption of public life and, in this case, the thwarting of the proper process of criminal justice.
Ball’s “helpers”, Mr Chapman argues, assumed “that as members of the establishment they are entitled, even duty bound, to weigh in on behalf of their establishment friends accused of serious crimes, even when they are not sure of what’s been alleged”.
Ball was always an odd member of that establishment. Born in 1932, he was educated at Lancing College and Cambridge University, and became a priest in 1957. His identical twin, Michael, also entered ecclesiastical life and became Bishop of Truro.
The brothers seemed, however, to have stepped outside the establishment ranks when they set up their monastic order, the Community of the Glorious Ascension, in 1960. Arguing that the Church of England had “gone soft”, they practised an austere form of worship. The order and its bizarre ceremonies became the cover for Peter Ball’s sexual offending through naked prayer and flagellation, which he falsely claimed were in the tradition of St Francis of Assisi.
Although he professed to live in near poverty, Ball loved the high life. Household bills during his short period as Bishop of Gloucester from 1992 until his resignation in 1993 were astronomical. Staff at Bishopscourt, his official residence in Gloucester, said that after he arrived “household expenditure on food and alcohol increased significantly and the house was expensively decorated and furnished”.
Ball had important friends and liked to entertain them. As suffragan Bishop of Lewes, he had made contacts in the Conservative Party. Mrs Thatcher was impressed by him and he was invited to No 10. When the see of Gloucester became vacant, the Downing Street appointments secretary Sir Robin Catford, a friend of Ball, ensured that he was picked.
He told John Major, then the prime minister, that Ball had been a squash blue at Cambridge and possessed “a quite extraordinary sparkling personality, impish humour and an unrivalled ability to communicate”. He was also “terribly good fun”.
Ball’s new post allowed him to enlist his most powerful friend when his enthronement at Gloucester Cathedral was attended by the Prince of Wales. He became a frequent visitor to Charles’s home at Highgrove where he administered Communion, prayed with the prince and advised him. Charles is adamant, and previous inquiries have concluded, that he did not interfere with the legal process or in Ball’s campaign to have his ministry restored after accepting a police caution in 1993. He has, however, conceded that he discussed Ball with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Lord Carey, the prince recalls, “was supportive of Peter Ball and thought him a good man and priest”.
Even before Ball was arrested in 1992, Lord Carey had telephoned Sir Peter Imbert, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, to ask what was going on. After Ball’s arrest, six people wrote to the archbishop with further allegations against him, some detailing abusive conduct. None of the letters was passed to detectives and Lord Carey called for prayers that the investigation “will clear [Ball’s] name”.
After Ball’s resignation in 1993, the church offered nothing to his victims but gave him thousands of pounds from the archbishop’s discretionary fund. Within two years he had been given permission to conduct services again. By 1997 Lord Carey, who had Ball to stay as a house guest at Lambeth Palace, had given him permission to carry out bishop’s duties again. Ball also asked for and got the archbishop’s blessing to conduct confirmation services at public schools. Ball said the pastoral support of the archbishop was “the light that sustained me at times”.
Well-placed friends rallied round to campaign for Ball’s return to the senior ranks of the church. There was even talk of a legal challenge to his caution, despite the fact he had admitted being guilty of a criminal offence. Prominent in the campaign was Anthony Lloyd, by now Lord Lloyd of Berwick, a law lord. Lloyd was perhaps Ball’s most cavalier supporter. Despite being an appeal court judge at the time of the 1990s investigation, he intervened in a criminal case by writing to the chief constable of Gloucestershire and the DPP. He told them Ball was “the most gentle upright and saintly man” who now found himself in an “appalling situation”. He also telephoned the lead detective on the case, musing in his “very posh” voice: “I know the DPP, I would like to influence her but I won’t.” The policeman made a note of the words in is diary.
Lloyd was one of what a Lambeth Palace aide described as a “powerful group of friends . . . coming to Peter’s aid”. He was still fighting Ball’s corner in 2013 when the bishop was under investigation by Sussex police. Lloyd, who denies any impropriety, wrote three letters to the Sussex chief constable demanding to know why his friend had been “manhandled”, why there was any need for an investigation and why the case was taking so long.
Sussex police said Prince Charles’s office was also in contact with them in 2013, wanting to know if they had seized from Ball any “material that may be embarrassing to Prince Charles or the monarchy in general”. The police responded that nothing to embarrass the prince had been found.
Lord Carey, too, was still in the Ball camp. He gave a witness statement for Ball’s defence rather than accept the invitation to be a prosecution witness. A police officer noted after a meeting with Lord Carey that he “feels PB has been punished enough”.
The judge, the prince and the archbishop maintained their contact and belief in Peter Ball until he finally admitted his multiple offences in 2015. He exerted a hold over these powerful people and exploited their influence — spoken and unspoken — to deny his victims justice for decades.
Thirty-two men have now complained of abuse by Ball — the true number is thought to be much higher. The first complainant, Neil Todd, who was 17 when Ball targeted him in 1992, left Britain to try to escape the trauma and rebuild his life in Australia. When the Ball case was reopened in 2012, and he was contacted by police and the media, the trauma returned and he took his own life. Mr Todd and his family had first come forward in 1992 fearing that there would be a cover-up. Their fears proved to be well founded. Ball, for his part, was released on licence in February last year after 17 months in prison. Now 86, he lives in Somerset with his twin brother Michael.
The notion of the establishment cover-up has been discredited in recent years in the aftermath of Scotland Yard’s botched handling of lurid and unfounded allegations of child abuse and murder against Lord Bramall, Harvey Proctor and the late Lord Brittan of Spennithorne. The Peter Ball affair is a reminder that, sometimes, extraordinary stories can also be true ones.
Sainsbury / Janner / Whitelaw /Enoch Powell / Dr Coggan
(Dr Coggan part of Bishop Ball’s consecration)
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Donald Coggan with the three new bishops – two of them formerly Anglican monks – consecrated at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. They are, from left, the Rt Rev Anselm Genders, Bishop of Burmuda and formerly Bursar of the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, Dr Coggan, The Rt Rev Peter Ball, Suffragan Bishop of Lewes in the diocese of Chichester, and the Rt Rev Peter Nott, Suffragan Bishop of Taunton and formerly Rector of Baconsfield in Buckinghamshire.
Some key points to take away is that Hubert Braiser (Theresa May’s father) worked for the Community of the Resurrection Seminary School in Mirfield, West Yorkshire
Cyrenians -Its founder was Anton Wallich-Clifford, a Catholic probation officer who in 1963 started the Simon Community, a movement set up to provide an alternative for homeless single people who, at the time, faced the stark choice between night shelters and huge, 1,000-bed lodging houses.
The tragic Sainsbury’s heir who gave away his millions…he left his money to the Prince’s Trust.
26 May 2007
For Annabel Sainsbury, scion of one of Britain’s wealthiest dynasties and sister of the former Labour Cabinet minister Lord Sainsbury, the 30th birthday of her eldest son Jason should have been a proud milestone. It was the day when Jason inherited a £2.5 million fortune from his grandfather, the late supermarket baron Sir Robert Sainsbury, and an occasion that had prompted much speculation at the family’s 400-acre estate in Horsham, West Sussex.
The Jason Kanabus Fund, to be launched later this month, will be administered through The Prince’s Trust
Annabel’s father, Robert, the famous philanthropist and patron of the arts, was already a director of Sainsbury’s by the time she was born – he spent his life working alongside his more flamboyant brother Alan at the head of the family supermarket business, which grew into a nationwide empire during the post-war years.
“I had a privileged upbringing,” Annabel admits.
Annabel’s father, Robert, the famous philanthropist and patron of the arts, was already a director of Sainsbury’s by the time she was born
“We had wonderful Christmases and family parties,”
Francis Bacon – Portrait of Sainsbury (Robert Sainsbury)
“I was the youngest of four and Father was always entertaining well-known and influential people. The artists Henry Moore and Francis Bacon were regular dinner guests.
“Once, the former editor of The Times William Rees-Mogg (now a Mail on Sunday columnist) had to nip out between the main course and pudding to finish the front page.
Robert and Lisa Sainsbury became Francis Bacon’s patrons in 1955 and for a short period they avidly collected his work. This portrait of Robert Sainsbury can be seen to relate to Bacon’s Businessmen series of the previous year, which also employed a degree of realism unusual in his work.
The blurred facial features and the perspective lines are recurring themes in Bacon’s portraits.
Lisa commissioned Bacon to paint this portrait of her husband (he did not normally work to commission) and, later, begin a series of sittings for the artist. Bacon produced some eight studies of Lisa; three of which are in the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection.
Sir Robert Sainsbury (1906—2000) with his wife, Lisa (1912—2014), was a well-known sponsor and patron of the arts. In 1978 the couple founded the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. They donated the bulk of their art collection to this centre. In the 1950s, the Sainsburys began to collect paintings by Bacon, with whom they developed a close relationship. He painted one portrait of Robert and eight studies of Lisa, but destroyed five of these.
Tucked away on the old Church of Satan website, there is a list called “Satanic Art 101.” This series explores one artist from that list, in this case Francis Bacon. All the old Church has to say is
Francis Bacon (1909-1992) Painter Screaming popes, perverse eroticism, and a raw, undefiled aesthestic that demonstrates that the beast in man does get some exercise from time to time.
Revealed: How the Kray twins STALKED Francis Bacon and even sent him their naff paintings while they were in prison
Francis Bacon revealed startling story on how he first met the Kray Twins
Bacon was living in the Moroccan city of Tangier when he met them
Ronnie Kray asked Bacon if he could bring a Spanish boy to his house
A few years later, one of the Krays ordered several men to break into Bacon’s studio and steal his paintings late at night
24 August 2015
During the three decades we were friends, Francis Bacon told me many strange stories about his life — but perhaps the most startling was his account of gaining two unwelcome fans in the form of the Kray Twins. It was during the 1950s that one of the most celebrated yet controversial artists of the 20th century met two of its most notorious gangsters.
The setting was the Moroccan city of Tangier, a place where, as Francis put it: ‘People came to lose their inhibitions — above all queers from England and America.’
Francis was living there when the Krays visited on holiday. Soon after they arrived, Francis received a request from Ronnie Kray, who was said to be the crueller of the brothers and, like Francis, was attracted to much younger men.
‘He said he had fallen for some Spanish boy but he didn’t think he could take him back to his hotel. He was worried about the impression it might make, though you wouldn’t think he’d have cared after cutting all those throats.
‘Anyway, he asked if he could bring him to my place. I had lots of rooms so I agreed, and after that I never saw the end of him. He always seemed to be there.’
If Ronnie Kray was grateful, he had a strange way of showing it. Some years later, with newspapers reporting that Francis’s paintings were selling for colossal sums, one of the Krays’ heavies broke into his studio in London and stole some of his pictures.
Too scared to involve the police, the artist only got the paintings back when they eventually turned up at auction, paying a ridiculous sum of money for his own work.
And he was not free of the Krays even after they were locked up for life in 1969. ‘I still hear from them,’ he told me. ‘They send me these paintings they do there. They’re very odd, always of these soft landscapes with little cottages in them.’
In Tangier, Francis had seen the Krays force a man to go down on his knees and kiss their shoes in a restaurant full of people.
‘Deep down I hated the idea of what they did to people,’ he said, and yet they clearly fascinated him, as did so many other men from the East End.
He believed that they were somehow more ‘real’ and ‘direct’ than their effete, devious counterparts elsewhere, and at one point he bought a house on the Thames near Limehouse, East London — which is today part of fashionable Docklands but was then one of the roughest parts of the city.
This was somewhat ill-advised, since the light constantly reflecting off the water proved distracting to his work. But for Francis, the area had the advantage of abounding with villains, and toughs working in the docks.
He described it melodramatically as ‘the house I shall be murdered in’ and, although he lived there only a short while, he clearly loved the danger of what Oscar Wilde called ‘feasting with panthers’.
Wearing gold watches which he flaunted as a come-on to ‘rough trade’, he had very specific tastes.
‘I actually prefer men who aren’t queer, or who don’t think they are,’ he told me. ‘That’s in the beginning at least. Afterwards, of course, they’re just as boring as the others.’
For many years, his lover was George Dyer, a pale and athletic young man who had the air of a successful East End entrepreneur.
In fact, as I learned from the gossip in Soho bars, he was an unsuccessful thief and burglar. One story suggested they met when Francis caught him breaking into his studio in Kensington via a skylight.
Their relationship was in its early stages when I first met Francis in 1963. As I explained in Saturday’s Mail, I was then a 21-year-old student who sought an interview with him for the magazine I edited at Cambridge University.
Although I have always been determinedly heterosexual, we developed a lasting friendship and I was often invited to see his paintings before they had been revealed to the wider world.
The first he showed me was one of a series of portraits of George who was then around 30 — some 20 years his junior. It depicted him as so badly beaten up that his own mother wouldn’t recognise him.
I wondered what went on between them. Perhaps Francis’s desire to pummel the figures he painted was a kind of re-enactment of what he himself went through as a willing victim of sadomasochism.
He told me that one former lover in Tangier had possessed a collection of rhino whips and been ‘kinky in all sorts of ways and very extreme’. On one occasion, Francis was turned out into the street by this man after being thrashed so badly that the police picked him up and took him to the station, thinking he was the victim of a severe random assault.
I myself had seen him barely able to walk or turn his head, presumably because he’d been so violently attacked by other passing lovers, and in George he had hoped to find a muscular East End ruffian who would punch and kick him within an inch of his life.
Instead, he found a confused and gentle young man whose clinginess often led to tensions between them.
Their relationship moved towards its tragic conclusion in 1971 when Francis received what he regarded as the greatest accolade of his career — being accorded the honour of a major exhibition in Paris.
This was where he most craved recognition, believing that the French were more demanding and discerning than any other nation when it came to art. Many of the portraits in the show were of George — caught in a black mirror, welded to a bicycle, corkscrewed to a chair.
On arriving in Paris, where I was working as a journalist, Francis told me that he’d only reluctantly brought his lover with him.
‘There’s been nothing between us for ages now but he asked whether he could come with me, and since he’s in so many of the pictures I could hardly say no.’
George had then only recently emerged from a rehab clinic where he’d sought a ‘cure’ for a severe drinking problem. Robbed of the oblivion he found in drink, he was clearly aware that he had lost Francis as well.
He looked pale and strained, and on the very day the show opened he took his own life, swallowing an overdose of sleeping pills in their hotel room.
Francis had been preparing for the exhibition at the time and told me he would never get over his guilt, both for leaving George alone that day, and for ever involving him in his world in the first place. ‘By giving him enough money to be able to do nothing, I took his incentive away,’ he said. ‘His stealing at least gave him a reason for living, and I should have left him exactly as he was. He’d have been in and out of prison, but at least he’d have been alive.’
In the aftermath of George’s death, Francis spent longer and longer periods in Paris, completing a series of profoundly moving paintings dedicated to the memory of his dead companion. During those two remaining decades of his life, our friendship deepened and his despair did not keep us from hitting Parisian high spots in determined fashion.
This took us from tea and dainty cucumber sandwiches at the Ritz to champagne in fashionable nightclubs such as Le Sept. This was a predominantly homosexual disco where Francis was greeted as a hero, even on crowded evenings when other celebrities such as the dancer Rudolf Nureyev and fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent were having supper.
There were star-studded parties, too, where guests included the likes of Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol — the latter responding mechanically to whatever you said with the words: ‘Gee, that’s great.’
In contrast to all this, one of our epic drinking bouts ended at a late-night bar in Paris, where porters from a food market would go for a quick brandy before hoisting sides of beef off lorries in their blood-smeared white overalls.
As Francis paid for each round, he pulled out a large ball of money, apparently not noticing the odd large note that fluttered into the sawdust on the floor — a performance that several meat porters followed with obvious interest.
When I finally decided I could drink no more, I bade him good-night. I have no idea whether he ended up with any of those porters.
But, for all his protestations that he’d never have another intimate relationship following George’s death, eventually there were other significant men in his life, including a Spaniard named Jose Capelo, 40 years younger than him.
A Madrid-based banker who spoke several foreign languages, he was a departure from what Francis described as the ‘brutes’ he usually found attractive.
It was with Jose that Francis turned up at Wiltons restaurant in Mayfair on a day when he and I had arranged to lunch together. We had made a firm date over the phone, but he looked surprised to see me and clearly thought that the two of them were eating alone.
By then he had turned 80 and his increasingly unreliable memory, along with a shortness of breath and alarmingly orange hair — the result of a bad dye-job — were all signs that he was fast ageing, something he had always dreaded.
‘Getting old is like having some deadly disease — and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,’ he said.
That was in 1990, and two years later I was in New York when I saw a newspaper headline announcing that he had died of a heart attack while on holiday with Jose in Spain.
He had left a body of work which is among the most expensive sold at auction today. It includes portraits of such notables as Lucian Freud and Mick Jagger, but the person he painted more than anyone else was his lover George Dyer.
One of the unlikeliest muses in art history, he was also among the most tragic. His fate reminds us that, for all the disquiet surrounding Bacon’s works, nothing he put on canvas could ever match the dark reality of his private life.
Jailed for murder as a member of the Kray brothers’ gang, Chris Lambrianou has seen life’s dark side, yet his collection of thoughts and meditations seek to lift the reader from his or her own high walls of captivity.
Do the Walls Come Down?: Reflections of a Lifer by Chris Lambrianou
Graham Sutherland, a mutual friend and artist, introduced Freud to Bacon in 1945, inviting them to his house. They formed a close friendship and saw much of one another in the following years.
Bacon had a great influence on the younger Freud and is often credited with liberating his style and fuelling his desire to depict human life.
In the early 1950s, the artists sat for each other; Bacon’s first portrait of Freud came in 1951, and many others followed. Freud painted Bacon just twice.
It was originally known as Tyneside Cyrenians and led by Canon Thomas Gaughan, head of Catholic social services, Brian Roycroft,former director of Newcastle social services, Frank Welsh and Frank Pollock, both members of the Society of St Vincent de Paul.
It began as a soup run each evening in the city but, when the extent of the homeless problem became evident, it opened its first hostel – based near Leazes Arcade, close to Newcastle’s Haymarket – in 1972.
Manned seven nights a week by volunteers, there was a nightly draw for the 24 beds at 6pm. Admission for the lucky ones was at 8pm and they got a meal and a clean bed. The doors re-opened between 5am and 9am the next morning for others to be admitted for a breakfast of porridge, soup, bread and tea. Between 1973 and 1974, further Cyrenians projects opened in St Edmund’s House, Gateshead, and Factory House in Walker, Newcastle.
Viscount Brentford, (Earl of March) the president of the Church Society, whose wife was a member of the Crown Appointments Commission which chose Dr WilliamsViscount Brentford, the president of the Church Society, whose wife was a member of the Crown Appointments Commission which chose Dr Williams.
The Duke held a number of senior positions in the Anglican church, including membership of the Church Synod and the World Council of Churches. He was also Chancellor of the University of Sussex from 1985 to 1998.
He and his wife Susan Monica Grenville-Grey, the Countess of March, attracted attention when they adopted two girls of mixed race in the 1960s at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was running high and the interracial relationships were frowned upon.
Prisoners Abroad is a UK-registered human rights and welfare charity[1] which supports British citizens who are imprisoned overseas. It also works with ex-prisoners returning to the UK and family members and friends of those detained.
