BRILLIANT AND COURAGEOUS MAN OF PEACE
George VI was on the Throne, Winston Churchill was in Downing Street and Britain was still on rations when a little girl of primary school age was allegedly being abused by one of the most distinguished religious figures of the day.
It would be more than four decades later before she reported it. And it was not until october 2015 and the final year of David Cameron’s premiership when she received a formal apology and a £16,800 payout.
By then, george Bell, former Bishop of Chichester, had been dead for more than half a century.
And now we learn that his snail-paced, posthumous ‘ trial’ was flawed from start to finish. Yet, today his reputation is still in half-tatters. It has certainly been retrieved from the drawer marked ‘Jimmy Savile’.
But while he is now deemed to be less than guilty, no one will formally say that, on the balance of probabilities, george Bell is innocent.
The school and the cathedral building which were named after him no longer bear his name. His bold and tireless work for peace before, during and after the Second World War, is forever eclipsed.
Yesterday’s review is, nonetheless, a victory of sorts for a loyal and determined group, including the journalists Peter Hitchens and Charles Moore, who have been determined to clear Bell’s name. They are motivated, in part, by what they perceive as a terrible miscarriage of justice. But they are also driven by admiration for one of the most remarkable churchmen of his generation.
For had it not been for the war, we might very well be discussing allegations against a former Archbishop of Canterbury.
BORN just down the road from Chichester on Hayling Island, where his father was a vicar, Bell was a brilliant oxford classicist before being ordained in 1907. He became very active in international church networks before and after the First World War and, in 1924, was appointed Dean of Canterbury.
By the Thirties, he was also a leading opponent of appeasement. Through his german contacts, Bell was well aware of what the nazis were planning and worked to help Jews and outspoken church figures escape from germany. Shortly before the child abuse investigation, he had been due to be honoured with a statue at Canterbury Cathedral in recognition of his work in rescuing Jewish children via the kindertransport system.
But while he was an early campaigner against Hitler, he was also passionately opposed to the Allies’ saturation bombing of german cities during the war. By now Bishop of Chichester, he used his seat in the Lords to attack this as a ‘policy of annihilation’ which threatened civilisation itself. They were unpopular sentiments in the closing phases of the war.
When the post of Archbishop of Canterbury fell vacant in 1944, Bell was one of the front-runners but it is widely believed that his anti-bomber remarks cost him the job. Had he got it, it would have been Bell rather than geoffrey Fisher who crowned the Queen nine years later.
george Bell now joins a growing list of distinguished public figures, alive and dead, who have been vilified, on the weakest of evidence, by a system more concerned with showing compassion for the accuser than a quest for the truth. Look beyond the hand- wringing half- apology from the Church of england yesterday and we see that george Bell has been treated abominably by the church to which he dedicated his life. For yesterday’s announcement of the review by Lord Carlile QC was not a verdict. It was simply confirmation of incompetence.
We have finally been told – after a year-long inquiry into an inquiry – that there were grave errors in the way the original allegation was handled. Let us remind ourselves of a few of the facts.
note the word allegation. There is no ‘s’ on the end of it. only one person ever accused george Bell of child abuse. Though he and his wife took in refugee children during the Second World War, none of them reported anything amiss.
Though the original inquiry never contacted her, Lord Carlile tracked down a woman who actually lived at the bishop’s residence as a girl when her mother was housekeeper. She was the same age as his accuser, saw Bell all the time, had no recollection of unusual behaviour and cannot recall ever seeing the complainant. none of which is concrete proof of anything. But where do you think the balance of probability lies?
We know that the Church had made up its own mind, however, because it chose to call Bell’s accuser a ‘victim’ rather than a ‘claimant’.
In 2014, nine years after the original complaint, the Church of england authorities finally got round to examining the accusation with a ‘ core group’ of bishops and experts. They confidently predicted that publicity surrounding the case would bring forth other accusers, citing the cases of Cyril Smith and Max Clifford. But no one else did emerge.
NONE the less, the Church proceeded down a route which Lord Carlile QC has now described as ‘deficient in a number of respects’. Having failed dismally in its handling of previous child abuse cases in the diocese, the Church was not going to be accused of slacking on this one.
As Lord Carlile says, it ‘ oversteered’ in the opposite direction. So, the Church is guilty of a ‘rush to judgement’.
It has apologised for the way it handled the case but not for its ruling. At the same time, it describes Bell’s accuser – ‘ irrespective of whether she is technically a complainant, survivor, or victim’ – as a person of ‘ dignity and integrity’.
Where that leaves Bell is anyone’s guess. The Archbishop of Canterbury merely acknowledges that a ‘ significant cloud’ hangs over him.
While his supporters are delighted at Bell’s partial rehabilitation, there is a frustration that he will never be fully cleared because he was never tried by a proper court. He remains in limbo.
So, perhaps the last word should go to Lord Carlile. Asked what would have happened if he had been prosecuting this case in a court of law, he admitted yesterday: ‘I would have lost.’