Police damn Church over bishop cover-up
Archbishop ‘withheld evidence from sex abuse victims’
THE Church of England thwarted a police investigation into a paedophile bishop by withholding evidence and launching a dirty tricks campaign, it was claimed yesterday.
In sensational evidence, the detective superintendent who first investigated Peter Ball accused church leaders of failing to act despite being aware of his predatory behaviour.
Wayne Murdock told an inquiry that former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey’s failure to hand over letters detailing Ball’s offending may have helped him escape prosecution for decades. Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester, was first investigated in the 1990s. He was finally jailed in 2015 for the sexual abuse of teenage boys and young men. The damning accusations emerged only a day after Lord Carey, who has been accused of ‘colluding’ to help Ball, admitted that Lambeth Palace had ‘fobbed off’ victims.
Mr Murdock, who led Gloucester Police’s investigation into Ball in 1992 and 1993, said the church’s information ‘ could have made a
At the inquiry: Lord Carey difference’. Ball, 86, walked away with a caution in 1993 and was soon allowed to return to his church duties after initially resigning. He only faced prosecution in 2015 relating to the abuse of at least 16 young men after a separate police investigation.
Mr Murdock told the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse yesterday: ‘The bottom line was those letters should have been passed on for us to look at. There was a lot of activity going on and they knew, they knew what was going on. From the church, you don’t expect that to be withheld.’
The retired officer disputed claims by Lord Carey that the information was never asked for by officers, claiming two requests were submitted to Lambeth Palace. He disputed suggestions by Fiona Scolding QC, counsel to the inquiry, that the documents were irrelevant as the police were already in possession of similar allegations to those contained in six letters sent to Lord Carey.
‘We should have been the judge of that, not the Archbishop,’ Mr Murdock said. ‘He knew that we were carrying out an investigation, and for some reason, he withheld that information.’
The detective, who served for 37 years with the force and led its anti- corruption unit, said senior bishops were involved in alarming attempts to interfere in his initial investigation. He detailed how Ball’s former boss Eric Kemp, the Bishop of Chichester, covertly recorded a meeting between him and the policeman in a ‘devious’ bid to derail the inquiry and damage his reputation.
Ball’s twin brother Michael, who was Bishop of Truro at the time, was accused of ‘coming close to perverting the course of justice’ by Mr Murdock. He recalled issuing a warning to Ball’s solicitor after discovering Michael had been attempting to ‘dissuade people from giving evidence’.
And Mr Murdock said he was stunned to have been phoned by Ball supporter and appeal court judge Lord Lloyd of Berwick after his arrest. The inquiry is this week investigating whether the church and Ball’s web of influential friends, such as Prince Charles, helped him avoid prosecution.
Sussex Police’s Carwyn Hughes, who led the 2012 investigation that resulted in Ball’s eventual conviction, revealed how staff for the Prince of Wales made a ‘ highly unusual’ inquiry about which evidence could be ‘potentially embarrassing’. Representatives for Charles, whose evidence will be heard by the inquiry tomorrow, strongly dispute the allegations.
‘They knew what was going on’