In 2007 Prisoners Abroad was awarded the Longford Prize,[3] awarded annually by the Longford Trust to “recognise the contribution of an individual, group or organisation working in the area of penal or social reform who/which has shown outstanding qualities of humanity, courage, persistence and originality”.[4]
In 1977, Righton also participated in the London Medical Group’s annual conference, on this occasion the subject being ‘Human Sexuality’, speaking alongside agony aunt Claire Rayner amongst others (M. Papouchado, ‘Annual Conference of the LMG: Human Sexuality
In 1979, Righton sat on a steering committee to establish a course for training staff to work with disturbed young people, together with John Rea Price, director of Islington Social Services, 1972-92, subsequently the Director of the National Children’s Bureau. Other’s on the committee included G Godfrey Isaacs, chairman of Peper Harow, Mary Joynsons, director of child care for Barnardos, Janet Mattinson, Tavistock Centre, and Nick Stacey
William Clive [Bridgeman], 1st Viscount Bridgeman, JP DL PC
only son of Rev Hon John Robert Orlando Bridgeman, Rector of Weston-under-Lizard, co. Stafford (by his wife Marianne Caroline Clive, only dau. of Ven William Clive, Archdeacon of Montgomery), 3rd son by his first wife of George Augustus Frederick Henry [Bridgeman], 2nd Earl of Bradford
born
31 Dec 1864
mar.
30 Apr 1895 Dame Caroline Beatrix Parker DBE JP (d. 26 Dec 1961), 1st dau. of Hon Cecil Thomas Parker (by his wife Rosamond Esther Harriet Longley, dau. of Most Rev & Rt Hon C T Longley DD, Archbishop of Canterbury), 2nd son by his second wife of Thomas Augustus Wolstenholme [Parker], 6th Earl of Macclesfield
children
1. Hon Robert Clive Bridgeman, later2nd Viscount Bridgeman
2. Brig Hon Geoffrey John Orlando Bridgeman MC FRCS LRCP, of Watley House, Sparsholt, Winchester, co. Hampshire ,Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at St George’s Hospital (b. 3 Jul 1898; d. 15 Oct 1974), mar. 3 Jul 1929 Mary Meriel Gertrude Talbot (d. 5 Jul 1974), only dau. of Rt Hon Sir George John Talbot, and had issue:
1a. Robin John Orlando Bridgeman, later3rd Viscount Bridgeman
1a. Helena Mary Bridgeman (b. 2 Nov 1932), mar. (1) 18 Jul 1953 (div. 1963) as his first wife Hon Paul Asquith (b. 4 Jan 1927; d. 12 Nov 1984), 2nd son of Cyril [Asquith], Baron Asquith of Bishopstone (Life Peer), by his wife Anne Stephanie Pollock, 1st dau. of Sir Adrian Donald Wilde Pollock KCMG, and (2) 15 Jul 1963 James Francis Lesley Bayley, of Wassall Houzse, Rolvenden, cranbrook, co. Kent, son of Thomas Eliot Bayley, of Edinburgh, and has issue by both husbands
2a. Daphne Bridgeman (b. 9 Apr 1940), mar. 4 Dec 1965 as his second wife William Howard Clive Montgomery, of Grey Abbey, Newtownards, co. Down, 1st son of Maj Hugh Edward Montgomery DL, of Grey Abbey, co. Down, and has issue
3. Hon Sir Maurice Richard Bridgeman KBE, Chairman of British Petroleum 1960-69 (b. 26 Jan 1904; d. 18 Jun 1980), mar. 23 Feb 1933 Diana Mary Erica Wilson (d. in a motot accident 20 May 1979), 2nd dau. of Humphrey Minto Wilson, of 9 South Audley Street, London, and had issue
18 Jun 1929 Viscount Bridgeman, of Leigh in the County of Shropshire
suc. by
son
note
Private Secretary to the Colonial Secretary 1889-92 and the Chancellor of the Exchequer 1895-1902; Member of Parliament (Unionist) for Oswestry 1906-29; a Lord of the Treasury 1915-16; Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour 1916-19 and the Board of Trade 1919-20; Privy Councillor 1920; First Secretary for Mines 1920-22; Secretary of State for Home Affairs 1922-24; First Lord of the Admiralty 1924-29; Elder Brother of the Trinity House 1928
Robert Clive [Bridgeman], 2nd Viscount Bridgeman, KBE CB DSO MC JP DL
1. Hon Anne Caroline Mary Bridgeman (b. 30 Jul 1932), mar. 19 Jul 1955 Rev Nicholas David Stacey, of The Old Vicarage, Selling, Faversham, co. Kent (d. 8 May 2017), 1st son of David Henry Stacey, of Knaphill Manor, Chobham, co. Surrey, by his wife Isobel Part, and has issue
2. Hon Susan Elizabeth Bridgeman JP, Lady-in-Waiting to Lady May Abel-Smith, wife of the Governor of Queensland 1958-60 (b. 19 Oct 1935; d. 26 Aug 2013), mar. 1 Aug 1962 David Kenneth Dudley Foster, of The Spicer’s House, 101 Corve Street, Ludlow, co. Shropshire, 1st son of Kenneth Dudley Foster, of The Lodge, Claverley, co. Shropshire, and had issue
3. Hon Mary Selina Bridgeman JP (b. 14 Jan 1940), mar. 14 Jul 1962 Jeremy David Bagot Bayliss FRICS, of Sheepbridge Court, Swallowfield, Reading, co. Berkshire, only som of Edmund Bayliss, of Guernsey, Channel Islands, and has issue
died
s.p.m. 17 Nov 1982
suc. by
nephew
note
joined the Rife Brigade 1914 and served in the First World War 1915-18; MC 1918; Capt 1921, Brevet Maj 1932, Brigade Maj 1932-34, Brevet Lt Col 1935, General Staff Officer 1935-37; DSO 1940; CB 1944; KBE 1954
Robin John Orlando [Bridgeman], 3rd Viscount Bridgeman
born
5 Dec 1930
mar.
10 Dec 1966 (Victoria) Harriet Lucy Turton, 3rd dau. of Ralph Meredyth Turton, of Kildale Hall, Whitby, co. York, by his wife Mary Blanche Chetwynd-Stapylton, 1st dau. of Col Bryan Henry Chetwynd-Stapylton CBE
children
1. Hon William Orlando Caspar Bridgeman (b. 15 Aug 1968; dvp. 12 Nov 2000)
2. Hon Luke Robinson Orlando Bridgeman (b. 1 May 1971), mar. 25 May 1996 Victoria Frost, yst. dau. of Henry Frost, and has issue:
1a. Valentine Henry Ralph Orlando Bridgeman (b. 11 Oct 1999)
2a. Felix Bridgeman (b. 30 Mar 2002)
1a. Artemis Mary Rosalind Margaret Bridgeman (b. 12 Nov 2004)
3. Hon Esmond Francis Ralph Orlando Bridgeman (b. 3 Oct 1974)
4. Hon Orlando Henry Geoffrey Bridgeman (b. 11 Apr 1983)
note
elected to the House of Lords 1999
June 20 2003,
Mr Nunc Willcox
A memorial service for Mr Nunc Willcox, Chairman of the General Committee of the Garrick Club, 1983-95 and Trustee, 1983-2002, was held yesterday in the Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy, Savoy Hill, London, WC2. The Rev John Robson officiated. Mr Anthony Butcher, QC, read the lesson.
Mr Peter Horsfield, QC, read from The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman, and Mr Geoffrey Samson read In Praise of the Garrick Club by Kingsley Amis. Sir Paul Wright and Mr Jim Willcox, brother, paid tribute.
Former Archbishop, Donald Coggan, who died in 2000 and who ordained Ball in 1977, wrote: “I have seen a good deal of excellent qualities in his work. I have known him as a godly man, totally devoted to his church. He has had an unblemished record.”
Michael Ramsey (right), the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of Bradford, at the spring session of the Church Assembly, Church House, London, February 7th 1961.
The raping Bishop Ball was jailed in October after years of abusing youngsters .
He was able to get away with his crimes because, just as in the case of Savile , he was protected by friends in high places who were no doubt sharing in his sordid practices.
According to the Telegraph, a whole cohort of members of the British establishment came to Ball’s defence and appear to have committed perjury in the process, including the godfather of our own necrophiliac PM, David Cameron:
” A Freedom of Information request by the Telegraph has led to the release of the letters written by some high profile figures in his support, they include former Lord Justice Anthony Lloyd, former Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan and David Cameron’s late godfather Tory MP Tim Rathbone, who gave Mr Cameron his first work experience in the House of Commons.
Vicount Ian Kerr CGC @IanKerr
Dr Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Cantebury, Radio 1’s BBC Paris Theatre, Lower Regent Street, London. 30/04/1971
Archbishop’s treasure found in river
A number of valuable ecclesiastical treasures given to a former Archbishop of Canterbury have been found dumped in a river
A bronze given to the Archbishop of Canterbury by the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is one of the precious relics discovered by diver Trevor Bankhead, who was diving in the River Wear in Durham
3 Oct 2009
A haul of 32 artefacts, including gifts from Pope Paul VI and a commemorative medallion presented to the bishop for the Queen’s coronation in 1952, have been recovered from the River Wear in Durham.
They had been in the possession of Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, who spent part of his retirement in the northern city where he served as bishop.
One theory is that he may have cast the items into the water himself at various times, having a reputation for eccentricity before his death 21 years ago at the age of 83.
Another suggestion is that they may have been stolen before being discarded by thieves for some reason as they crossed Prebends Bridge.
However, there is no record of the house where Ramsey and his wife Joan lived on South Bailey having been burgled.
The objects, some solid gold, have been discovered by amateur divers Trevor Bankhead, 40, and his brother Gary, 44, a fire service watch officer, over the past two and a half years.
They conducted 300 dives and believe there are no objects left on the river bed after their last find on Sunday.
It is their belief belief the items could have been put into the water deliberately as a “gift” to the city by Lord Ramsey.
Trevor Bankhead, a former soldier, said: “We believe the Archbishop threw them into the river in 1983 or 1984, by which time he would have had limited mobility.
“So we chose places which were easily accessible by the water’s edge and threw silver washers in the river to try and trace the trajectory the objects could have taken.”
The dives were carried out under licence from Durham Cathedral which owns both banks of the stretch of river.
Mr Bankhead added: “It’s been very exciting, not just finding the objects, but also researching them and being able to pin down the time when he would have received them.”
Their first find was an ornate silver trowel presented to the Archbishop for laying the foundation stone of an Indian church in 1961.
The brothers have since retrieved over 30 other items linked to Ramsey, along with hundreds of medieval and Saxon artefacts.
Among them are gold, silver and bronze medals struck to commemorate the second Vatican council, which must have been presented to Ramsey, who was the most senior cleric in the Church of England from 1961 to 1974, when he met Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1966.
It was during the same visit the Pope gave Ramsey his episcopal ring which the Archbishop wore until the day he died and is now kept at Lambeth Palace.
Other items discovered include a solid silver coin from the Greek Orthodox Church and a solid gold coin, likely to have been presented when Ramsey met Nikkyo Niwano, president of the Japanese Buddhist movement, in 1973.
Anne Heywood, chapter steward at Durham Cathedral, described the notion that Lord Ramsey may have been responsible as “pure speculation”.
She said: “We don’t know whether he might have had a burglary. Somebody might have thought these were worth something, and discovered when they were running across Prebends Bridge that they weren’t, and just threw them in the river – but again that is just pure speculation.”
Mark McIntosh, professor of divinity at Durham University, who was a student of Lord Ramsey, said the former Archbishop’s health declined in his later years.
He said: “My hunch would be that he would have had very little knowledge of where most of his things were at that point in his life as he was growing feebler by the day.”
The value of the items has still to be established, with estimates up to £10,000, and will be split between the cathedral and the brothers.
It is hoped some will eventually go on display at Durham’s 11th Century cathedral.
Rev Baker said they first met Knight in April 1983 when Knight moved to the village of Newick near Lewes in East Sussex
The contents of exhibits 204 and 205 were withheld from the public ear….Baker objected to a move for the text of two exhibits – an agreement signed by Knight and an addendum – to be read aloud.
DISCLAIMER: THE POSTING OF STORIES, COMMENTARIES, REPORTS, DOCUMENTS AND LINKS (EMBEDDED OR OTHERWISE) ON THIS SITE DOES NOT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE, NECESSARILY EXPRESS OR SUGGEST ENDORSEMENT OR SUPPORT OF ANY OF SUCH POSTED MATERIAL OR PARTS THEREIN.
Ball said : ‘He [Prince Charles] has been wonderfully kind and allowed me to have a Duchy house. The prince is a loyal friend.
‘I have immense admiration for him. He has been through horrific times and is a great person.‘
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
If he didn’t know, he’s hardly fit to be King …
Richard Scorer: My clients accept the PoW has many interactions with Church of England clergy. However our clients do not accept that he claims he was not aware that a caution means an acceptance of guilt.
Scorer claims senior leaders in the Church knew of Peter Ball’s offending but Lambeth Palace did not hand over letters to police:http://ow.ly/M5yK30l4wJe
Mr William Chapman: There’s a reluctance to trust the secular authorities to handle the matter and a willingness to forgive and reintegrate Peter Ball, no matter what he’d done
Elizabeth Hall, Nat Safeguarding Advisor, recommending a further review of Peter Ball information which should involve trying to find all files/documents
Both Michael Ball and brother Peter Ball were not shy about using the name of the Prince of Wales to seek to influence others. Bishop Michael Ball wrote to Lord Carey in Dec 1992 saying that his brother was receiving support from 2 Cabinet Ministers and Prince Charles Peter Ball often mention their friendship.
On 8 March 1993 Peter Ball received a caution for one count of gross indecency against Neil Todd. He resigned immediately. Peter Ball alleged to the Church of England shortly that he either did not wish to resign, and accepted a caution to avoid a trial.
“This Inquiry has been provided with details of allegations made by a total of 32 individuals. These all relate to an alleged abuse of power by Peter Ball for the purposes of his sexual gratification.”
The former Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball was convicted of two offences of indecent assault, and an offence of misconduct
Peter Ball admitted when pleading guilty that he received sexual gratification from the deliberate manipulation of vulnerable young men, that the contact was consistent with grooming and that he abused his position as a Bishop in the Church of England
In January 1996, Ball was permitted by Archbishop Carey to preach at a particular public school and, to conduct confirmations at other specific schools later on in that year
(1) Why he was permitted to return to ministry in this fashion? (2) Why did no-one think to carry out some kind of risk assessment? (3) Whether or not senior clergy simply thought that Peter Ball’s pleas of innocence should be believed?
“I really appreciate your sympathetic understanding in preventing a scandal with a trial which would have affected the Royal family and establishments in this crucial time of turmoil within the Church of England.” Bishop Kemp comments on a 1990s investigation into Peter Ball
A risk assessment carried out by the Church in 2009 identified that Peter Ball could be identified as a sexual predator given the length and scale of his offending
Prince Charles gives evidence to inquiry into Peter Ball
The Prince of Wales says he was aware that Peter Ball, who lived in Aller, near Langport, had been given a police caution, but claims he did not realise it amounted to an admission of guilt.
Details of Prince Charles’s relationship with Ball will be revealed at an inquiry into the case on Friday.
The next in line to the throne had “decades of correspondence” with Ball and occasionally sent him “small gifts of money”, according to the draft copy of his statement to the inquiry, The Times has reported.
The statement will add that Ball confided in him in 2009 that he had been involved in an “indiscretion” years previously, which he blamed on a person with a grudge.
Peter Ball abuse inquiry requests statement from Prince Charles
Wed 06 Jun 2018
By Press Association
The Prince of Wales has been asked to give a witness statement to a public inquiry about a paedophile bishop who was jailed after abusing young men.
Peter Ball was sentenced to 32 months in 2015 for a string of offences between the 1970s and 1990s, and the handling of allegations against him is now being examined by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
At a hearing on Wednesday, counsel to the inquiry Fiona Scolding QC said that statements had been requested from the prince and his principal private secretary.
According to a transcript posted on the inquiry website, she said: “We have also requested a witness statement from both His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and his principal private secretary.
“The Prince’s solicitors have indicated their client’s willingness to assist us and have raised a number of important issues for us to consider.
“This has led to lengthy and complex discussions and we are currently considering the latest points they have raised. We hope to be able to provide an update to core participants on this in the next couple of weeks.”
Charles had exchanged a series of letters with Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester, whose diocese covers Highgrove, the prince’s country home.
A spokesman for the prince told the Daily Mail last year that the correspondence contained nothing of relevance to the clergyman’s offending.
Lawyer Richard Scorer from Slater and Gordon, who is representing complainants at the IICSA, said: “It is imperative that the inquiry leaves no stone unturned in its efforts to establish how Peter Ball was able to evade justice for two decades.
“If this means calling Prince Charles and other prominent establishment figures as witnesses then the inquiry should do so without fear or favour.”
Establishment figures who helped disgraced bishop Peter Ball avoid prosecution for sex abuse revealed
December 31, 2015
…they include
David Cameron’s late godfather then Tory MP of Lewes, Tim Rathbone, who gave Mr Cameron his first work experience in the House of Commons.
Mr Rathbone, wrote that he found it “literally inconceivable” that Ball would ever become involved with anyone in the way described.
Anthony John Leslie Lloyd, Baron Lloyd of Berwick, Kt, PC, DL (left)
Anthony Lloyd, who was a Lord Justice at the time, described Ball as a “saint” in one of more than 2,000 letters sent to the Crown Prosecution Service and Gloucestershire Police in his support from acquaintances.
“He is quite simply the most gentle, upright and saintly man I have ever met,” he wrote.
“If there is a latter day St Francis, then Peter Ball is him.”
In 1969 Lloyd was appointedAttorney-General to the Prince of Wales, serving until 1977.
made a Privy Counsellor
He held the office of Deputy Lieutenant (D.L.) of East Sussex in 1983.
Another Deputy Lord-Lieutenant for East Sussex from 1986 until 2000 was:
Lord Hampden, Anthony David Brand
Lord Hampden, Anthony David Brand and Peter Ball, were involved in the Derry Mainwaring Knight Satanist trial
Derry Knight told an astonishing story about his membership in a secret Satanic cult called the Sons of Lucifer
At the conclusion of the trial, Mr. Baker said he remained convinced that Mr. Knight was a genuine Satanist trying to break free, and not a swindler.
The biggest contributor was Mrs. Sainsbury, who wrote checks totaling $116,000. Next came the chief magistrate and former high sheriff of East Sussex, a wealthy farmer named Michael Warren, who is reported to have given nearly $80,000.
The local bishop, the Right Reverend Peter Ball, of Lewes, a monk of whom the judge said, “You may think he is a little unwordly,” also agrees. “Father Peter,”… endorsed Mr Baker’s fund-raising with a note saying it was “a very necessary battle against Satan”.
The parish priest in the village of Newick, the Rev. John Baker, organized a donors’ group to back Mr. Knight in his struggle and mobilized the support, among others, of Viscount Hampden, Viscount Brentford, the Earl of March and Mrs. Susan Sainsbury, the wife of a Conservative Member of Parliament. Their efforts won the support of the Anglican Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball, a member of a small monastic order who shuns ecclesiastical vestments and worships in a converted pigsty. Group Contributed $313,000
The 35-day trial in Maidstone in neighboring Kent – in which more than 100 witnesses were heard, including the aristocrats who invested in the struggle for Mr. Knight’s soul and the call girls who benefited from their contributions – earned itself a prominent place in the annals of British crime and eccentricity.
Elizabeth Butler-Sloss is related to the Sainsbury family – The Hon. Sarah Sainsbury, daughter of John Davan Sainsbury, married to Hon. Robert Butler-Sloss, son of Elizabeth Butler-Sloss,
Tim Renton
Margaret Thatcher’s former Chief Whip Tim Renton MP said any criminal action against Ball was “far too great a punishment”.
Members of the same club – Alf Bates Club 1974
Jonathan Aitken, Tim Renton, Leon Brittan, Peter Morrison, Sir George Young, Alan Clark…
Aitken :
Aitken –
In 2001 the Purdews of Champneys (friends of Sir Jimmy Savile and Keith Vaz) briefly acquired Inglewood health hydro from agents of Saudi prince Mohammed bin Fahd. Inglewood had been the scene of allegations, published in the Guardian six years earlier, that then defence minister Jonathan Aitken, a director of the spa, had tried to arrange girls for a Saudi prince and his entourage.
The report led to the notorious libel action brought by Aitken ultimately culminating in his being sentenced to jail for perjury.
Former Tory MP Jonathan Aitken, once a director of Champneys Inglewood. He was accused by former employees of acting as a ‘pimp’ by requesting call girls, once for a sheikh and once for a group of Arabs.
