UNREPENTANT WELBY
He refuses to say sorry over child sex ‘smear’ against bishop
Top QC’s inquiry clears senior cleric of abusing schoolgirl
THE Archbishop of Canterbury was under fire last night for refusing to apologise for posthumously trashing the reputation of a celebrated bishop.
A damning report said the Church of England had ‘rushed’ to accept claims that Bishop George Bell was a paedophile.
It had ‘hung him out to dry’ on the say so of a woman who alleged – more than 50 years after he died – that he had abused her as a child. Her claims were made at the height of the Jimmy Savile revelations of 2012.
The Church fell into the same trap as police
in the discredited Operation Midland operation by ‘ quickly’ accepting her allegations as fact, concluded Lord Carlile of Berriew in a report.
He found that panicking clergy botched their inquiry into the claims about Bishop Bell, and rushed to apologise to his ‘victim’ – referred to as Carol – and pay her compensation.
Then they ‘deliberately’ and publicly vilified the late bishop as a paedophile in a public relations strategy presided over by Archbishop Justin Welby.
Yesterday he refused to say sorry, and enraged supporters of the former Bishop of Chichester by saying that in fact a ‘significant cloud hangs over his name’.
Lord Carlile QC, who was commissioned by Lambeth Palace to review its inquiry into the paedophile claims, found:
Carol’s claims were blindly accepted as ‘credible’ and true ‘without serious investigation’ .
There was no corroborating evidence of her claims and no other ‘victims’ ever came forward.
Their ‘preconceived’ mind-set echoed police in Operation Midland, who proclaimed Westminster paedophile ring claims made by a man known as ‘Nick’ were ‘credible and true’.
The result was that the bishop’s saintly reputation was ‘catastrophically’ traduced.
Comparing the case to Scotland Yard’s disastrous Operation Midland, which besmirched Lord Bramall and Lord Brittan with false allegations of sex abuse, Lord Carlile said: ‘There is a danger of assuming that all complainants are victims.’ He added that both cases showed the perils of using terms such as ‘survivor’ and ‘victim’.
Lord Carlile attacked the ‘scant regard’ given to Bishop Bell’s good character, and said: ‘The reputations of the dead are not without value. A moment’s thought makes it plain that none of us would wish to be vilified after our deaths when we could no longer defend ourselves.’
Carol claimed she was sexually abused between the ages of five and eight in the 1950s during regular visits to Bishop Bell.
She first complained in 1995, some 37 years after his death, in a letter to the then Bishop of Chichester, Eric Kemp, in which she wrote: ‘Eveclusion ryone thinks he is a saint but to my cost I know different… I am going to tell my story and sell it to the highest bidder.’
In 2012, she repeated the claims to Archbishop Welby’s office and he ordered the inquiry in 2013.
Afterwards, the new Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, wrote to Carol offering his ‘deepest apologies’ and saying she had ‘great courage’ as a ‘survivor’ of abuse. The Church paid her £16,800 in compensation and £15,000 legal costs.
Yesterday Lord Carlile said unscrupulous people could see this ‘ as a source of easy money’.
Unlike the Church’s own ‘ weak’ investigation, Lord Carlile found two witnesses still alive who had lived at the bishop’s palace at the time, and neither recalled ever seeing Carol.
He condemned the clergy for not even bothering to read the full report of forensic psychiatrist Professor Anthony Maden, who had suggested Carol’s ‘unhappy childhood’ may have distorted her memories.
Lord Carlile said: ‘It was premature of the Church to have reached a con- before seeking the widest available evidence.’
The QC stressed he made no judgment about whether Carol’s claims were true or false, but said on the basis of the available evidence, if it had gone to trial, the prosecution would have lost.
After the report was published, Archbishop Welby issued a statement which said: ‘We realise that a significant cloud is left over his name.’
He added: ‘ No human being is entirely good or bad. Bishop Bell was in many ways a hero. He is also accused of great wickedness. Good acts do not diminish evil ones, nor do evil ones make it right to forget the good. Whatever is thought about the accusations, the whole person and whole life should be kept in mind.’
Lord Carlile said alleged perpetrators should not be named unless their guilt was established but Archbishop Welby disagreed saying transparency was more important.
Dr Ruth Hildebrandt Grayson, the daughter of Bishop Bell’s friend Franz Hildebrandt, said the bishop’s family deserved a personal apology from the Archbishop and the Bishop of Chichester.
‘The Church can’t have its cake and eat it. Either he is innocent, in which case they must apologise, or he is guilty, which they can’t prove, and the report makes clear that they have not proved,’ she said.
Professor Andrew Chandler, Bell’s biographer, said the Archbishop’s statement was ‘wrong’ and ‘illogical’. He added: ‘It fails a basic test of rational justice. It lacks an understanding of all kinds of dimensions which require compassion, not least in Chichester, where people feel deeply upset by this.’
Peter Hancock, the Church’s lead bishop on safeguarding issues, said: ‘Lessons can and have been learnt about how we could have managed the process better.’
He said the Bell case was ‘a complex one’ and the Church had ‘ acted in good faith throughout with no calculated intention to damage George Bell’s reputation’.
‘It fails a basic test of rational justice’