Carey a scapegoat

SIR – Public executions are ugly. But that is what has happened to Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury (report, June 26).

As a result of his handling of the Bishop Peter Ball paedophile affair, a quarter of a century ago, he has now not only been criticised in the Gibb Report and accused in a letter by the present Archbishop of colluding with Ball; he has been forced to resign from the honorary role of Assistant Bishop in Oxford, and banned from any form of ministry in any church worldwide.

He did not collude with Peter Ball, who was cautioned by the police, resigned as Bishop of Gloucester and was in due course imprisoned.

Lord Carey’s mistake, for which he apologised, was failing to put Ball, by then a sick man, on the Lambeth caution list, as he did not think there was a chance of his ministering again. The provincial registrar concurred.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that Lord Carey has been made a scapegoat.

Dr Michael Green

Abingdon, Oxfordshire