And though Aitken met his future wife Lolicia at Inglewood, he also cheated on her with bondage prostitute Paula Strudwick, telling her to collect the right sort of birch branches from the woods outside the estate for sadomasochistic sex games. You’d have thought someone would have twigged what was going on.
Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan and Peter Ball
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan had ordained Ball in 1977 and said he held him in the “highest regard and respect”.
Queen Elizabeth II thanks the Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, for leading her Silver Jubilee service at St Paul’s Cathedral. June 07, 1977
Headteachers from some of the country’s top private schools, including Lancing College and Radley College, Oxford, also wrote in his support.
James Woodhouse, headmaster of Lancing College and former head of Rugby School;
Ian Beer, former head of Harrow;
Richard Morgan, former head of Cheltenham College;
Reverends AJ Keep and NAT Menon, both chaplains at Cranleigh school
Lancing College – alma mater of the Peter Ball and his brother Michael Ball, Trevor Huddleston & Tom Driberg
Roy Whiting – killer of Sarah Payne – in the evenings he would spend his time doing up old cars at home. The most respectable sounding entry on his otherwise uninspiring CV would have been a spell at Lancing College, a leading independent school whose alumni include Evelyn Waugh and Sir Tim Rice.
But Whiting was never a pupil – all he did there was an out-of-hours paint-spraying course when he was 18.
It was also revealed that there had been “two thousand letters of support…including letters from cabinet ministers and Royal Family”.
The member of the Royal family was not named by Ball’s barrister.
Another who wrote in support of Peter Ball:
Peter Nott, Bishop of Norwich,
The Countess Sophie Rhys-Jones embraces Bishop Peter Nott, who was a close friend of her mum,
Sophie Rhys-Jones – One of her mum’s oldest friends- the former Bishop of Norwich Peter NottSophie’s father was a master at Sherborne School
The Queen With The Bishop Of Norwich, The Right Reverend Peter Nott For The Maundy Service. April 04, 1996
More on Sophie Rhys-Jones
“The red-faced wife of Prince Edward quit her own public-relations firm last night after it was revealed her partner hinted they could set up sex tours and gay parties for clients and use the royal family to boost business.
Her partner, Murray Harkin, also quit after a newspaper sting caught him admitting on tape that he enjoyed cocaine and could procure young men and arrange sex tours to the Far East for clients.
The firm can procure “nice boys” for clients. “How young does he like? Does he like Asian boys? . . . And how young?
Referring to Prince Edward’s sexuality, “There’s no smoke without fire.”
Sophie had created a ‘royals for hire’ storm
(She’s not the first of the queen’s daughter-in-laws to be have done this: Prince Andrew’s wife Sarah Ferguson)
Cash for access: Sarah Ferguson is caught on hidden camera during a sting in which she revealed she could organise a meeting with Prince Andrew for £500,000
Fergie took £15,000 from paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein at centre of claims Prince Andrew slept with under-age ‘sex slave’
Prince Edward’s wife was targeted by investigative reporter Mazher Mahmood worked on a tip-off via Max Clifford that her PR company was selling access to the royal family in 2001, the court heard.
In the News of the World ‘s transcripts, the countess appears to betray strong Tory sympathies, describing it as a ‘shame’ if William Hague loses the election.
(The marriage of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones – guest list includes Prime Minister Tony Blair, Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber, William Hague, Billy Connolly and Stephen Fry)
The men discuss places to visit in Thailand, Harkin recommending some ‘really sleazy’ bars in Bangkok. The three then apparently turn to discussing rent boys, with Harkin confiding that ‘in India I gave someone like two weeks’ pay’.
Rebekah Brooks decided not to run the story and instead rang Buckingham Palace to make a deal.
An agreement was struck for an interview with Sophie in exchange for dumping the Fake Sheikh story.
Sophie’s family is descendant from King Henry II of France and she is a descendant of Edward III and several peers – according to one expert, she is the 11th cousin of her husband.
The Queen uniquely arranged for the public relations girl (before she was married) to have her own pass to enter Buckingham Palace. This enabled her to stay overnight in the royal apartments whenever she wished.
‘She is trusted and relied on by the Queen in a way I couldn’t say applied to the Duchess of Cambridge or the Duchess of Cornwall,’ says a royal aide. ‘She is like another daughter to Her Majesty, they are that close.’
Most significantly — as the Queen approaches her 90th birthday this spring — the closer she becomes to Sophie, the more she depends on her. ‘She talks to Sophie in the way she used to talk to Princess Margaret,’ says a palace aide.
…making sure that the Countess’s 84-year-old father, Christopher, is included on the invitation list to many Royal Family events — a gesture that doesn’t extend to the Middletons.
The Queen and the Countess also share a fascination with military history. Sophie loves listening to the Queen talk about great historical events, and the pair are sometimes gone for hours, poring over ancient documents in the Royal Archives, which are kept at Windsor Castle.
Peter Ball and his safe pair of hands – Elizabeth Butler-Sloss
Elizabeth Butler-Sloss
The Home Office has backed Baroness Butler-Sloss as the right person to lead an inquiry into allegations of historical child abuse, after claims about her over a previous review.
Phil Johnson, who was abused by Peter Ball at age 13, while a choirboy, claims she wanted to exclude some of his allegations against Peter Ball.
Mr Johnson’s claims add to pressure on Baroness Butler-Sloss, who was appointed by Home Secretary Theresa May to head a review of how allegations of abuse linked to public institutions in the 1970s, 80s and 90s were handled.
Church knew about allegations before Cornish preacher went on to abuse boys, investigation reveals
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling
25 MAY 2018
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009
A leading figure in the Church of England in Cornwall went on to commit child sex offences for several years after allegations about his behaviour with young boys were raised with the diocese and not acted upon, an official investigation has revealed.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released today, says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
After the first allegations of Dowling abusing boys at a North Cornwall school where he taught were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions – because of a lack of corroborative evidence – the then Bishop of Truro Maurice Key wrote: “I suppose the problem will now be to find him some other work”.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
The report’s author said the lack of action by the diocese allowed Dowling to gain credibility and authority.
“Because they didn’t take it any further it enabled Jeremy Dowling to reach a position where he made up his own rules, and his position within the church lent him credibility and authority,” said Dr Andy Thompson, an academic, magistrate and member of the Diocesan Council.
The Bishop of St Germans, Rt Revd Dr Chris Goldsmith, apologised for the lack of action and the suffering that resulted.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released on Friday (May 25), says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
One of the leaders who was named in the report was Michael Ball, 86, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997. The Right Reverend Ball told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations about Dowling but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
His identical twin, Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences dating back to the 1970s against 18 young men at his home in East Sussex.
His sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault. The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Last year the brothers decided they wanted to become Catholics so they could live in anonimity. Peter Ball asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol and both said they wanted to switch faith from the Church of England so they could “live and worship in anonymity” within the Catholic Church.
Former Bishop of Truro was Michael Ball, twin brother of convicted paedophile/friend of the royal family and Jimmy Savile – Bishop Peter Ball.
Jeremy Dowling
The Right Reverend Michael Ball – Bishop of Truro from 1990-97 – told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
Former Bishop of Truro Michael Ball and his paedophile ex-bishop twin Peter want to become Catholics so they can live in anonymity
8 DEC 2017
Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, has asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol, a spokesman for the Church confirmed.
His identical twin brother Michael Ball, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997, also sent an email to friends telling them of the idea.
From the email…”The events of the last years and rightly or wrongly the battering by the Church have totally wearied and reduced us.
“We will probably be joining the Roman Catholic Church soon.
…Michael Ball’s complaint of taking a “battering” from the Church was “flippant” and it was “disgusting” the pair were acting as though they were the victims.
A spokesman for the Roman Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton said: “We confirm that Peter Ball has been in contact with the Roman Catholic diocese of Clifton, in which diocese he now lives, expressing an interest in becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“This matter is subject to discussions between Clifton diocese and the statutory authorities, who are the lead with regards to Peter Ball’s risk management in the community.
Disgraced paedophile former bishop Peter Ball with close friend Prince Charles
Peter Ball’s sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault.
The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey resigned as honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford after the public inquiry into child sex abuse last year heard he delayed a “proper investigation” into Peter Ball’s crimes for two decades by failing to pass information to police.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Now it has emerged the Archbishop of Canterbury’s headquarters received at least six letters from other alleged victims detailing “potentially criminal” and “totally inappropriate behaviour” by Peter Ball in the early 1990s but did not pass them on to police until years later.
“The Church appears to have resorted to staggering levels of deceit in order to prevent the true extent of Ball’s offending coming to light,” said Richard Scorer, a solicitor who is representing victims of Peter Ball.
Details of the letters, all sent to the Church between December 1992 and February 1993, reveal that Peter Ball encouraged victims to pray naked, perform sex acts in front of him and share his bed.
Anglican officials who reviewed the letters in 2009 suggested that, had such evidence been given to detectives in 1993, Peter Ball may have been convicted of serious sexual offences rather than merely cautioned.
But instead of being made public, the letters were kept in confidential files at Lambeth Palace.
It was not until 2012, after several internal inquiries, that the Church finally released documents to police.
An independent review is also currently under way into the way the Church of England responded to the case involving Peter Ball.
BIG SOCIETY: Pictured above, with Prime Minister David Cameron and North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson, are Co-founder of Community Action Through Sport (CATS) and volunteer Denise Jane May, CATS trustee and volunteer Jeremy Dowling, CATS Project Development Manager Karen Hemmings, CATS Project Development Assistant Louise Anne Harris and CATS trustee and volunteer Sharon Caroline Marshall.
Ex Truro Diocese worker Jeremy Dowling sexually abused boys
5 June 2015
An ex-Diocese of Truro press officer has admitted sexually abusing boys over a period of more than 10 years.
Jeremy Dowling, 76, carried out the assaults on five children, aged between 12 and 15, from 1959 to 1971.
Truro Crown Court heard Dowling abused the boys at sporting events and in toilets while working as a teacher in Devon.
The Bishop of Truro described Dowling’s offences as “deeply shocking” and said his thoughts were with the victims.
Sentencing was adjourned until July 10 for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.
Dowling, of Church Path, Bude, retired from the Diocese of Truro in 2009 after 25 years of service.
‘Damaging impact’
He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault on boys aged 12 to 15 and two counts of indecency with a child.
The court heard one assault was carried out on a boy at a cricket match. Others took place in an attic, in storage rooms at a sporting pavilion and in outside toilets.
The Right Reverend Tim Thornton, Bishop of Truro, said many people would have known Dowling as a reader at St Michael’s Church and St Genny’s Church in Bude and as a member of the Diocesan and General Synods.
Bishop Thornton said: “Offences like this will have a damaging and lasting impact on people’s lives.
Former Cornwall preacher Jeremy Dowling ‘assaulted boy’
The assaults happened when Jeremy Dowling was a lay preacher at two churches in the Bude area of Cornwall, Truro Crown Court was told.
Mr Dowling met the boy when he was 10 through church activities and “took him under his wing”.
He has denied six counts of indecent assault on a child and two counts of gross indecency with a child.
The assaults happened in the 1970s before Mr Dowling became a press spokesman for the Diocese of Truro, the court heard.
‘Long time ago’
Jo Martin, prosecuting, said some of the assaults took place at Mr Dowling’s house after the boy had been invited for dinner and on one occasion he was taken to a church on the north coast.
She said Mr Dowling took him up a tower and showed him the view, then took him to a room and assaulted him.
The alleged victim did not tell anyone when he was a child but later, when he was married, told his wife about the assaults.
He said when his wife rang up Mr Dowling, accusing him of being a paedophile, Mr Dowling replied “that was a long time ago”.
He said he eventually went to the police after reading in news reports that Mr Dowling had admitted abusing five boys when he was a teacher at a private school in the 1960s.
Mr Dowling is currently serving a jail term for those offences.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
Anonymous said…
a pal of mine was studying at cheltenham college a few doors along from fred west, he said everyone knew about the sex parties, and when the music was going he could not sleep and would watch out the window, he saw social workers police all sorts going in, homosexual thursdays was packed out, taxis would bring young boys, from whre he could never find out bobby dobson
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Church of England put reputation above abuse victims’ needs, inquiry finds
Report into Peter Ball case criticises ex-archbishop George Carey as well as Prince Charles
May 9 2019
The Church of England put its own reputation above the needs of victims of sexual abuse, with a serious failure of leadership by the former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, in its handling of the case of a bishop who eventually went to prison, an official inquiry has concluded.
It also found that Prince Charles and other members of the establishment were misguided in their expressions of support of Peter Ball as he battled the accusations.
Ball, a former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, was jailed in 2015, more than 20 years after allegations were made against him that were largely ignored or downplayed by the church. Ball accepted a police caution in 1993 and resigned as bishop but was allowed to continue officiating in the C of E.
Ball “seemed to relish contact with prominent and influential people”, a 250-page report published on Thursday by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) said. He “sought to use his relationship with His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to further his campaign to return to unrestricted ministry”.
The prince and his private secretary spoke about Ball with the archbishop of Canterbury and arranged for the Duchy of Cornwall to buy a property to be rented by Ball after he resigned as a bishop.
The prince had been “misguided”, and his actions “could have been interpreted as expressions of support for Peter Ball and, given the Prince of Wales’s future role within the Church of England, had the potential to influence the actions of the church”, the report said.
It said Carey showed compassion to Ball that was not extended to the bishop’s victims, and displayed overt support for Ball’s innocence despite having no justification. Carey was archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002.
The church’s response to allegations of abuse by Ball and others in the diocese of Chichester was marked by secrecy, prevarication and avoidance of reporting alleged crimes, the report said.
Disclosures of abuse were handled inadequately by the church, and responses failed to display an appropriate level of urgency or appreciation of the seriousness of allegations made.
The report said “clericalism and tribalism” in the diocese of Chichester contributed to an abuse of power. During the inquiry’s public hearings last year, senior clergy squabbled about responsibility for failing to deal with past sexual abuse.
“The damaging consequence of this overriding allegiance to one’s own ‘tribe’ was that child protection was compromised,” the report said.
Perpetrators, about whom there were allegations or even convictions, were provided with unrestricted access to children and young people, the report found.
Apologies given by Justin Welby, the present archbishop of Canterbury, and other senior church figures over the C of E’s failures were “unconvincing”, it said.
Ball’s “charm, charisma and reputation” enabled him to avoid a criminal conviction until 2015, the report said. He was sentenced to 32 months in prison for sexual offences against 18 young men, and was released on licence after serving four months.
Alexis Jay, the inquiry’s chair, said: “For years, the diocese of Chichester failed victims of child sexual abuse by prioritising its own reputation above their welfare. Not only were disclosures of abuse handled inadequately by the church when they came to light, its response was marked by secrecy and a disregard for the seriousness of the abuse allegations.
“Peter Ball is one example of how a senior member of the clergy was able to sexually abuse vulnerable teenagers and young men for decades. The public support he received is reflective of the church’s culture at the time; a support that was rarely extended to his victims.”
The report recommended amending the 2003 Sexual Offences Act to include clergy among those defined as being in a position of trust. Such a move would criminalise sexual activity between clergy and a person aged between 16 and 18 over whom they exercise pastoral authority.
The inquiry held a hearing into the church’s handling of Ball’s case last July, taking evidence in person from two former archbishops of Canterbury – Carey and Rowan Williams – and Welby, the current incumbent. It also received a six-page written submission from the prince.
Carey told the inquiry that with 25 years of hindsight, he should not have been so generous in his views of Ball. He was “under great pressure” from Ball’s supporters to believe his protestations of innocence, he said.
William Chapman, representing survivors, told the inquiry: “The story of Peter Ball is the story of the establishment at work in modern times.”
Ball had been able to call upon the “willing assistance of members of the establishment. It included the heir to the throne, the archbishop and a senior member of the judiciary, to name only the most prominent,” Chapman said.
In his statement, the prince said he had been deceived about the true nature of Ball’s activities, but denied he had sought to influence the outcome of police investigations.
He wrote to Ball in February 1995, saying: “I wish I could do more. I feel so desperately strongly about the monstrous wrongs that have been done to you and the way you have been treated.”
Neil Todd, who made the first complaint against Ball to the police in 1992, killed himself in 2012 after several previous attempts.
A separate independent review of the Ball case, commissioned by the C of E and published last year, found evidence of collusion and a cover-up at the highest levels over a 20-year period.
Responding to the IICSA report, Peter Hancock, the bishop of Bath and Wells and the church’s lead bishop on safeguarding, said: “The report states that the Church of England should have been a place which protected all children and supported victims and survivors and the inquiry’s summary recognises that it failed to do this. It is absolutely right that the church at all levels should learn lessons from the issues raised in this report.”
He added that the church was committed to introducing changes to better protect children and vulnerable adults from abuse, and said it would consider the report’s conclusions and recommendations.
Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, who acts for a number of victims, said: “We may never know the true harm caused by Prince Charles’s intervention and support for Ball, but welcome the fact that the inquiry did not shy away from highlighting his role in this scandal.
“This report is a damning indictment of years of church cover-up, facilitation of child abuse and denigration and dismissal of victims. It rightly criticises senior church figures for serious failings, but it also exposes alarming cultural and structural problems in the Church of England.
“Yet again this shows the urgent need for an independent oversight of safeguarding and a mandatory reporting law to protect innocent and vulnerable people.”
The report highlights the evidence heard by the Inquiry of appalling sexual abuse agains children in the Diocese of Chichester and the inadequate response of the Church in cases including Peter Ball.
The report considers how Peter Ball abused his position as Bishop of Gloucester to deliberately manipulate vulnerable teenagers and young men for his own sexual gratification, which included naked praying, masturbation and flagellation.
The report concludes that the Church’s response to claims of child sexual abuse was marked by secrecy, prevarication and avoidance of reporting alleged crimes. It states that the apology given by the Church remains unconvincing.
“For years, the Diocese of Chichester failed victims and survivors of child sexual abuse by prioritising its own reputation above their welfare. Not only were disclosures of abuse handled inadequately by the Church when they came to light, its response was marked by secrecy and a disregard for the seriousness of abuse allegations.
“Peter Ball is one example of how a senior member of the clergy was able to sexually abuse vulnerable teenagers and young men for decades. The public support he received is reflective of the Church’s culture at the time; a support that was rarely extended to his victims.”
Prince Charles refused to give formal statement to sex abuse inquiry
23 July 2018
Prince Charles refused to provide a formal witness statement to the child sex abuse inquiry, lawyers told a hearing on Monday.
The inquiry is currently hearing evidence relating to abuse carried out by Peter Ball, the former bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester, who knew the prince and exchanged letters with him.
Lawyers for the Prince of Wales used human rights law to object to block efforts to compel him to send a witness statement in the format used by the inquiry, instead sending a signed letter.
Fiona Scolding, lead counsel to the investigation into the Anglican church, said that his lawyers had previously argued that compelling him to give evidence was outside its powers.
Ball was convicted in 2015 of misconduct in public office after admitting abusing 18 teenagers and young men between the 1970s and 1990s.
His abuse had first been reported to the church in 1992, but police and CPS decided to give him a caution, and he was stripped of his role as bishop.
Ms Scolding said there would have been “no doubt” about what the inquiry’s lawyers were asking for, as they sent a template for the document and used the word “statement” five times in one letter asking for the document to be signed.
“Despite lengthy correspondence, including assertions from the Prince’s solicitors that the Inquiry’s requests for evidence were outside its powers, i.e. ‘ultra vires’, there was never any suggestion at any point that the statement would be provided by letter,” she said.
The prince’s law firm Harbottle & Lewis also tried to argue that asking for a witness statement was “unfair”, and constituted a request for “intensely private and confidential” personal data.
Following “lengthy and extensive correspondence” an agreement was reached and the inquiry has decided to treat the letter, which ends with a sentence saying that its contents are true, as equivalent to a witness statement, she said.
The Prince will not give evidence in person but will have the statement read out at the hearing on Friday.
Earlier in the hearing Richard Scorer, of law firm Slater and Gordon, who is representing victims and survivors, expressed “surprise and concern” at the decision.
“This will inevitably raise concerns that the letter may be less than entirely frank about his relationship with Peter Ball and that it contains matters to which he s reluctant to attach a formal statement of truth,” he said.
The prince’s statement is expected to say that he was “not aware at the time of the significance or impact of the caution that Peter Ball had accepted”, including the fact that a caution involves admission of guilt.
On Tuesday the Inquiry is expected to hear evidence in person from former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, who was found in an independent inquiry last year to be among senior church figures who “colluded” with Peter Ball.
Earlier in the day the inquiry heard that the church was dealing with a “turbulent” period in 1992, with Lord Carey raising the “constitutional crisis” caused by the Prince’s split with Diana, Princess of Wales, as well as the decision to allow women to be priests.
A Clarence House spokesman said: “The prince made it clear that he was willing to help the Inquiry and voluntarily answered all the questions asked in the form of ‘free flowing text’ as requested by the Inquiry itself.
“The final submission includes a statement of truth in common with all witness statements. The legal exchanges, which have been extensively referred to by the Inquiry’s solicitors, were necessary to ensure clarity regarding both the structure, relevance and content of the statement.
“Once resolved, the Inquiry raised no objection to the format of the prince’s submission.”
Peter Ball (right) and his twin brother Michael Ball, pictured in 1989
Bishops were ‘perfect accomplices’ for ‘nauseating’ Peter Ball, IICSA hears
23 July 2018
PETER BALL found the “perfect cover” for his sex-offending in the Church of England, and the “perfect accomplices” in fellow bishops who turned a blind eye to his actions, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) has heard.
The details of the abuse carried out against vulnerable adults by Mr Ball, the disgraced former Bishop of Gloucester, during his ministry were heard on Monday at the start of a week-long hearing being conducted by IICSA, as part of its investigation into the extent to which the Anglican Church failed to protect children from child sex abuse.
The first hearing, in March, used the diocese of Chichester as a case study (News, 9 March). This week is to focus on the repeated failures of the police, Crown Prosecution Service, and the Church to identify, prevent, and prosecute abuse carried out by Ball over several decades, the lead counsel to the Anglican investigation, Fiona Scolding QC explained.
Ball received a three-year sentence in 2015, having admitted to a series of indecent assaults and the abuse of 18 young men aged 17-25 (News, 7 October 2015).
The offences included praying naked with vulnerable young people who had joined the monastic-community scheme Give a Year to God, which Ball had founded and run in Littlington, East Sussex, in the 1980s, when he was Bishop of Lewes.
Summarising the evidence received by the Inquiry, which included more than 100,000 documents, Ms Scolding said that Ball had admitted to being naked with, caressing, anointing, and physically assaulting young men, who would sleep in his house, sometimes in his bed, and with whom he would prayer naked, embrace, and masturbate. The victims were told that these practices were an expression of humiliation, penitence, and devotion to Christ.
One of his victims was the late Neil Todd, who was repeatedly abused during the 1980s and ’90s, and who later took his own life. His allegations brought about the police investigation in 1993, which resulted in Ball accepting a police caution, thereby admitting his guilt.
Ms Scolding also quoted several senior clerics who had held Ball in high esteem, most of whom had “flooded to defend him” after the police investigation and, latterly, his conviction. It had become clear in the Chichester hearing that abusers were required to “manipulate and charm” everyone around them, not just their victims, she said.
Among his defenders was Michael Ball, his twin brother and a former Bishop of Truro, who repeatedly urged Lambeth Palace to restore Peter Ball to ministry during the 2000s in what has been described in evidence as “manipulative” campaign which drew on connections with senior figures, including the Prince of Wales.
A lawyer representing six survivors of Ball, Richard Scorer QC, said that in the Church Ball had found the “perfect cover” for his offending.
“If a charlatan with an insatiable appetite for abuse wanted to secure a continuous supply of vulnerable young victims, there was no better way of achieving this than by founding a religious order not subject to any external supervision, and by making his victims participation in the abuse a religious duty obligated by their oath of absolute obedience.
“Not for the first time, theology and religious ritual provided the ideal mask for abuse, with the evil of what Peter Ball did being compounded by his nauseating claim that the abuse was spiritually uplifting.
“Most of all, however, Peter Ball found in his fellow bishops in the Church of England the perfect accomplices, prepared to turn a blind eye to his abuse over many decades, to collude in the lie that the abuse of Neil Todd was an uncharacteristic aberration, to cast doubt on his guilt, to smear his victims, and to rehabilitate him.”
Mr Scorer also criticised Prince Charles for not making efforts to check the position of Ball in 1993, after the bishop accepted a caution. “This extraordinary lack of curiosity looks like wilful blindness. . . He failed in that responsibility and therefore failed the victims.”
At the start of the hearing, the chair of the Inquiry, Professor Alexis Jay, expressed her disappointment at the “serious breach of confidence” after the content of a draft witness statement of Prince Charles was leaked to the press last week (News, 13 July).
The statement from Prince Charles had been disclosed to core participants on 9 July, Professor Jay said. “The panel is disappointed by the leaking of the draft statement. Deliberate leaking of information to the media before evidence is made public by the Inquiry not only undermines the ability of the Inquiry to get to the truth, but can also erode confidence in the Inquiry at all levels.”
Sir Robin Catford, the appointment secretary to the Prime Minister, recommended him to become Bishop of Gloucester in 1992
Bishop Peter Ball told those in the church after his arrest that he had four cabinet members who had offered him a bolthole from the press.
…to many people, the actions of 1992 and subsequently, smacked of a coverup: that those in high places had acted to hush up the offending…
Bishop Eric Kemp, who was the diocesan bishop at that time, allowed Peter Ball to make decisions about appointments to parishes and also to grant permission to officiate, so he had significant power over who were to become the vicars of the future…
Peter Ball wasa governor of both Lancing College but also the wider Woodard Group, which is a group of Anglican boarding schools
Sir Robin Catford was Secretary for Appointments to the prime minister from 1982 to 1993.
A civil servant rather than a political appointee, Catford advised Margaret Thatcher, and later John Major, on Crown appointments – those made in the name of the Queen on the recommendation of the prime minister. These were, principally, senior figures in the Church of England (archbishops, bishops and deans); Lords Lieutenant; and certain senior academic posts, such as regius professorships.
He was appointed CBE in 1990 and KCVO in 1993.
In retirement Catford lived at Chichester, West Sussex, where he had been a member of the Diocesan Synod from 1979 to 1984 and from 1988 to 1990; he remained a devoted and active member of the cathedral congregation.
When he retired, he had served in that post for 11 years, first under Margaret Thatcher, and then John Major
He took very seriously the authority of the Crown and the Prime Minister in making church appointments at all levels, but especially those of diocesan bishops. He certainly recognised that Church and state were in a partnership, but regarded the state as the senior partner. For instance, while the Callaghan settlement in 1975 gave the Church a decisive voice in naming diocesan bishops, the state retained the decisive voice, and Robin Catford safeguarded that position.
Bishop Peter Ball was on close terms with the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret
Even the Queen supported him after his police caution. In 1994, when she was distributing Royal Maundy money in Truro, Ball was there with his brother, who was Truro’s bishop.
After lunch in the Chapter House, the Queen, who had been on the high table with local dignitaries, went across to Ball, held out her hand and said in the clearest of voices: ‘My love and encouragement, Bishop.’
But Mrs Thatcher’s patronage secretary, Mr Robin Catford, is there to fight her corner — and she will choose a layman to chair this … The Queen was an enthusiast for the appointment of Peter Ball to the bishopric of Norwich, but the episcopal …
Norma Moore@Mousehole1
You would expect that anybody with nothing to hide would be completely open and have no fear. This behaviour gives the appearance of someone feeling the need to hide something. It actually draws attention to what that ‘something’ could possibly be. Extremely odd.
LazerLight@Lazer_Light23
So, Inquiry has no power to insist on statements from anyone?
According to evidence given to iiCSA today, Peter Ball would spend an hour each day praying in the nude… next to an open window. He also watched young clergy take cold showers each morning.
InquiryCSA@InquiryCSA
Rev’d Graham Sawyer: Let me make this clear – the sexual abuse that I suffered at the hands of Peter Ball, pales into insignificance when compared to the cruel/sadistic nature metered out to me
Esther Baker@Esther9982
I do wonder if the lawyers acting for the CP’s ought to challenge the lawyers running the @InquiryCSA on the basis that they are now accepting the accused (and their reps) words rather than truth seeking as their powers allow?
Recent examples of this would be a) allowing royalty to not give pertinent evidence because he’s royalty. B) inaccurately issuing a statement that I am under investigation for PCJ, and only removing it at the insistence of the police – because an ex-MP said it so it must be true
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
If he didn’t know, he’s hardly fit to be King …
Richard Scorer: My clients accept the PoW has many interactions with Church of England clergy. However our clients do not accept that he claims he was not aware that a caution means an acceptance of guilt.
Scorer claims senior leaders in the Church knew of Peter Ball’s offending but Lambeth Palace did not hand over letters to police:http://ow.ly/M5yK30l4wJe
Mr William Chapman: There’s a reluctance to trust the secular authorities to handle the matter and a willingness to forgive and reintegrate Peter Ball, no matter what he’d done
Elizabeth Hall, Nat Safeguarding Advisor, recommending a further review of Peter Ball information which should involve trying to find all files/documents
Both Michael Ball and brother Peter Ball were not shy about using the name of the Prince of Wales to seek to influence others. Bishop Michael Ball wrote to Lord Carey in Dec 1992 saying that his brother was receiving support from 2 Cabinet Ministers and Prince Charles Peter Ball often mention their friendship.
On 8 March 1993 Peter Ball received a caution for one count of gross indecency against Neil Todd. He resigned immediately. Peter Ball alleged to the Church of England shortly that he either did not wish to resign, and accepted a caution to avoid a trial.
“This Inquiry has been provided with details of allegations made by a total of 32 individuals. These all relate to an alleged abuse of power by Peter Ball for the purposes of his sexual gratification.”
The former Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball was convicted of two offences of indecent assault, and an offence of misconduct
Peter Ball admitted when pleading guilty that he received sexual gratification from the deliberate manipulation of vulnerable young men, that the contact was consistent with grooming and that he abused his position as a Bishop in the Church of England
In January 1996, Ball was permitted by Archbishop Carey to preach at a particular public school and, to conduct confirmations at other specific schools later on in that year
(1) Why he was permitted to return to ministry in this fashion? (2) Why did no-one think to carry out some kind of risk assessment? (3) Whether or not senior clergy simply thought that Peter Ball’s pleas of innocence should be believed?
“I really appreciate your sympathetic understanding in preventing a scandal with a trial which would have affected the Royal family and establishments in this crucial time of turmoil within the Church of England.” Bishop Kemp comments on a 1990s investigation into Peter Ball
A risk assessment carried out by the Church in 2009 identified that Peter Ball could be identified as a sexual predator given the length and scale of his offending
Prince Charles gives evidence to inquiry into Peter Ball
The Prince of Wales says he was aware that Peter Ball, who lived in Aller, near Langport, had been given a police caution, but claims he did not realise it amounted to an admission of guilt.
Details of Prince Charles’s relationship with Ball will be revealed at an inquiry into the case on Friday.
The next in line to the throne had “decades of correspondence” with Ball and occasionally sent him “small gifts of money”, according to the draft copy of his statement to the inquiry, The Times has reported.
The statement will add that Ball confided in him in 2009 that he had been involved in an “indiscretion” years previously, which he blamed on a person with a grudge.
Prince Charles to tell child abuse inquiry he sent ‘small gifts of money’ to bishop friend but was ‘certainly not aware’ he was a paedophile despite clergyman accepting caution for gross indecency
A written statement from Prince Charles will be read out at the inquiry next week
Ball, who has boasted of being a confidant of Charles, was jailed in October 2015
Heir to the throne says he sent him ‘small gifts and money’ after being deceived
Former Bishop of Lewes had sexually abused 18 young men over three decades
He was released in February last year after serving half his sentence behind bars
20 July 2018
The Prince of Wales sent a disgraced former bishop ‘small gifts and money’ – but didn’t know he was a paedophile, the heir to the throne has told an inquiry.
The heir to the throne remained friends with Peter Ball, now 86, because he did not understand that the clergyman’s caution relating to gross indecency was an admission of guilt, it was reported today.
Charles was in contact with Bishop Peter Ball for more than 20 years until he was convicted in 2015 for sexual abuse offences.
Ball resigned in 1993 after a police investigation into abuse of boys and young men and accepted a caution over it – but told the Prince it was because someone with a grudge was ‘persecuting’ him.
Charles’ written statement submitted to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, seen by the Times, is due to be made public next week.
He is quoted as saying: ‘I was certainly not aware at the time of of the significance or impact of the caution. Whilst I note that Peter Ball mentioned the word in a letter to me in October 2009, I was not aware until recently that a caution in fact carries an admission of guilt’.
The letter, which is reportedly a draft, was submitted voluntarily and said the prince had ‘decades of correspondence’ with the bishop and that he sent ‘small gifts of money, as I do for many people in need’.
Charles is also said to have said he has ‘deep personal regret’ that Ball, who was finally jailed for 32 months in October 2015, had deceived him and hidden his sexual abuse of 18 young men over a period of 30 years.
He was released in February last year after serving half his sentence behind bars.
Ball often spoke of his links with the Royal family and was invited to give communion at the Prince’s home in Highgrove.
He also spoke at the Duchess of Cornwall’s father Bruce Shand’s funeral in 2006 and lived on Duchy of Cornwall land from 1997 to 2011.
The inquiry is examining how the Church of England handled sex abuse allegations and has previously focused on the Diocese of Chichester – where Ball was the former Bishop of Gloucester and several other convicted paedophile priests once officiated.
The week-long case study beginning on Monday will investigate ‘whether there were inappropriate attempts by people of prominence to interfere in the criminal justice process after he was first accused of child sexual offences’.
Ball was allowed to continue giving church services after he accepted a police caution for a single offence in March 1993.
The secretive deal meant he was not exposed until a fresh police investigation uncovered the extent of his abuse 22 years later.
Ball’s court case heard that a member of the royal family – who has never been named – was among a host of public figures who supported him when he avoided charges in 1993.
He boasted of his links to royalty and was said to be a confidant of the Prince of Wales, with an independent review finding he used his connections to boost his position.
Prince Charles’s evidence, which will be read out on the final day of next week’s inquiry, is being met with skepticism by some close to the case.
One source told The Times they were concerned there would be no chance for the Prince to be cross-examined on his evidence.
They told the newspaper: ‘It’s very convenient that Charles’s statement is to be read at the last session of the Ball inquiry.
‘He was either staggeringly naive about him or he was part of the influential that supported him.’
Previously Clarence House reportedly said it did not believe the correspondence between Ball and the future king had any bearing on the issues before the inquiry but did not object to them being shared for consideration.
Ball’s sentence came 22 years after the abuse allegation first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault.
The court heard that Ball convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing that Sussex Police had reopened the case.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey – who will also give evidence next week – resigned as honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford after an inquiry found he delayed a ‘proper investigation’ into Ball’s crimes for two decades by failing to pass information to police.
Reverend Graham Sawyer, who was abused by Ball as a teenager and waived his right to anonymity, is also among those due to give evidence next week.
Cleric rented house on the Duchy estate owned by ‘friend’ Charles
Disgraced bishop Peter Ball reneged on a deal to move abroad to escape prosecution in 1993, and instead rented a house from the estate of his ‘friend’ Prince Charles.
The cleric told police he would live with nuns in France in return for receiving the caution as part of an alleged agreement with a ‘sympathetic’ detective who wanted to help the church avoid the scandal of a criminal trial. It meant Ball was not prosecuted until October 2015.
After resigning as bishop in 1993, Ball moved to Manor Lodge, in the Somerset village of Aller, a property owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, the private estate headed by Charles. He later publicly praised the ‘wonderfully kind’ Charles who he said ‘allowed me to have a duchy house’.
The detail has come to light from a report written by Brian Tyler, a former police officer-turned-priest who Ball hired to work as a private detective.
In it, he wrote: ‘It is needless to point out that having secured the caution on one offence and knowing the file has been closed, he has ‘welshed’ in his promise to me, and the police, to leave the country.’
Royal sources at the time made clear that Charles has no involvement in the commercial decisions on who is renting Duchy properties.
Peter Ball abuse inquiry requests statement from Prince Charles
Wed 06 Jun 2018
By Press Association
The Prince of Wales has been asked to give a witness statement to a public inquiry about a paedophile bishop who was jailed after abusing young men.
Peter Ball was sentenced to 32 months in 2015 for a string of offences between the 1970s and 1990s, and the handling of allegations against him is now being examined by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
At a hearing on Wednesday, counsel to the inquiry Fiona Scolding QC said that statements had been requested from the prince and his principal private secretary.
According to a transcript posted on the inquiry website, she said: “We have also requested a witness statement from both His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and his principal private secretary.
“The Prince’s solicitors have indicated their client’s willingness to assist us and have raised a number of important issues for us to consider.
“This has led to lengthy and complex discussions and we are currently considering the latest points they have raised. We hope to be able to provide an update to core participants on this in the next couple of weeks.”
Charles had exchanged a series of letters with Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester, whose diocese covers Highgrove, the prince’s country home.
A spokesman for the prince told the Daily Mail last year that the correspondence contained nothing of relevance to the clergyman’s offending.
Lawyer Richard Scorer from Slater and Gordon, who is representing complainants at the IICSA, said: “It is imperative that the inquiry leaves no stone unturned in its efforts to establish how Peter Ball was able to evade justice for two decades.
“If this means calling Prince Charles and other prominent establishment figures as witnesses then the inquiry should do so without fear or favour.”
Peter Ball… was propelled into the royal circle by two people… One was prebendary Willie Booth, a former chaplain at Westminster School, who’d taken over from Canon Anthony Caesar, sub dean of the Chapel Royal and the Queen’s domestic chaplain.
The other was Jimmy Savile.
Ball’s royal friendships were not confined to the Prince of Wales.
Ball was on close terms with the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, and was invited to preach at Sandringham.
Even the Queen supported him after his police caution. In 1994, when she was distributing Royal Maundy money in Truro, Ball was there with his brother, who was Truro’s bishop.
After lunch in the Chapter House, the Queen, who had been on the high table with local dignitaries, went across to Ball, held out her hand and said in the clearest of voices: ‘My love and encouragement, Bishop.’
Charles, meanwhile, must surely have been advised to keep Ball at arm’s length — just as he had been advised to distance himself from Jimmy Savile.
‘The Prince did receive letters from the public complaining about Savile,’ says a senior aide.
Media-sawy Jimmy Savile explains why rumours of necrophilia, paedophilia and homosexuality don’t bother him
… health chiefs were said to have been ‘gobsmacked’
to arrive for a meeting at Highgrove to find Savile at the table. He apparently threatened the officials after the Prince left, saying making them unhappy could cost the officials a knighthood.
Savile was a guest at Charles’s 40th birthday party at Buckingham Palace in 1988, and at his 50th. When Charles received a gift of a box of Cohiba cigars from Fidel Castro, he passed them on to Savile.
Later still, on Savile’s 80th birthday, Charles despatched another box of cigars, together with a pair of gold cufflinks and a note that bizarrely read: ‘Nobody will ever know what you have done for this country Jimmy. This is to go some way in thanking you for that.’
Britain’s Prince of Wales talks with boxer Frank Bruno (left) and entertainer Sir Jimmy Savile during a reception at London’s Buckingham Palace Friday November 13, 1998, The reception, hosted by Queen Elizabeth, on the eve of the Prince’s 50th birthday.
Sex abuse bishop Peter Ball and brother seek Catholic switch
06 December 2017
A former bishop jailed for sex offences and his twin brother have said they are looking to join the Catholic Church to “live and worship in anonymity”.
Peter Ball, who is now 85, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences against 18 teenagers and men.
The former Bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester carried out the abuse between the 1970s and 1990s.
Ball’s identical twin and former bishop Michael Ball said in an email events had “wearied and reduced us”.
In the email, mistakenly sent from Michael Ball to BBC South East’s Colin Campbell among others, the brothers said having been “battered by the Church” they would be looking to join the Roman Catholic Church.
They said they would like to “end our days in a church where we can live and worship in anonymity and without constant fear”.
The BBC contacted Michael Ball about the email and he said a move to the Catholic Church was “a possibility”.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton said in a statement: “We confirm that Peter Ball has been in contact with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton, in which diocese he now lives, expressing an interest in becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“This matter is subject to discussions between Clifton Diocese and the statutory authorities, who are the lead with regards to Peter Ball’s risk management in the community.”
Dame Moira said he had received seven letters from families and individuals following the arrest and cautioning of Ball in 1992 for gross indecency – when he stood down as Bishop of Gloucester – but failed to pass six of them to the police.
Lord Carey had also failed to put Ball on the the “Lambeth List” which names clergymen whose suitability for ministry had been questioned.
Dame Moira also heard Bishop Michael Ball allowed his brother to attend functions in his place, even after his resignation, and on one occasion Peter Ball had introduced himself as his brother.
In 1994 Michael Ball campaigned to Lord Carey to return his brother to the ministry, with one bishop calling the brothers’ activities “manipulative”, Dame Moira reported .
Between 1995 and 1997, with Lord Carey’s backing. Peter Ball returned to church ministry, eventually undertaking duties such as confirmations.
After a series of investigations Balls’ ministry ceased in 2011, Dame Moira reported.
Former Bishop of Truro Michael Ball and his paedophile ex-bishop twin Peter want to become Catholics so they can live in anonymity
8 DEC 2017
Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, has asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol, a spokesman for the Church confirmed.
His identical twin brother Michael Ball, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997, also sent an email to friends telling them of the idea.
From the email…”The events of the last years and rightly or wrongly the battering by the Church have totally wearied and reduced us.
“We will probably be joining the Roman Catholic Church soon.
…Michael Ball’s complaint of taking a “battering” from the Church was “flippant” and it was “disgusting” the pair were acting as though they were the victims.
A spokesman for the Roman Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton said: “We confirm that Peter Ball has been in contact with the Roman Catholic diocese of Clifton, in which diocese he now lives, expressing an interest in becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“This matter is subject to discussions between Clifton diocese and the statutory authorities, who are the lead with regards to Peter Ball’s risk management in the community.
Disgraced paedophile former bishop Peter Ball with close friend Prince Charles
Peter Ball’s sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault.
The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey resigned as honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford after the public inquiry into child sex abuse last year heard he delayed a “proper investigation” into Peter Ball’s crimes for two decades by failing to pass information to police.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Now it has emerged the Archbishop of Canterbury’s headquarters received at least six letters from other alleged victims detailing “potentially criminal” and “totally inappropriate behaviour” by Peter Ball in the early 1990s but did not pass them on to police until years later.
“The Church appears to have resorted to staggering levels of deceit in order to prevent the true extent of Ball’s offending coming to light,” said Richard Scorer, a solicitor who is representing victims of Peter Ball.
Details of the letters, all sent to the Church between December 1992 and February 1993, reveal that Peter Ball encouraged victims to pray naked, perform sex acts in front of him and share his bed.
Anglican officials who reviewed the letters in 2009 suggested that, had such evidence been given to detectives in 1993, Peter Ball may have been convicted of serious sexual offences rather than merely cautioned.
But instead of being made public, the letters were kept in confidential files at Lambeth Palace.
It was not until 2012, after several internal inquiries, that the Church finally released documents to police.
An independent review is also currently under way into the way the Church of England responded to the case involving Peter Ball.
Church knew about allegations before Cornish preacher went on to abuse boys, investigation reveals
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling
25 MAY 2018
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009
A leading figure in the Church of England in Cornwall went on to commit child sex offences for several years after allegations about his behaviour with young boys were raised with the diocese and not acted upon, an official investigation has revealed.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released today, says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
After the first allegations of Dowling abusing boys at a North Cornwall school where he taught were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions – because of a lack of corroborative evidence – the then Bishop of Truro Maurice Key wrote: “I suppose the problem will now be to find him some other work”.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
The report’s author said the lack of action by the diocese allowed Dowling to gain credibility and authority.
“Because they didn’t take it any further it enabled Jeremy Dowling to reach a position where he made up his own rules, and his position within the church lent him credibility and authority,” said Dr Andy Thompson, an academic, magistrate and member of the Diocesan Council.
The Bishop of St Germans, Rt Revd Dr Chris Goldsmith, apologised for the lack of action and the suffering that resulted.
The diocese failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher, allowing him to rise to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop, an independent review for the church concludes.
The report, released on Friday (May 25), says there were “historic failings” within the diocese in dealing with the allegations, first raised in 1972. There was “ongoing knowledge” of the situation among senior figures in the diocese “well into the 1980s” with references to “a big fat file” on Dowling.
Dowling became such an important and valued worker and volunteer during a 40-year association with the diocese that a special service of thanks was given in his honour when he retired in 2009.
In 2015 he was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty at Truro Crown Court to 15 charges of sexually abusing boys under 16.
In 2016 he was jailed for an additional eight years after being found guilty of six further charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 1973 and 1977. Those offences happened when he befriended the boy while a lay preacher at a church in Budehaven – and took place after concerns were first raised with the diocese.
One of the leaders who was named in the report was Michael Ball, 86, who was Bishop of Truro from 1990 to 1997. The Right Reverend Ball told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations about Dowling but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
His identical twin, Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester who boasted of links to royalty, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences dating back to the 1970s against 18 young men at his home in East Sussex.
His sentence came 22 years after the abuse first surfaced. He eventually admitted misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault. The court heard how Peter Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.
The first of his victims to come forward took his own life in 2012 after hearing Sussex Police had reopened the case.
There were fears Peter Ball may have taken the place of his twin, who was Bishop of Truro in the Nineties, and therefore duped congregations in other parts of the UK.
The Diocese of Truro was understood to be looking into the evidence that Peter Ball conducted services in Cornwall.
Last year the brothers decided they wanted to become Catholics so they could live in anonimity. Peter Ball asked to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton in Bristol and both said they wanted to switch faith from the Church of England so they could “live and worship in anonymity” within the Catholic Church.
Former Bishop of Truro was Michael Ball, twin brother of convicted paedophile/friend of the royal family and Jimmy Savile – Bishop Peter Ball.
Jeremy Dowling
The Right Reverend Michael Ball – Bishop of Truro from 1990-97 – told the diocese he had been informed of the allegations but had not seen any need to take action as there had not been a prosecution.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
BIG SOCIETY: Pictured above, with Prime Minister David Cameron and North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson, are Co-founder of Community Action Through Sport (CATS) and volunteer Denise Jane May, CATS trustee and volunteer Jeremy Dowling, CATS Project Development Manager Karen Hemmings, CATS Project Development Assistant Louise Anne Harris and CATS trustee and volunteer Sharon Caroline Marshall.
Ex Truro Diocese worker Jeremy Dowling sexually abused boys
5 June 2015
An ex-Diocese of Truro press officer has admitted sexually abusing boys over a period of more than 10 years.
Jeremy Dowling, 76, carried out the assaults on five children, aged between 12 and 15, from 1959 to 1971.
Truro Crown Court heard Dowling abused the boys at sporting events and in toilets while working as a teacher in Devon.
The Bishop of Truro described Dowling’s offences as “deeply shocking” and said his thoughts were with the victims.
Sentencing was adjourned until July 10 for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.
Dowling, of Church Path, Bude, retired from the Diocese of Truro in 2009 after 25 years of service.
‘Damaging impact’
He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault on boys aged 12 to 15 and two counts of indecency with a child.
The court heard one assault was carried out on a boy at a cricket match. Others took place in an attic, in storage rooms at a sporting pavilion and in outside toilets.
The Right Reverend Tim Thornton, Bishop of Truro, said many people would have known Dowling as a reader at St Michael’s Church and St Genny’s Church in Bude and as a member of the Diocesan and General Synods.
Bishop Thornton said: “Offences like this will have a damaging and lasting impact on people’s lives.
Former Cornwall preacher Jeremy Dowling ‘assaulted boy’
The assaults happened when Jeremy Dowling was a lay preacher at two churches in the Bude area of Cornwall, Truro Crown Court was told.
Mr Dowling met the boy when he was 10 through church activities and “took him under his wing”.
He has denied six counts of indecent assault on a child and two counts of gross indecency with a child.
The assaults happened in the 1970s before Mr Dowling became a press spokesman for the Diocese of Truro, the court heard.
‘Long time ago’
Jo Martin, prosecuting, said some of the assaults took place at Mr Dowling’s house after the boy had been invited for dinner and on one occasion he was taken to a church on the north coast.
She said Mr Dowling took him up a tower and showed him the view, then took him to a room and assaulted him.
The alleged victim did not tell anyone when he was a child but later, when he was married, told his wife about the assaults.
He said when his wife rang up Mr Dowling, accusing him of being a paedophile, Mr Dowling replied “that was a long time ago”.
He said he eventually went to the police after reading in news reports that Mr Dowling had admitted abusing five boys when he was a teacher at a private school in the 1960s.
Mr Dowling is currently serving a jail term for those offences.
A RECENT service at Truro Cathedral paid tribute to the work of Jeremy Dowling, the Diocese of Truro’s Communications Officer, who steps down at the end of December after more than 25 years in post. He has lived in the Bude area for more than 40 years.
On a wet and windswept evening, a congregation made up from clergy and people from across the diocese enjoyed a service that included readings, hymns and a sermon given by the former Bishop of Truro, Bishop Bill Ind. Also present were the current Bishop of Truro, The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, the Dean of Truro, The Very Rev Dr Christopher Hardwick, both Archdeacons and Mr Martin Follett, the Diocesan Registrar.
During his sermon, Bishop Bill paid tribute not only to the work that Jeremy undertook as Communications Officer but also his very substantial other work for the Diocese including nearly 40 years as a Reader,
seventeen years as Chairman of the House of Laity of the Diocesan Synod, one of the first people to be made Lay Canons of the Cathedral, a member of the General Synod for 27 years, as well as sitting at one time or another on virtually every Board and Committee of the Diocese.
He said, “Jeremy’s media and broadcasting skills are second to none.”
His experience and expertise in the television broadcast area was particularly noted, especially the background work he was able to do which led to programmes such as the very successful and popular BBC series ’Seaside Parish’ featuring Boscastle and the surrounding parishes, which enjoyed weekly audiences if over three million, ’Island Parish’ featuring the Isles of Scilly and ’The Monastery.’
Summing up, Bishop Bill said: “He has been a critical friend, someone who has told me the truth as he sees it. He has made me and indeed others both laugh and think and for both these things and much else I remain profoundly grateful. The Diocese owes him an enormous amount and so indeed do I and a host of others.”
Jeremy Dowling has lived in the Bude area of North Cornwall for more than forty years, with thirty years spent in the parish of St Gennys, and he is Chair of Governors of Budehaven Community School.
In his thanks and response to Bishop Bill, Jeremy noted how the communications role had changed greatly with much more emphasis today on electronic media. He acknowledged with gratitude the work of the local press and media, recognising its essential vitality and the key role it played in championing issues which were important for the church and for society.
“We have enjoyed excellent relations with the westcountry media” he said “and it has been a privilege to work with local journalists and broadcasters.”
He concluded by saying: “In my view, the strength of the Church remains in the local community. There is a lot going on. And the thread which runs through most of the stories is undeniably positive. They chronicle a vigorous, interesting, dynamic, eccentric and imaginative life in the church in Cornwall. Long may it
continue.”
After refreshments, a large bouquet was presented by Bishop Tim to Daphne Dowling in recognition of her support for her husband, and Jeremy was presented with a substantial cheque from parishes and individuals in the Diocese
Charles embroiled in rapidly growing gay-sex scandal
Prince Charles is in the middle of a gay-sex scandal and media frenzy that just won’t quit.
Butler-turned-biographer Paul Burrell says he has an audiotape describing a sexual encounter between Prince Charles and a male aide.
By John Stillwell, AP
The heir to England’s throne spent Sunday night — just as he returned from a 10-day trip to India and the Persian Gulf — holding what some in the British press referred to as “crisis talks” with son Prince William, companion Camilla Parker Bowles and other aides to determine the next step in quelling the story.
For the past week, newspapers have been trumpeting a story being told by former palace servant George Smith, 43, who worked for Charles for 11 years until 1997.
Smith says he witnessed a sexual incident involving Prince Charles and a former male royal aide. He says he recorded what he saw on an audiotape and gave the tape to Princess Diana. Now, the tape is in the hands of Paul Burrell, Diana’s former butler.
Last month, Burrell began publicizing his tell-all book, A Royal Duty. He mentioned the tape and said that revealing its contents would rock the monarchy.
Newspapers pounced on the story, and the allegations began appearing on various Web sites.
But before London papers could report the story, Michael Fawcett, a former royal aide to the prince, got an injunction from the High Court. It prevented the British press from reporting the details of the lurid allegations.
As the media interest escalated throughout last week, Charles issued a lengthy denial Thursday: “This allegation is untrue,” and it “did not take place.”
In his statement, he mentioned that the claim comes from a former royal household employee who “has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and has previously suffered from alcoholism following active service in the Falklands.”
It said the employee — Smith — had made charges in the past “which the police have fully investigated and found to be unsubstantiated.” Smith also claims to have been raped by the same aide.
On Monday, a former valet, Simon Solari, who worked for Charles and Diana for 15 years, came to Charles’ defense, telling London’s Evening Standard that the allegations “simply could not be true.”
Also on Monday, a spokeswoman at Clarence House, the prince’s official London residence, said there were no plans to take any legal action and no plans for the prince to make any public comment.
The prince was spending Monday and Tuesday privately at his Highgrove estate; his first public engagement this week is set for Wednesday at a memorial service at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea.
Although some British press reports say the scandal is strong enough to leave a black mark on the monarchy, Charles’ spokesman, Patrick Harrison, says the royal is “unruffled” by it all.
REVEALED: How Prince Charles dramatically tried to stop court case of Diana’s butler Paul Burrell that threatened to humiliate the Royals
Police found a hoard of items belonging to Princess Diana at her butler’s home
Paul Burrell was later accused of stealing 310 items together worth £4.5 million
11 days into the trial, the Queen ‘had a recollection’ proving Burrell’s innocence
18 March 2018
The doorbell rang at 6.50 in the morning of January 18, 2001. Paul Burrell, who was asleep, was woken by his wife.
Standing at the door was Detective Chief Inspector Maxine de Brunner and three other police officers.
‘Do you have any items from Kensington Palace in this house?’ Princess Diana’s former butler was asked.
‘No,’ he lied. He was then placed under arrest and the pre-dawn raid on his home near Runcorn in Cheshire began.
What the detectives found was far beyond their expectations.
The rooms were filled with paintings, drawings, china and photographs that clearly belonged to Diana, who’d died three-and-a-half years before, and her children William and Harry.
‘Oh my God,’ exclaimed de Brunner.
In Burrell’s study, she’d just spotted an expensive inlaid mahogany desk inscribed ‘Her Royal Highness’. ‘How did you get all this?’ she asked the butler.
‘The princess gave it to me,’ he said, collapsing into a chair and beginning to sob.
As the search continued, the police discovered 2,000 negatives. A cursory look revealed Charles in the bath with his children, and many others showing the young princes naked.
Other finds included 30 signed photographs of Diana, many empty silver frames, a box containing the princess’s daily personal notes to William at school, and another box of Diana’s more intimate letters to William.
As Burrell’s sobs intensified, an officer shouted from the attic: ‘It’s full of boxes, wall to wall!’
The boxes were wrenched open: inside were bags, blouses, dresses, nightgowns, underwear, shoes, jumpers, suits and hats that had belonged to Diana, including a blue-ribboned hat she’d worn during her visit with Prince Charles to South Korea in 1992.
Her perfume, de Brunner noticed, lingered on the fabric.
Late that afternoon, officers filled a lorry sent from London with 2,000 items that de Brunner judged had been illegally removed.
The princess, she believed, would never have given away such personal material, and certainly not in such quantities.
Nevertheless, a large number of Diana’s possessions remained in the house. But without orders from Scotland Yard either to seize everything that had belonged to the family or to seal the house as a crime scene, there was no more to be done.
‘I want white lilies on my coffin,’ wailed Burrell as he was escorted to the waiting police car.
There can be few people in Britain unaware of the 2002 trial of Paul Burrell, which was dramatically halted after the Queen had a ‘recollection’.
Nearly 16 years on, however, it appears that a great deal went on behind the scenes that was never revealed to the public.
I have talked to many of the police, courtiers and lawyers who were intimately involved in the Burrell case — before, during and after the trial.
Among the most serious disclosures are those relating to Prince Charles — and the attempts made on his behalf to try to stop the prosecution going ahead.
Burrell had originally worked for both Charles and Diana at Highgrove, then moved with the princess to Kensington Palace, where he was a witness to her extreme moods and secret affairs.
Although married himself, he’d had so many gay affairs with guardsmen that Diana’s chef called him ‘Barrack-Room Bertha’.
The public knew none of this, however, when Burrell became a minor celebrity after Diana’s death, appearing on TV shows and even posing for photographers at the Oscars.
News of his former employee’s arrest reached Charles about a week after the police raid.
Unaware of the scale of the alleged theft, and knowing that low-paid staff occasionally pilfered small items, he told his assistant private secretary Mark Bolland that Burrell probably did steal some things ‘because they all do’.
Within hours, however, Charles had become more alarmed. After all, police probes into murky palace habits could produce unexpected difficulties.
Soon afterwards, his senior private secretary Stephen Lamport, looking beaten and downhearted, confessed to a colleague: ‘We’ve got a terrible problem with this man Burrell… the Prince of Wales is distraught.
‘The prince will say he gave the things to [the butler] and that Burrell’s actions were all right.’ Lamport’s confidant was unimpressed. Even Charles had to allow justice to take its course, he said.
Indeed, the investigation was now well under way. During his second police interview Burrell was asked: ‘Did you tell anyone that you had the property?’
Burrell faced a trial at the Old Bailey and Prince Charles was distraught at what might be disclosed
‘No,’ he admitted, insisting that the items — including all Diana’s school reports — were gifts.
Burrell’s solicitor Andrew Shaw, for his part, appeared to think the case would never come to trial.
‘You’re making a terrible mistake,’ he told Maxine de Brunner. ‘They won’t let Burrell’s secrets be splashed in the public domain. They’ll never let this come to trial.’
In light of what happened subsequently, his comments were not quite as far-fetched as they seemed.
April 3, 2001
Along with a Crown prosecution lawyer, Maxine de Brunner arrived at St James’s Palace for a meeting. There was no alternative but to prosecute, they told the Royal Family’s senior officials.
Also present was Charles’s divorce lawyer, Fiona Shackleton, to whom he’d now turned for legal advice.
She revealed that Paul Burrell had sent the prince a handwritten letter in which he offered to return some of the items, provided Charles agreed not to support any prosecution. The letter had been returned on her advice.
The CPS lawyer explained that the case could be closed only if Prince William and Diana’s sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale, who together inherited Diana’s property, signed statements to drop their complaints.
Shackleton’s view was that Charles could not be party to undermining the legal system.
Agreeing to accept the return of some property in exchange for dropping the investigation, she said, would make it look as if Buckingham Palace were participating in a cover-up.
‘It needs to be all or nothing,’ she said.
Sir Robin Janvrin, the Queen’s private secretary, agreed to tell the monarch what had been discussed, and almost certainly did so.
This, of course, would have been the ideal moment for the Queen to recall that she’d allowed the butler to take some of Diana’s possessions for safekeeping. But apparently she didn’t say a word.
As for Charles, he was upset when his own private secretary told him the police intended to prosecute.
Who knew what Burrell might say in the witness box? In effect, he was a time-bomb, having witnessed the prince’s secret meetings and phone calls with Camilla while he was married, and Diana’s many rendezvous with her boyfriends.
He told his spin-doctor Mark Bolland to try to navigate a way out of a prosecution.
May 2
The case against Burrell strengthened.
The police had now had time to watch six videos found in Burrell’s home, featuring Diana talking about the most intimate details of her relationship with the Royal Family, her sex life with Charles, and her affair with police protection officer Barry Mannakee.
The tapes had been recorded by Peter Settelen, the princess’s voice coach, who, soon after her death, had asked her private secretary for the return of not six but 16 tapes.
He’d been told: ‘I am advised by Mr Burrell that he has been unable to trace them.’
What had happened, the police wondered, to the missing ten tapes? [Material from Settelen’s six recovered tapes was used in a Channel 4 documentary last year.]
And there was another tape that worried Charles. Kept in a box of Diana’s and now, he believed, in Burrell’s possession, it described the alleged rape of one member of his staff by another of his staff.
July 19
Burrell’s lawyers now issued a warning to Shackleton. If Burrell were prosecuted, they said, he would have to describe from the witness box not only details of Diana’s sex life, he might also read out quotes from letters in which Prince Philip had allegedly threatened her.
(In fact, the letters were perfectly reasonable, it emerged later.)
Burrell’s lawyers later explained that this was not a threat — the defence was seeking only to protect the Royal Family.
At this point, the CPS and the police asked for a ‘victims’ consultation meeting’ in order to obtain the direct approval of Princes Charles and William to prosecute Burrell.
In anticipation of a police visit to Highgrove, Charles appealed to Bolland: ‘Mark, this is crazy. You must do something.’ The prince was now willing to do anything to avert a trial, especially with William a potential witness.
Burrell simply knew too much. Would he, for instance, dare to describe Diana’s reported use of cocaine to the court? The best way to avoid a prosecution, Bolland agreed, was for Burrell to return all the property he’d taken.
July 24
A top-secret meeting was arranged between Bolland and Burrell. Over coffee, the butler said: ‘I’m sorry.’
He wanted to let Charles know that he’d return all the property, but insisted on telling him so in person.
Throughout the 25-minute meeting, the spin-doctor had been appalled by Burrell’s ‘creepy manner’. The royals’ staff, he thought, were ‘a slimy, weird group with odd relationships’.
Later, he reported back to Charles that the butler wanted ‘a big hug and an offer of a job at Balmoral. He doesn’t want to be cast out’.
The prince repeated thoughtfully: ‘He doesn’t want to be cast out.’ A truth occurred to Bolland then about the royals: ‘No one cares whether Burrell is guilty or not.’
August 3
That very afternoon, the police were expected at Highgrove.
What they didn’t know, Bolland hoped, was that secret arrangements had been made for Prince Charles to meet Burrell a few hours later.
But before the police arrived, the spin-doctor became suspicious that the plan had been leaked to the police, probably by one of Charles’s own protection officers.
The meeting with Burrell must be cancelled, he advised. Charles agreed.
Next, the prince discussed the approach he planned to take with the police.
He intended to ask, ‘Does this really matter? Yes, some items may have been pilfered, but just how serious is it? Not very.’
In the event, however, Charles didn’t get round to saying any of this. Instead, he was palpably shocked when the police told him 2,000 items had been seized at Burrell’s home.
It was the first time he’d heard the actual number.
‘He’s taken the lot!’ Charles exclaimed.
After listening to more evidence against the butler, the prince was asked if he supported a prosecution. ‘We’ve got no alternative,’ he sighed. Before leaving, the police asked Charles not to have any contact with Burrell.
The prince was now in a fix. Officially, he had to support the CPS’s charge that Burrell had stolen the items but privately, he still wanted the prosecution halted.
Another big sticking-point was that Diana’s sister and co-executor, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, was adamant that the butler should be brought to trial.
If she refused to change her mind, there was little Charles could do. Meanwhile, the police confronted Bolland to ask if he’d talked to Burrell. Yes, replied the spin-doctor. His admission confirmed police suspicions.
Bolland was then asked to sign a formal statement as a potential prosecution witness. Legally, this prevented him having any further contact with the suspect. He was relieved — though he worried about whom Charles would rely on now.
Fiona Shackleton? Not if Bolland could help it. While he and Charles wanted the prosecution stopped, she had seemed to waver. They could no longer rely on her, he told Charles.
As for the prince’s private secretary, Stephen Lamport, he was ‘weak and tired’. It was all becoming ‘a mess’, Bolland concluded.
August 18
In an attempt to avert prosecution, Burrell’s lawyer handed the police a 39-page statement signed by his client.
Among other things, it described the butler’s close relationship with Diana — how he would smuggle her boyfriends into Kensington Palace, cancel public engagements so she could be with her lovers, and provide meals for the princess and her man of the moment.
In addition, Burrell hinted that he’d tell what he knew about Diana’s nocturnal visits around Paddington, where she tried to persuade prostitutes to give up their trade by plying them with gifts.
Even the police could see that if Burrell gave detailed testimony about Diana’s sex life in court, the monarchy would be seriously harmed.
Still, there was nothing in the butler’s statement that undermined the charge of theft. So Burrell was once again interviewed.
This time, he claimed that the items found in his house should be seen either as gifts, taken by mistake or handed over to him to be destroyed. He didn’t offer to return anything.
There was no mention of any conversation with Diana’s executors, her sons or the Queen about taking items for ‘safekeeping’. At 2.40pm, Burrell was charged with theft.
A month later, Burrell’s lawyer wrote to Charles, asking for an audience so he could explain ‘the extreme delicacy of the situation’ if his client had to testify.
Charles, who’d taken legal advice, did not reply.
The lawyer then sent further warnings about Burrell’s intention to speak about events of ‘extreme delicacy’ and ‘matters of a very private nature’, and how his enjoyment of Diana’s ‘intimate’ trust would require ‘close examination’ at trial.
Again Charles did not reply. This provoked Burrell’s lawyer to threaten to summon the prince as a witness.
February 13, 2002
Yet another statement from Burrell was delivered to the police — this time about a meeting with the Queen.
They’d talked for three hours, he’d said, sitting on her sofa together shortly after Princess Diana’s death.
The Queen had told him, he said, that his relationship with Diana was unprecedented.
She had spoken about how much she herself had tried to help the princess, and also warned him to be careful — so many people were against Princess Diana, and he had sided with her.
However, the CPS lawyers decided that since Burrell’s statement made no mention of Diana’s property, it wasn’t relevant to the case.
Burrell is pictured behind the Queen. Burrell stood in the dock of Court One at the Old Bailey, accused of stealing 310 items together worth £4.5 million
August 27
Burrell’s lawyer again approached the police, insisting that a message be passed on to Charles.
His client, he said, was offering to return all the royal items in his possession if the prosecution was dropped.
The message was never delivered, though somehow the prince became aware of the butler’s offer — and hoped it would stop the trial going ahead.
Legally, however, that was impossible: the CPS now had sole responsibility for the prosecution.
Nevertheless, Charles ordered his new private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, to express his concern about continuing with the prosecution if it was a lost cause.
August 30
On the prince’s orders, Peat summoned Maxine de Brunner and another police officer to St James’s Palace.
At the outset he directed de Brunner to a low chair so he could look down on her — a higher chair was noticeably moved away — and thereafter spoke only to the junior police officer, Roger Milburn. ‘How can you be sure that these items were not gifts?’ he asked Milburn.
Milburn redirected the question to de Brunner. Not persuaded by her answer, Peat was emphatic that the prosecution should be stopped. ‘You have not got enough evidence,’ he said. ‘We want the property back without a fuss.’
Both officers were disturbed by Peat’s performance. In his concern to protect Charles, he seemed to forget that Burrell had actually been charged with stealing property belonging to Diana’s executors, not the prince.
Or that any decisions about the prosecution now had to be taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions, who was sure he could prove Burrell’s guilt.
September 11
This time, Peat summoned two of Diana’s executors to the palace — her sister Lady Sarah and the princess’s former private secretary, Michael Gibbins.
Both knew that the initiative for the meeting had come from Charles.
‘The police,’ Peat told them, ‘don’t have enough evidence to mount a successful prosecution and the case must be stopped. There is a risk of acquittal.’
His disdain for Commander John Yates — who was in overall charge of the investigation — and de Brunner and Milburn was obvious, and Gibbins shared some of his doubts.
He also spoke frankly about Charles’s fears that, among other things, Burrell would testify in detail about both Diana’s love life and her anger at the way she’d been treated by the Royal Family.
But it was no good. After two hours of discussion, he’d failed to persuade Charles’s sister-in-law to change her mind.
‘Sarah McCorquodale wanted Burrell to get his come-uppance,’ said Gibbins, who was less certain himself about pushing for the case to go ahead.
‘She was convinced that he had made away with the property. She wasn’t interested in deals.’
After the meeting, McCorquodale called Maxine de Brunner, with whom she’d built up a working rapport.
The trial, she warned the senior policewoman, would be thwarted in some way.
October 14
Paul Burrell, aged 44, stood in the dock of Court One at the Old Bailey, accused of stealing 310 items together worth £4.5 million.
Other items taken from his house were not listed because they allegedly belonged to either Charles or William, and neither wished to appear in court as witnesses.
The day’s proceedings made blazing headlines in all the media, raising increasing concern at St James’s Palace.
October 28
Just after 8.30 that Monday morning, 11 days into the trial, Crown Prosecutor William Boyce was reading his papers in a small room adjacent to the court. He was unexpectedly joined by Commander Yates.
‘I’ve just had a conversation with Michael Peat,’ said Yates, then repeated the private secretary’s exact words: ‘Her Majesty has had a recollection.’
On the previous Friday, Peat had explained, the Queen had recalled a meeting five years earlier, soon after Diana’s death. Burrell had come to the palace to tell her about preserving some of the princess’s papers.
‘The Queen agreed that he should care for them,’ said Peat.
Boyce visibly paled. Taking off his wig, he seemed to shrink.
Only by questioning the Queen in court could Burrell’s version of the conversation be rebutted, and that was constitutionally impossible.
No reigning monarch could appear in ‘Her Majesty’s’ court.
‘That’s the end of the trial,’ was Boyce’s view. Later in the day, Peat told CPS lawyers more about the Queen’s recollection.
On the previous Friday, she, Charles and Philip had driven together to St Paul’s for a memorial service for the victims of the Bali bombing.
Driving past the Old Bailey, she asked why a crowd was standing outside. Charles answered that Paul Burrell was on trial. The Queen was apparently unaware that he was being prosecuted.
Then she mentioned that, some years before, Burrell had sought an audience with her to explain that he was caring for some of Diana’s papers, and she’d agreed that he should do so.
What Peat didn’t go into was what had happened afterwards.
After the Royal Family returned from St Paul’s, there had been unusual activity in St James’s Palace.
Lawyers — among them Robert Seabrook, QC, who’d been advising Charles on the Burrell case — were summoned for a conference to discuss the Queen’s recollection.
Peat was told that Crown Prosecutor Boyce should be informed immediately.
Next, Sir Robin Janvrin was called. Told about the new evidence, the Queen’s private secretary expressed his astonishment. ‘Oh my God,’ an eyewitness heard him exclaim.
Thereafter Janvrin did nothing, allowing Peat to continue managing the crisis on Charles’s behalf. The reason for that at least was clear to observers inside the palaces: Janvrin wanted no part in the undertaking.
Then something very strange occurred. Contrary to QC Robert Seabrook’s advice, neither Boyce nor the CPS was told on that Friday afternoon about the ‘recollection’, and the lack of communication continued through Saturday and Sunday.
According to palace rumours, however, Peat did tell Peter Goldsmith, the attorney general, that the recollection was a ‘golden opportunity to get rid of this embarrassment’.
Early on Monday morning, Peat had finally called Commander Yates to report the Queen’s remarks.
To some in the prosecution and to police at the Old Bailey, the circumstances of the recollection described by Peat lacked credibility.
First, Janvrin, an assiduous official, had been regularly briefed about the Burrell investigation, not least because William and Harry were involved. He would certainly have reported the main details of the case to the Queen during their daily meetings.
Second, the Queen was known to read the newspapers regularly, and for over a year Burrell’s plight had been widely reported. The trial itself had dominated the front pages for the nine days before her drive to St Paul’s.
Third, it was unusual for the monarch and her heir — who seldom spoke to each other — to travel in the same car, for security reasons. The coincidence that mother and son should have been so publicly united on that particular day while driving past the Old Bailey was one that raised questions.
Fourth, the version offered by Peat contradicted that of others in the palaces.
Edmund Lawson, QC, would later explain, in a report commissioned by Michael Peat, that the Queen had in fact been aware of the ongoing trial and had been prompted by the publicity relating to it to mention her conversation with Burrell to the Duke of Edinburgh.
According to the report, she had not previously considered the conversation of any relevance, since the correspondence belonging to the Princess of Wales was but a small part of the property alleged to have been stolen by Mr Burrell.
Lawson’s report would also say that it was the Duke of Edinburgh who had mentioned the Queen’s recollection to the Prince of Wales before the memorial service at St Paul’s.
Peat failed to explain why the prosecution was not told about the Queen’s recollection for two-and-a-half days; he failed to report his own consultation with a lawyer to understand the significance of the recollection; and he omitted to explain why he, rather than the Queen’s own private secretary, Sir Robin Janvrin, asked the Queen about her recollection.
Inevitably, some of those involved in the case questioned whether the Queen had ever met Burrell in the ‘three-hour’ audience he had described in his statement of February 13, 2002.
But three witnesses would have been available had the police sought that information, among them a palace page who claimed to have accompanied Burrell to the Queen’s sitting room, where he remained for between 45 and 90 minutes.
Few believed the butler’s version of spending three hours with the Queen, and in any event his description of their conversation — about documents, and not hundreds of Diana’s personal possessions — was irrelevant to the charges he faced.
Similarly, none of the prosecutors or police expressed at subsequent meetings their outright belief of the Buckingham Palace spokesman’s explanation that ‘the Queen did not realise that her evidence was important, and no one told her’.
Nevertheless, that explanation could well have been true. There was no reason for the Queen, by nature a reactive person who absorbed enormous amounts of information, to have taken any initiative after meeting Burrell.
The surprise was the timing of her revelation, coinciding as it did with Charles’s increasing despair — and the palace’s highly convenient interpretation of that meeting.
‘An act of genius,’ was the judgment of one Whitehall observer. ‘Only a golden bullet could have stopped the trial.’
October 30
Only two people could order the trial to end: the Director of Public Prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith; and the Attorney General, Lord (Peter) Goldsmith.
Calvert-Smith prevaricated, so Goldsmith took the lead. He went to see the Queen to explain the consequences of what he termed the ‘fiasco’, then consulted Tony Blair. Robin Janvrin had also called Downing Street.
At that moment, Blair was immersed in deciding the size of Britain’s military commitment for the invasion of Iraq.
Now he was being asked to consider how to save the monarchy. His decision was that the trial should be brought to an end.
November 1
Crown Prosecutor Boyce announced in the courtroom that the trial was over. Charles and Peat breathed sighs of relief.
So did Burrell: ‘The Queen came through for me,’ he exclaimed. In the ensuing excitement, his brother, Graham, told a journalist: ‘He will have his revenge, but he will do it with dignity.’
Within days, Burrell had offered a string of tawdry revelations about Charles and Diana to the Daily Mirror. He would later follow this up with an explosive book that betrayed Diana’s secrets and portrayed the prince as a heartless schemer.
November 2
With the trial in ruins, everyone was blamed except Charles.
The police were widely accused of incompetence, and Maxine de Brunner — who’d kicked everything off by raiding Burrell’s home — was singled out for particular censure.
At 2.30 that afternoon, de Brunner’s mobile rang. To her surprise, Diana’s sister was on the line.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Lady Sarah McCorquodale. ‘They shouldn’t have done that to you. It’s disgraceful. We’re totally behind you.
‘A deal was struck by Paul Burrell and the Prince of Wales,’ she claimed.
‘They agreed that the trial would be stopped if three things happened. First, Burrell would not mention certain things in his book; second, William’s property will be given back to William; and a third thing which I don’t know.’
Diana’s sister concluded: ‘They couldn’t afford for Paul Burrell to go into the witness box. Burrell had told the Prince of Wales that he would tell all unless the trial was halted.
‘The Palace have maintained that they didn’t know about the Queen’s and Burrell’s conversation.’
De Brunner wrote down every word of this extraordinary tirade.
But Edmund Lawson, the QC commissioned by Michael Peat to investigate the allegation that Charles’s household had influenced the halting of the trial, said in his report that such an allegation did not stand up to scrutiny: there was simply no evidence to suggest there was any interference by Prince Charles ‘to procure the termination’ of the trial.
Nor was there any evidence to suggest that the Queen’s recollection had been made in order to derail the trial.
December 12-19
At the police’s request, both McCorquodale and Diana’s former private secretary Michael Gibbins agreed to sign a note describing their September 11 meeting with Charles’s private secretary.
Peat, they agreed, had sought to stop the trial going ahead.
‘Let’s nick Peat for seeking to pervert the course of justice,’ Detective Sergeant Roger Milburn said to Commander John Yates after showing him the signed note.
Yates apparently agreed, telling Milburn: ‘You’ve set off an Exocet.’
The scandal, had the prince’s private secretary been formally cautioned and interviewed, would have been immense. But nothing happe
March 13, 2003
Keen to lay the whole matter to rest, Michael Peat published the report that he had personally commissioned from Edmund Lawson, QC, on the Burrell fiasco.
At no stage, Lawson wrote, did the prince or anyone on his behalf try to stop the prosecution.
That was plainly untrue. Bolland, Shackleton, McCorquodale and Gibbins had all described various such attempts, as had the prince’s former private secretary Stephen Lamport, the CPS lawyer and various police officers.
That left the most important mystery — the Queen’s recollection.
And now the circumstances differed from the account Peat gave to the CPS lawyers.
In Lawson’s version, she no longer inquired about the crowds outside the Old Bailey that Friday as she was being driven towards St Paul’s.
Instead, before the memorial service Philip had told Charles that the Queen’s recollection had been triggered by publicity about the trial.
According to Lawson, Charles had told Peat about the recollection only on Saturday — the day after the St Paul’s service.
But this was inaccurate.
Charles’s lawyer Robert Sea- brook had been told about the recollection the previous day, and had immediately gone to Clarence House to advise Peat to inform the prosecution as a matter of urgency.
According to Lawson, Charles suggested to Peat that he might speak directly to the Queen, and he did so on Sunday when she confirmed her recollection to him.
As we know, the police weren’t informed until Monday morning. So who told them? Lawson said it was Charles’s lawyer Fiona Shackleton who’d given the news to Commander Yates.
Yet Yates had actually told Lawson that he was ‘100 per cent certain’ that it was Peat who’d phoned him.
The effect of Lawson’s apparent distortion was to impugn Shackleton.
Lawson’s fee for compiling Peat’s report was never disclosed. He died six years later, without receiving an honour, which he might justifiably have expected.
As for DCI Maxine de Brunner, the chief of Scotland Yard showed his robust support by promoting her to deputy assistant commissioner.
Burrell made about £4 million from his book, while hinting that ‘there are many, many more secrets I have not written about. Very personal, very damaging… not very pleasant’.
Michael Peat, when he left the prince’s service, was rewarded with generous severance terms, including the right to stay on in his five-bedroom flat at Kensington Palace for nearly another year.
And Charles? In the polls, his popularity fell back to the dismal level last seen in the days after Diana’s death.
In 1986 an interesting case was heard at Maidstone Crown Court involving a self-confessed satanist and his attempt to defraud thousands of pounds from clergy. In the case of Derry Mainwaring Knight, he had the most intriguing connections and what transpired in court was a fascinating case involving deception, blackmail, prostitution, child sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, Church of England, Roman Catholic Church, Freemasonry, MPs, aristocracy, showbusiness and, of course, money.
I’m not going to offer any opinion on the case but I think it is particularly interesting to look at the way the detective in charge of the investigation behaves towards witnesses. (See article: Satan Man’s a Rapist – 22 March 1986).
(Most of the articles are from The Times, unless otherwise stated).
Those mentioned during the trial included:
Alison Baker: Wife of Rev Baker
Rev John Baker: St Mary’s Church, Knight lodged with him
Rt Rev Peter Ball: Bishop of Lewes, convicted paedophile
Rev Michael Barling: Christian training centre lecturer
George Booth: Congregational Minister, Leigh-on-Sea
Lord Brentford: Donor
Lady Brentford: Donor
Clive Bygrave: Disc Jockey – cruise liners Canberra and Sea Princess, East Grinstead
Doctor Caspar: ‘Chief of Satanists’
Michael Corkery, QC: Prosecution
Irene Cranham: Cleaner for Angela Murdoch
Judge Neil Denison: Trial judge
Ethel: Grandmother of Derry Mainwaring Knight
Det Chief Insp Terence Fallon: Former head of Sussex Police, Papua New Guinea police
Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman: Disc Jockey
Rt Rev Mark Green: Retired Bishop of Aston
David Hamilton: Disc Jockey
Lord Hampden: Donor
Lorraine Haynes: Prostitute, Shoeburyness, Essex
Lord & Lady Ingleby: Refused donation
Laurence Kayne: Managing Director, Laurence Kayne of Berkeley Square Ltd
Enoch Powell: Accused by Knight of being a Satanist
Michael Ransby: Jeweller, Southend
Susan Sainsbury: Donor
Timothy Sainsbury: Conservative MP for Hove, Donor
Donald Scutt: adviser of a religious trust, South Warnborough, Hampshire
Det Sgt Brian Smeed: Interviewing officer
Samantha Sprackling: Dancer
Julie Tremain: Prostitute
Rev Colin Urquhart: Christian training centre
Michael Warren: Former High Sheriff of East Sussex, farmer & magistrate, Donor
Michael West, QC: Defence
Willie Whitelaw: Deputy Prime Minister
Simon Willis: Disc Jockey, East Grinstead
Donna Winwood: Pantomime Dancer, North London
The Sainsbury family:
JAMES SAINSBURY; PIERS GAVESTON BALL, PARK LANE HOTEL, LONDON. 13 MAY 1983.
James Sainsbury, The 20-year-old son of a prominent member of the British establishment was photographed goose-stepping down the high street in Oxford. The Sun splashed with the picture, the youth was attacked widely for his ‘Nazi’ behaviour, his father was given a tough time.
Today, Jamie Sainsbury, whose father Tim had been one of Margaret Thatcher’s ministers at the time of his ‘march on Oxford‘, funds ground-breaking studies in family relations, countless environmental projects, and is the patron of some promising young artists
One of the leading contenders to become the new chairman of the BBC Trust once attended gatherings of a far-Right group who gave Nazi salutes, sang songs glorifying Adolf Hitler and campaigned in favour of ‘racial purity’.
Nicholas Prettejohn, a City grandee who has served as an adviser to George Osborne, is on a shortlist of candidates who are being interviewed for the £110,000 role at the top of the Corporation.
But it has now emerged that when he was a student at Oxford University, Mr Prettejohn attended a meeting of the Monday Club, an offshoot of the Conservative Party that has campaigned for voluntary repatriation of ethnic minorities.
A photograph unearthed by The Mail on Sunday shows Mr Prettejohn, then a 20-year-old student at Balliol College, at a Monday Club event in 1980 which caused national outrage at the time.
Newspapers reported attendees had shouted ‘Sieg heil’, talked about ‘racial purity’ and sung Tomorrow Belongs To Me, a song performed in the musical Cabaret by members of the Hitler Youth – despite the fact that the event was held close to a memorial to members of the college killed fighting the Nazis.
James Sainsbury, son of Sir Timothy Sainsbury, a former Conservative Minister, was pictured at the event performing a Nazi salute.
He received an OBE in 2013 in recognition of his charitable works.
Eight months before the dinner, Mr Prettejohn had been elected president of the famous Oxford Union debating society – with his political opponents claiming he had been swept to victory by a ‘Monday Club machine’ which mobilised Right-wing supporters.
James “Jamie” Sainsbury is in convicted establishment paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s black book
James “Jamie” Sainsbury is the son of The Right Honourable Sir Timothy Sainsbury and Susan Mary Sainsbury
James Sainsbury’s sister is:
Camilla Sainsbury, daughter of Timothy Sainsbury, married to Conservative, then Labour, MP The Rt Hon. Shaun Woodward (Childline)
MP Shaun Woodward, who married into the Sainsbury dynasty, and his wife Camilla both appeared in Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book.
James Sainsbury and Shaun Woodward are both involved with children’s charities
James Sainsbury’s mother was involved with Bishop Peter Ball in the Derry Mainwaring-night satanist trial
James Sainsbury
“James Sainsbury has been chair of trustees of Home-Start UK since 2000 (for which he was honoured with an OBE in 2013). He is also chair of trustees of the Resurgence Trust, which, among other things, publishes the “Resurgence and Ecologist” magazine. He is a trustee of the Tedworth, Headley and Staples trusts and of the Kay Kendall Leukaemia Fund and of the David Baum International Foundation and the Voices Foundation.
He is a patron of Best Beginnings and a member of the development board of the Bodleian Library.” [1]
Biographical note from Resurgence magazine:
”James Sainsbury is Chairman of the Trust. He is also Chair of the trustees of Home-Start, a national family support charity, and trustee to a number of charitable organisations, including the Voices Foundation and the National Byway Trust, which promotes cycling. He also has an interest in psychotherapy and is trained as an Option Process mentor. He is married with two sons.” [2]
Friends – Convicted establishment paedophile Bishop Peter Ball with Thatcher and Lord Wakeham beside her.
From document recommending ball to become Bishop of Gloucester:
Alison Ward (Thatcher’s secretary and the future Mrs Wakeham) attending a small drinks party with Jimmy Savile/Margaret Thatcher/Ian Beer – (friend of Bishop Peter Ball
alun@ciabaudo:
Would this by any chance explain why Baker/Ball turned to Sue Sainsbury for a donation for Mainwaring Knight? Sainsbury – Gatsby – BASW – Peter Righton …
Peter Righton was of a close associate of Nick Stacey, a man of God, who played a central role in the protection of paedophiles. As Director of Social Services, he instructed his staff not to report alleged paedophiles within Kent Social Services.
On the face of it, the Gatsby Project, a distance learning project for residential child care workers, was a good thing – except that it was carried out with Peter Righton, who was an active member of PIE and was convicted of possessing child abuse images in the early 90s.
The Sainsburys also backed the Tear Fund, a Christian relief organisation closely associated with Cliff Richard, a man accused of child abuse whose name appeared as a patron of the Elm Guest House child brothel.
It would appear that Nick Stacey turned first to the Sainsburys for funding:
Here’s the Prince neatly juxtaposed in a newspaper right next to an article about Derry Mainwaring Knight …
Wednesday 19 February 1986: ‘SATANISM’ MAN’S LUXURY CARS
A man bought a Lotus sports car the day a “highly gullible” clergyman obtained £25,000 for him to finance an alleged crusade against satanism, Maidstone Crown Court was told yesterday.
Derry Knight, aged 46, had convinced the Rector of Newick, Sussex, that he needed the money to break his links with a satanic circle and buy its insignia to break its power.
Mr Michael Corkery, QC, for the prosecution said the Rev John Baker had approached Mr Gordon Scutt, adviser to the charitable P & P Trust.
In a letter, the rector asked: “Please pray for Derry… he needs a great deal of prayer and divine protection”.
The rector negotiated a loan from the charity on 8 November 1984. “The date is of interest”, Mr Corkery said, “for on that same day the defendant bought a Lotus motor car for £17,000”.
Mr Knight, a record producer, of Dormans Land, Surrey, has denied 19 charges of dishonestly obtaining £203,850 by deception.
Mr Corkery also alleged that Mr Knight had “conned” £37,500 from Lord Hampden, a parishioner of Mr Baker, to buy a Rolls Royce.
“The rector said the defendant needed the Rolls Royce to convince his satanist colleagues that he still had influence”.
Mr Corkery said that Mr Knight spent tens of thousands of pounds on jewellery, clothing and cars. He would pick up prostitutes and other women, shower them with gifts, and then leave them.
Mr Baker, aged 49, told the court that when he heard of Mr Knight’s problems he immediately prayed.
The case continues today.
20 FEBRUARY 1986: EVIL SPIRITS ‘TOOK MAN OVER’
The record in the alleged Satan confidence trickster case said yesterday he talked with demonic spirits in the man’s body.
The Rev John Baker said that he twice took authority over the spirits in the name of Jesus Christ.
Mr Baker, the Rector of Newick in East Sussex, told Maidstone Crown Court that Derry Mainwaring Knight first went into a trance when he and his wife went to pray with him.
“I recognised the state from having dealt with many people in similar states over the years as being due to demonic spirit infestation”.
Mr Knight awoke from the trance and later they prayed again, but Mr Knight again went into a trance.
The rector said the spirits started to speak out of Mr Knight. “It was coming out of his mouth but not in his normal voice”.
“As we were in prayer I said something like ‘In the name of Jesus Christ I bind these spirits and adjure them to tell the truth and to declare their ground in this man’s life’”.
Mr Baker said the voice then spoke back to him: “you cannot have him, he belongs to Lucifer. He was dedicated by sacrifice as a child and he is a Master of the Occult”.
The rector said Mr Knight told him he had wanted to get out of the satanic order since about 1980, but was being held in by his vows, fear and debts he owed them.
Mr Baker told the court Mr Knight had told of two debts, one to a “Chief of the Satanists” in the area. He was known as Doctor Caspar.
Mr Knight had told the rector that if he had any chance of getting out of the satanic order he had to destroy certain artefacts, including robes and gold and silver which were used for satanic worship.
But the order was not willing to let him have them for nothing, Mr Baker said.
Mr Baker said that after Mr Knight had been given £16,000 he produced a chain of office and bracelet used in satanic rites.
The rector explained that he and Mr Knight smashed up both items in the rectory garden and then took to a jeweller to be melted down.
Mr Knight, aged 46, of Dormans Land, Surrey, denies 19 charges of dishonestly obtaining £203,850 by deception.
The trail continues today.
Laurence Kayne: Managing Director, Laurence Kayne of Berkeley Square Ltd
Another witness, Mr Laurence Kayne, managing director of Laurence Kayne of Berkeley Square Ltd, said to have been named as a fellow devil-worshipper by Mr Knight, denied he was a satanist.
The jury had been told earlier in the trial that Mr Knight had boasted he would buy a Rolls Royce at the company because it was run by a satanist.
Mr Kayne said he did not believe in the existence of a devil and worshipped in a synagogue every month with his wife and family.
Given the royal family’s extremely close links to the Sainsburys, it is highly unlikely that Prince Charles would be unaware of Peter Ball’s involvement in the Derry Mainwaring Knight case …
Shaun Woodward, friend of Esther Rantzen, married Camilla Sainsbury, daughter of former Conservative MP Tim Sainsbury. After leaving his wife, Woodward was reported to be in a relationship with Luke Redgrave, grandson of the actor Sir Michael Redgrave.
Robert Butler-Sloss, son of the Sloshed Butler put forward by the Establishment as a safe pair of hands to run IICSA, married Sarah Sainsbury, daughter of John Davan Sainsbury.
One such donor was Susan Sainsbury of the eponymous supermarket clan:
Bishop Ball was acting at the request of a gullible rector requested by Mainwaring Knight to collect money from the rich and famous:
In fact, in 1983 the Right Irreverend Peter Ball of Lewd wrote a letter on Derry Mainwaring Knight’s behalf, requesting donations for his “necessary work”.
Laurence Kayne – from the Derry Mainwaring trial
Laurence Kayne CeRER
Non Executive
Laurence is an entrepreneur and a sales professional as quoted in the Wall Street Transcript. Laurence has managed a range of businesses, most notably between 1968 and 1987 he was one of the largest pre owned Rolls Royce Dealers in the UK, and in later years with Mayfair Showrooms. He then acquired Lambourn Racehorse Transport, where he secured the Royal Warrant personally supplying Queen Elizabeth II directly from 1989 to 1994.
Thereafter he semi-retired to Ireland with his wife in 1995. Upon his return to the UK Laurence trained in financial services, mortgage advice and equity release between 2005 and 2009. Since the end of 2015 he has partnered with John Lloyd in a part exchange residential property business working with large house building companies to facilitate property owners to acquire new build homes.
Myra Hindley exposed as a ‘practicing WITCH’ whose occult links lead to Jimmy Savile
30th July 2017
MOORS murderer Myra Hindley has been accused of being a practicing witch who worshipped the occult alongside Ian Brady while the duo carried out their evil crimes.
At Ian Brady’s side, monstrous Hindley was responsible for the murder and torture of at least five children in the 1960s.But now it has emerged that the evil pair were versed in the occult, and took their child victims to Saddleworth Moor to carry out sadistic rituals.Hindley has been accused of taking on the look of the witch while Brady behaved as the alchemist, according to Moors murder expert Erica Gregory.Speaking exclusively to Daily Star Online, she said: “Myra was given a high status by Brady from the start.“This was his way of manipulating her into doing exactly what he wanted.“Myra took the role of the persecuted women in history while Brady was taking on the role of alchemist – they even found books on witchcraft in their house when police arrested them.“We have found evidence they were doing rituals on the Moors – we’ve seen knotted ropes, hare and sheep bones with evidence of large fires lit up around oak trees.”
Gregory even believes that the the murders were meticulously planned for ritualistic purposes – with the evil duo choosing to kill their victims on dates important within the occult calendar.“The murders were separated by four months – I believe Brady chose dates and times for his rituals,” she said.“Tommy Rhattigan, for example, was taken in November 1963 – the same day Margaret Murray died – who was a famous witch.“I believe her death, and the fact it was the anniversary of the Battle of Sheriffmuir was a trigger for Tommy to be picked up.”
It is no secret that witchcraft and satanic worshipping were big in the 1960s – with several high-profile Hollywood films airing in the era.And the Moors murderers even had links to infamous Alex Sanders – who rose to notoriety for attempting to raise a dead body in Alderley Edge and was a known friend of Jimmy Savile.“Brady and Hindley sought out Sanders when he worked at the John Rylands Library in Manchester which held books on occultism.“Sanders went on to work on films with Sharon Tate and he was friends with Savile, too – so there’s a clear link.”This comes after Daily Star Online exclusively revealed that Brady was accused of selling child pornography to the shamed former DJ.Hindley and Brady were given life sentences in 1966.Together, they killed Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans between July 1963 and October 1965.At least four of them, including Bennett, were sexually assaulted.It comes after Daily Star Online exclusively revealed Ian Brady’s evil map that could cryptically lead to the location of Keith Bennett’s body – which has never been found.
Erica Gregory – who has devoted years of her life investigating the Moors murders – believes they even formed a twisted “paedophile ring”.
she said: “I believe they went to the BBC studio regularly to make a fuss and try to get in with Savile.
“Alongside David Smith, Brady was selling photographs of children to make money at this time – I believe Savile could have been one of his customers.
“It is well known that Savile visited them both inside. I believe they were in a ring of some sort.”
It doesn’t stop there, though.
In 2014, Dan Davies noted that Savile chillingly replied “I am the Myra Hindley story” when asked on his opinion of it.And Gregory believes that Savile continued to communicate with the killers after their incarceration – visiting them and using songs played on the radio to transmit coded messages.“Savile could have been using his radio for secret messages,” she said.“Brady used music in tapes and songs that he stated reminded him of the Moors.“And Savile knew that if he played a song at a certain time then those listening would get the message.”http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/624549/Moors-murders-Jimmy-Savile-Ian-Brady-Myra-Hindley-paedophile-child-killers-Saddleworth-BBC
Lord David Steel (left) put Rochdale MP Cyril Smith (right) … for a knighthood, despite being told of abuse allegations against him.
The politician, now Lord Steel, was made aware of the reports that Smith had sexually abused young boys in his hometown of Rochdale, Lancashire, in 1979.
But dismissed the allegations – claiming: ‘All he seems to have done is spanked a few bare bottoms’.
Related?.. Another MP, like Ted “Ed” Heath, linked with a satanic child rapist…
Pervert MP Cyril Smith was pals with satanic child sex monster
Victim Michael Roberts reveals his devil-worshipping stepdad Michael Horgan organised abuse
Sept 3 2014
Paedophile MP Cyril Smith was in league with another appalling child sex abuser who set up satanic rituals and raped children as young as TWO.
Victim Michael Roberts, 40, today bravely puts aside his right to anonymity to tell for the first time how he was only six when he was sexually abused by 29-stone politician Smith.
Michael Horgan, who has also used the name Shaun O’Donnell, became known as the High Priest of Satan.
He organised outdoor “parties” for these activities on Saddleworth Moor, where child killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley had buried their victims.
Youngsters from two to 13 were drugged, tortured and sexually abused during the satanic “ceremonies”.
He was jailed for 10 years and placed on the sex offenders’ register after he was found guilty of six sex abuse charges in 1992
The shock revelation over the satanist and MP’s friendship raises questions over any role Smith and Jimmy Savile may have played in Horgan’s paedo ring.
Horgan was also pals with Raymond Hewlett, the child rapist questioned in relation to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Lawyer who saw Diana’s death crash breaks 20-year silence to claim “other forces” were behind accident
Stanlee Culbreath is speaking out for the first time in two decades to question whether the Princess of Wales could have lived if French emergency services had acted faster.
21 AUG 2017
A witness to Princess Diana’s death crash says her chances of survival were greatly reduced by emergency service delays – and he believes “other forces” were behind the tragic accident.
Retired lawyer Stanlee Culbreath was one of the first witnesses to the tragic crash, but maintained a dignified silence out of respect for the then-young Princes William and Harry.
But now, almost 20 years since Diana’s death, the 69-year-old sheds new details on the crash, critically questioning whether she could have lived if French emergency services had acted faster.
Mr Culbreath said: “I always thought it was suspicious, that other forces played a hand, but now, 20 years on, I question more than ever whether it was a genuine accident. I just think it is dubious.
“If that’s the Princess, why did it take 20 minutes or so to get to her and, when she was finally released [from the car], why did they pass one hospital and take her to another?”
Mr Culbreath told how, at the scene, although at that time unaware Diana was a victim, he commented to a friend, “Damn, a junkie on Main Street would get waited on quicker than this”.
He added: “There are so many questions I ask myself over and over again about how the accident was handled and if she could have been saved.
“I pleaded for the police to help, but they were very nonchalant about the entire thing.”
Mr Culbreath, of Columbus, Ohio, had been in Paris on August 31, 1997, as part of a European tour with his friends Clarence Williams and Michael Walker.
They arrived in the city hours before the crash and took a late-night sight-seeing tour of the Eiffel Tower.
As they made their way back to the hotel in a taxi at around 12.20am, they entered the Pont de l’Alma tunnel and were confronted with the smouldering wreckage of the Princess’s car.
Driver Henri Paul and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones were in the front of the car while Diana and Dodi were in the back
“Our taxi driver stopped a few feet from their limo,” Mr Culbreath recalled. He explained France has a Good Samaritan law and it was our duty to stop and help. We got out only a few feet away from their Mercedes. The car was up on the wall and the front passenger door was already open.”
At that time, Mr Culbreath did not know the car’s passengers were Princess Diana, 36, her lover Dodi Fayed, 42, driver Henri Paul, 41, and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, now 49, who was the sole survivor and only passenger to wear a seat-belt.
He recalled: “We hadn’t heard the bang, as the crash happened just as we got into the tunnel. Their car was smoking, the muffler [from the exhaust] was on the floor.
“I went over and Trevor Rees-Jones had his legs out of the car and was holding a towel or something to his nose, as he was bleeding heavily.
“There were only four or five of us there, so I went over to the car and looked into it to see if we could help.”
Unbeknown to Mr Culbreath and his friends, Diana was in the rear injured and Dodi was already dead. “I didn’t know who was in the back until later but at one point I was… a few inches away from the Princess trying to look through her window,” he explained.
“I remember saying to the guys at the time, ‘Is there an ambulance coming or something?’ as there was no sign of one arriving.
“After 15 or 20 minutes, there was still no paramedic on the scene and I said to my friends, ‘Damn, a junkie on Main Street would get waited on quicker than this’.
“There was only one cop there I could see who told us to get back. He kept saying, ‘Get away, get away’.
“As the window’s in the rear were dark, I could not see who was the in the back. I was pleading with the officer to open the door… it looked like it could be pulled open. He wasn’t doing sh*t. He wasn’t doing anything.
“It was as if those there had decided nothing could be done. It’s just my opinion, but it took them a long time to get her out.
“It could have been up to 30 minutes before help came. We were there for at least 15 minutes. Why wasn’t an ambulance there quicker?
“I never heard an ambulance, the whole time I was there. I never heard a siren. My recollection was that there seemed to be an insurmountable amount time for an emergency vehicle to respond. I said to the guys, ‘I’d hate to get into an accident in Paris as nobody shows up’.
It could have been that her chances of survival were significantly decreased by the amount of time it took for the paramedics to arrive.
“It’s common sense that the longer someone is left, their chances of survival are less.
“When we left, there still wasn’t an ambulance. The speed of which they responded was inadequate. Questions need to be asked.”
During the 18-month French inquiry into the accident, it was determined the crash was caused by driver Henri Paul, who was drunk behind the wheel of the Mercedes-Benz S280, travelling at 65mph. Paul, 41, was the deputy head of security at the Ritz Hotel, in Paris. During the inquest, in 2007, it emerged it took an hour and six minutes from the time Diana was taken from the wrecked car until she reached the hospital.
The inquest heard the princess may have lived had French medics not “squandered” crucial minutes treating her at the scene.
Mr Culbreath said he was also sceptical about the delay in getting Diana out of the wreckage and claimed the door on her side could have been opened. He said: “I thought the car was in a condition where you could open the door.
“I didn’t feel there was enough damage to the car that you couldn’t open the back door – and the front door was already open.
“So why couldn’t you go through that door?
“When the car eventually came out of the tunnel on a lorry it was as big as a pancake, but when I saw it, one side wasn’t. It was the side the Princess was on. I later learned the ‘jaws of life’ were used. Why didn’t they just open the door.
“She wasn’t dead, she was talking.”
Mr Culbreath, who was not called at the inquest, but provided a statement, said he didn’t give an interview until now to protect Diana’s children.
He explained: “My children were the same age as Prince William and Prince Harry at the time.
“I never to spoke to anyone, as I wanted to protect them all.”
Reflecting on the Princess of Wales, Mr Culbreath added: “I thought Diana was a great person. She was always there for people and dedicated herself to the common purpose.
“She was always there for people in their hour of need, for the common man – but when her hour came, it seemed the response was sadly lacking.”
Revealed: the secret Sir Alfred Beit diaries that may tell of British royal family scandals
Diaries believed to contain the inside story of British royal family scandals have been suppressed by the late Lady Clementine Beit to protect Queen Elizabeth II from embarrassment.
Do the diaries contain details of the royal family’s oft-cited links with the Nazi party in Germany before the war? Or is it something more personal, some sexual secrets of the royal family that Sir Alfred and Lady Beit want to keep hidden? Because of the “secret” clause in her will, we can now only guess.
As depicted in The Crown, Mounbatten is uncommonly close with Charles, taking him shopping for the Eton uniforms he never gets to wear, and urging him to open up emotionally.
Lord Mountbatten, known affectionately around the palace as the biggest queen in the royal family, had surrounded Charles with homosexuals during the period when he had been entrusted by Queen Elizabeth with her eldest son’s social upbringing.
‘I was duped, drugged and broken in’: Dad relives horrific rape in haunting extract from new book about sex and scandal
Playland, Secrets of a Forgotten Scandal Anthony Daly gives his account of the night he claims he was blackmailed into prostitution15 MAR 2018In 1975 Anthony Daly left his home in Northern Ireland hoping to escape The Troubles.He was naive but excited about being in London but after six days in the city he was swindled out of his rent money and began to get scared.So when two wealthy and well spoken men offered to help him he was relieved he’d finally found some kind faces to help him.While his new friends, known to him as ‘Charles’ and ‘Keith’, had been drinking all night he’d stuck to cola. Sadly not everything was as it seemed and his life was about to change forever. As he puts it ‘I was like an unsuspecting lamb to the slaughter’.https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i-duped-drugged-broken-in-12193517#ICID=sharebar_twitter
I’ve just got to reading about the Playland Trial of 1975. Still shocked by the restrictions put in place, to the files still under lock and key I believe a vast paedophile network was operating in the 70’s. This book confirms it.The same names keep on emerging. Peter Morrison, Michael Havers, GK Young, Keith Joseph, The Hornby brothers, Charles Irving, Lords Annan and Arran, Peter Righton, Peter Hayman, Tony Hetherington. Sickening and revolting
Seems the Hornby’s are tainted. Charles Hornby’s son ended up in the dock, threatening police officers with a gun.
The late Chapman Pincher had a thick file on Michael Havers, which he handed back to police and he said it contained information, if aired, could be “catastrophic for the government”
He also said that had he gone to trial, he would have had to call the Prime Minister and Lord Havers, to give evidence in court.
Elizabeth Butler-Sloss with Prince Andrew (friend of convicted billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein)
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
I wonder how Butler Sloss feels about the corrupt and depraved picture of her brother Michael Havers painted in the new Playland book? How could a woman with such direct contacts to paedo scene be chosen as @InquiryCSA chair?
▌│█║▌║▌║ ϻǗŘƑ ║▌║▌║█@1OneMindAtATime
You answered your own Q. She was chosen BECAUSE she has “such direct contacts”. in reality it would be difficult to find one of their ilk that does not. The political, and so called upper classes that is. Nonced from birth, they know no different. It’s their “normality”.
It might be a scandal involving small boys…
Cassandra Cogno@CassandraCogno
Important that Tim Fortescue’s comments are placed in the context of events of the time he was a whip – Playland Trials 1&2
In the context of @wiltspoliceCCHeath report, the Playland trials 1 2 & 3 1970-1975 raise new questions about
the “millionaires, titled & influential” people purchasing runaway boys at Piccadilly Circus and how they escaped trial
Tim Fortescue Chief Whip during Playland Trial No 1 1972
Playland Amusement Arcade trial 1975 – Charles Hornby & his red mini-transit van – David Archer’s dossier 1976
Missing Playland Trial No 2 (1975) dossiers of Sir Robert Marks & David Archer need to be found
Skelhorn was also the DPP when the ‘Playland’ scandal broke, which saw the Old Etonian Lloyds underwriter Charles Hornby jailed for the sexual exploitation of homeless boys near Piccadilly Circus. It’s widely believed Hornby was the establishment scapegoat and many other VIPs managed to escape justice. The judge admitted not all the perpetrators were in the dock and one of the defendants, David Archer, said he’d presented police with a dossier naming millionaires and titled and influential people involved in the Playland affair. There was “a tremendous cover up to protect these people,” he argued.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, there have been such newspaper headlines as, “‘Uncle Dickie’ the Sex Pervert” (N.Z. Truth, Sept. 8, 1987), since Mountbatten’s former chauffeur, Norman Nield, started revealing details of the late Lord Mountbatten’s alleged sexual exploitation of boys.
Paedophile Lord Louis Mountbatten
Edward Prince of Wales and his cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten “relax” in a canvas swimming pool on board H. M. S. Renown during their 1920 Empire Tour.
Lord Louis was a great grandson of Queen Victoria and the uncle of Prince Philip (consort of Queen Elizabeth II). Mountbatten was also a promiscuous bisexual who was famously rumored to have had an affair with Edward VIII (who was Prince of Wales at the time) when he accompanied him on his Empire tours (see photo above).
The Queen. Like any human being, she is subject to the influence of those around her. While he lived, Lord Mountbatten was a persuasive counsellor, and he formulated the plan for Prince Charles’s unusually rigorous education.
Has Prince Charles found his true spiritual home on a Greek rock?
12 May 2004
On Monday night a resplendent yacht docked at the watery entrance to the world’s only monastic republic. A middle-aged man, followed by two bodyguards, stepped on to the jetty of the peninsula in northern Greece and into the “state” known variously as Mount Athos, Aghio Oros and the Holy Mount.
A few monks in black robes and pillar-box hats stood waiting, but, under orders to keep the identity of this particular pilgrim secret, it was a reception without fanfare. Their guest – clean-shaven in contrast to the bearded clerics – was Prince Charles, on his third clandestine retreat to Athos in the past 12 months.
According to friends and associates of the prince, the future head of the Church of England has become enamoured of the Orthodox faith to the point that he has adorned a section of his home at Highgrove with prized Byzantine icons. Many are believed to originate from the Mount, the Orthodox world’s holiest site.
“There is no question that the British royal is Orthodox in his heart,” confided one Athonite monk, making a rare trip outside the remote republic. “Sadly, he is very constrained by his position.”
Athos, they say, encapsulates Charles’s profound admiration for tradition, ancient wisdom and a divine natural order – even if it has maintained a ban on women since AD1060.
Women are still forbidden from going within 500 metres of the monks’ republic. Yellow signs along the shores of the 400-square-mile peninsula shoo away “female intruders”, despite growing calls within the EU to have the ban lifted. For the nearly 2,000 monks who have devoted their lives to shunning sexual desire through prayer, the Virgin Mary is the only acceptable female presence.
The prince, like his friend, the composer Sir John Tavener, who converted to Greek Orthodoxy in 1977, is said to be especially drawn to the Orthodox church’s rugged spirituality. Orthodox faithful are allowed to marry up to three times.
Not since the Stuarts has an heir to the throne taken such an intellectual interest in religion. For years Charles, who assumes the title of Defender of the Faith when he becomes king, has displayed an unprecedented interest in denominations as divergent as Islam and Buddhism.
But his regular meetings with Ephraim, the abbot of Vatopedion – his adopted monastery on the Mount – have helped fuel speculation that the prince is being personally instructed in eastern Christianity, even if it is fiercely denied by courtiers.
The Cypriot-born abbot is said to be a frequent visitor to Highgrove.
Witnesses say that when the prince arrived in Athos days after the death of Princess Diana almost seven years ago, it was Ephraim who induced him to join the faith. Closeted in a chamber alone with the abbot, Charles is believed to have made a “spiritual commitment” to Christian Orthodoxy.
“What people forget is that Orthodoxy is in his family,” Archbishop Grigorios of Thyateira, who heads the 500,000-strong Orthodox community in Britain, told the Guardian.
“One of Charles’s aunts, the Grand Duchess Eugenia, was proclaimed an Orthodox saint after she was murdered in Moscow where she had established a monastery. His paternal grandmother, Aliki [Alice], was a nun for most of her life. She spoke very good Greek and in her later years, when she came to live in London, she kept an Orthodox chapel in Buckingham Palace,” added the prelate. “Aliki was a very powerful woman whom I’m sure had a very strong influence on Charles in his early years.”
As the religious centre of eastern Orthodoxy, Athos is a magnet for pilgrims dedicated to the faith. Many – as testified by the growing number of monks from the EU, Canada, Australia and the US – don’t look back. And among Europe’s wealthy blue bloods, the luxuriant territory is seen as the perfect “detox” getaway.
But the prince’s affection for a place where visitors sleep on lumpy mattresses and rise at 4am has also raised the inevitable question of whether the heir to the throne harbours desires of eventually converting to the religion.
Prince Philip, his Corfu-born father who like Charles is an honorary member of the Friends of Mount Athos, had to switch to Anglicanism from Greek Orthodoxy to marry the Queen.
In their large, decaying monasteries the clerics cherish the sort of Spartan conditions that Charles hated at Gordonstoun, his stern Scottish boarding school. Most also make no secret of their loathing of other western religions.
In the wake of last year’s allegations of rape and the sale of gifts which engulfed the house of Windsor and its staff, senior Greek Orthodox priests launched a spirited defence of the prince. Many denounced the claims as an “international conspiracy” unleashed by forces bent on destroying the reluctant royal’s new-found affection for the religion.
“All these attacks against Charles are doubtless due to the fact that he has embraced Orthodoxy,” said His Beatitude, Anthimos, the Bishop of Alexandroupolis. “If his Orthodox beliefs were ever to be made official, people would find it very troubling.”
Officially, St James’s Palace says the prince’s trips to the car-free Mount are a purely “personal affair”.
“He goes there as a private individual, not in his official capacity as the Prince of Wales,” said Kirstine Clark, a spokeswoman at the palace. “Visits are very much in his private time, so we don’t issue details. What I can say is that he is interested in the architecture and spirituality of Mount Athos.”
But, perhaps because he stands to become the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Charles is also unusually sensitive about his trips to the Mount. His visits have been shrouded in secrecy. Countless Greeks with access to the community told the Guardian they were under oath never to mention them.
Government officials and diplomats are politely told not to escort the prince to Vatopedion, which he helped restore with money from the auction of his watercolours.
Attending the opening of the newly refurbished monastery last year, the prince said he hoped each of the Mount’s 23 monasteries would soon regain their former splendour. He would, he said, work hard to ensure that happened.
AS HE approaches his fifth wedding anniversary next month, Prince Charles is feeling the need for a male-only spiritual recharge: he is contemplating a solo sojourn to a monastery in northern Greece.
Greece jails Abbot Ephraim in Mount Athos fraud case
2011
Vatopedi is part of the ancient Mount Athos monastic community that has been visited by Britain’s Prince Charles and Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The abbot of the prestigious Vatopedi monastery on Mount Athos in Greece has been jailed pending trial for alleged fraud and embezzlement.
Greek Supreme Court Charges 14 over Vatopedi Monastery Scandal
2014
Greece ’s Supreme Court indicted 14 individuals earlier today over the Vatopedi Monastery land swap scandal that became public in August 2008. The court struck down a Supreme Court deputy prosecutor’s reversal of the indictments, requested by three of the defendants, which had been issued by a criminal appeals court.
Those charged are Vatopedi Monastery Abbot Ephraim, monk Arsenios, notary Aikaterini Peleki, attorneys Dionysis Pelekis and Dimitrios Pelekis, former head of the Hellenic Public Real Estate Company (KED) Petros Papageorgiou, KED board member Constantinos Gratsios, former director of KED’s real estate management service Georgios Mitropoulos, former Agriculture Ministry secretary general Constantinos Skiadas and former head of Rural Development Ministry Stamatoula Madeli. Also indicted is former Legal Council of State Vice President Grigoris Krombas, as well as Christodoulos Botsios, Stefanos Detsis and Ioannis Dionysopoulos.
The 14 charged are accused of morally or otherwise instigating acts of breach of trust and issuing false certificates in connection with transactions swapping real estate in Lake Vistonida and its shores with prime real estate belonging to the Greek state as well as damaging the state’s interests. The cost to the state is believed to have been at least 100 million euros, while according to financial writer Michael Lewis, a Greek parliamentary commission established to investigate the scandal, estimated the value of government property received by the monastery at one billion euros. The public fury that followed the revelation of the illegal land swaps led the government of New Democracy to cancel the deals and two Ministers resigned, under huge pressure from the media.
Ioannis Aggelou, director of Former Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis’ office at the time, was the only person to be acquitted under the specific indictments.
Efraim’s ring ran cash slush funds to bribe politicians, offshore companies, got nearly 200 million euros in loans from banks, and played a role in the engineered collapse of the banks of Andreas Vgenopoulos in Cyprus which cost tax payers 4 billion euros.
“Mt Athos is currently one large building site in contrast to the dereliction and poverty of the rest of Greece. It seems unreal that humble monks should be employing so much specialist labour. This must be costing hundreds of millions of euros. The ancient buildings have received EU and Unesco grants, but these surely account for a fraction of the lavish expenditure I observed. Such huge grants could not be justified given that access is so limited and entry is forbidden to women,” reports The Spectator.
–How could someone who was so closely linked with the aristocracy such as ( Mountbatten and Charles), someone closely linked with so many senior police officers in the UK, So close to senior politicians that for example he spent several Xmas’s with Former PM Thatcher, someone close to the Former PM Ted Heath, knowing that someone with such links would of course be vetted by security services. How could someone like that get away with sexually abusing children for all that time?
If after that and people still don’t know the answer then there is no hope for them.
Why is Savile so important … the key if you like
His connections, he just seems to be in so many places where child abuse occurred or linked to high profile people who have or are claimed to have abused children
He was more than just a stand alone child abuser. He was a procurer, a fixer for elite peadophiles
He is a gateway to unravelling some of the elite paedophile rings that operated at that time.
Savile –Prince Charles
Savile – Royal patronage
Savile – Heath – Jersey- Haut de la Garenne care home
The Westminster strand of the inquiry heard civil servants were wary of Savile as early as 1984.
In letters exchanged with then prime minister Mrs Thatcher’s secretary, committee head Lord Robert Armstrong cited interviews with Savile published in the Sun the previous year in which the BBC DJ boasted about sleeping with hundreds of girls, having people assaulted, and telling a suicidal man how he could take his own life.
“My committee did not feel that sufficient time has elapsed since Mr Savile’s unfortunate revelations in the popular press in April of this year,” Lord Armstrong wrote.
“He is much in the public eye and it is unlikely that the lurid details of his story will have been forgotten. I fear it would be best if Mr Savile were to wait a little longer.”
He later refused to include him in the birthday honours list, saying time had “served only to strengthen the doubts felt about a knighthood for Mr Savile”.
He had been advised awarding a knighthood to Savile would bring the honours system into “disrepute”, he wrote.
In 1998, the committee received an anonymous letter that said “reports of a paedophilia nature” could emerge about Savile and allegations about his involvement with boys.
It said: “While within limits and bounds homosexuality can be rationalised in a modern society, we must not lose sight that paedophilia goes beyond any boundaries which right-minded people of whatever political persuasions find abhorrent.”
Giving evidence to the inquiry, senior civil servant Helen MacNamara – who currently heads the Honours and Appointments Secretariat – said such a letter would now be passed to police immediately.
She added that she did not know how the letter was dealt with at the time or if any concerns were raised with authorities.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales is investigating claims against local authorities, religious organisations, the armed forces, and public and private institutions – as well as people in the public eye.
The inquiry is being led by Prof Alexis Jay, a former director of social services who headed the inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham.
The inquiry’s public hearings consist of 13 separate investigations, which are expected to last until 2020.
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![[The Rt. Rev. George Leona...]](https://i0.wp.com/episcopalarchives.org/e-archives/ENS/photographs/processed/90187_1.jpg)
2001
Peter Ball with Vickery House in 1986
Skelhorn was also the DPP when the ‘Playland’ scandal broke, which saw the Old Etonian Lloyds underwriter Charles Hornby (friend of Prince Charles) jailed for the sexual exploitation of homeless boys near Piccadilly Circus. It’s widely believed Hornby was the establishment scapegoat and many other VIPs managed to escape justice. The judge admitted not all the perpetrators were in the dock and one of the defendants, David Archer, said he’d presented police with a dossier naming millionaires and titled and influential people involved in the Playland affair. There was “a tremendous cover up to protect these people,” he argued.
goodnessandharmony 
Here is Sharon Evans Charity page,
http://dotcomcf.org/about-us/sharon-evans/
The video at the bottom reveals that the charity was originally set up by Tony Blair!
Already no independence..
The Vimeo site:
http://vimeo.com/user15764286/videos
Appears the charity had a “Strictly Come Dancing Gala evening” on the 16th Sept – supported by the bizarre “Red Square Project” –
https://www.facebook.com/RedSquarePR?fref=nf
If you follow links on FB page to Daily Mail site you can see it was attended by the Blairs.
Further down the Facebook page you see an invite, it’s hosted at “Mansion House” by kind permission of, wait
for it…
“the Rt. Hon. The Lord Mayor”