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Anglican Church Case Studies: Chichester/Peter Ball: Investigation Report

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Anglican Church Case Studies: Chichester/Peter Ball: Investigation Report The Anglican Church Case 2. 1. The Studies: response The Chichester, Diocese allegations of to against Peter The Anglican Church Case Studies: 1. The Diocese of Chichester 2. The response to allegations against Peter Ball Investigation Report May 2019 Ball Investigation Report Investigation May 2019 May 2019 The Anglican Church Case Studies: 1. The Diocese of Chichester 2. The response to allegations against Peter Ball Investigation Report May 2019 A report of the Inquiry Panel Professor Alexis Jay OBE Professor Sir Malcolm Evans KCMG OBE Ivor Frank Drusilla Sharpling CBE © Crown copyright 2019 The text of this document (this excludes, where present, the Royal Arms and all departmental or agency logos) may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium provided that it is reproduced accurately and not in a misleading context. The material must be acknowledged as Crown copyright and the document title specified. Where third‑party material has been identified, permission from the respective copyright holder must be sought. Any enquiries related to this publication should be sent to us at [email protected] or Freepost IICSA INDEPENDENT INQUIRY. This publication is available at https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports ISBN 978‑1‑5286‑1213‑5 CCS0319896362 05/19 Printed on paper containing 75% recycled‑fibre content minimum. Printed in the UK by the APS Group on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. The following corrections were made to the report on 9 May 2019: Page iii: 18 updated to 20. Page 206: Recommendation 4 was updated to make it clear that it refers to individuals engaged in regulated activity. The following corrections were made to the report on 13 June 2019: Page 58: Updated to remove reference to the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser. Pages 126 and 136: Typographical error December 1993 corrected to December 1992. Contents Executive Summary iii Part A: Introduction 1 Part B: Case study 1: The Diocese of Chichester 15 B.1. Introduction to the Diocese of Chichester case study 17 B.2: Chichester Cathedral 22 B.3: The cases of Roy Cotton and Colin Pritchard 41 B.4: Diocesan Safeguarding Advisory Group 57 B.5: The Butler-Sloss report 59 B.6: Complaints under the Clergy Discipline Measure 64 B.7: The Archepiscopal Visitation 65 B.8: The allegations against Gordon Rideout, Robert Coles and Jonathan Graves 74 B.9: Operation Perry 83 B.10: George Bell 85 B.11: Culture of the Church 90 B.12: Mandatory reporting 96 B.13: Current situation in Chichester 100 Part C: Case study 2: The response to allegations against Peter Ball 109 C.1: Introduction to the Peter Ball case study 110 C.2: Peter Ball’s ordination and progression within the Church of England 112 C.3: Peter Ball’s time in Lewes 116 C.4: Peter Ball’s appointment as Bishop of Gloucester 120 C.5: The events leading to Peter Ball’s arrest 122 C.6: The Gloucestershire Constabulary investigation 126 C.7: The response of the Church of England during the 1992 police investigation 136 C.8: The decision to caution 153 C.9: Peter Ball’s resignation and the consideration of disciplinary action 160 C.10: Peter Ball’s return to ministry 169 C.11: Internal Church reviews 179 C.12: The Northamptonshire Police investigation 184 C.13: Operation Dunhill 186 Part D: Conclusions and recommendations 195 Conclusions 196 Recommendations 206 i Annexes 209 Annex 1: Overview of process and evidence obtained by the Inquiry 210 Annex 2: Glossary 221 Annex 3: Chronology relating to the Chichester Case Study 227 Annex 4: Chronology relating to the Peter Ball Case Study 229 Annex 5: Key individuals 231 Annex 6: Table of convicted perpetrators of child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Chichester 239 Annex 7: Tables of convictions and allegations against Peter Ball 242 ii Executive Summary Executive Summary This phase of the Anglican Church investigation has examined two case studies. The first was the Diocese of Chichester, where there have been multiple allegations of sexual abuse against children. The second concerned Peter Ball, who was a bishop in Chichester before becoming Bishop of Gloucester. In 1993, he was cautioned for gross indecency, and was convicted of further offences in 2015, including misconduct in public office and indecent assault. The Church of England should have been a place which protected all children and supported victims and survivors. It failed to be so in its response to allegations against clergy and laity. The Diocese of Chichester The Diocese of Chichester covers East and West Sussex, with 506 churches and 365 parishes. There are 450 clergy and employed lay workers, as well as a significant number of retired clergy. Over 50 years, 20 individuals with connections to Chichester Diocese have been convicted or have pleaded guilty to sexual offending against children. This figure is higher than in other large dioceses. For example, there were seven convictions in York, five in Birmingham and three in London over similar periods of time. Both case studies provided examples of perpetrators about whom there were allegations and, in one instance, a known conviction, but who were allowed unrestricted access to children and young people. In some cases, they continued to offend. Some of the convicted perpetrators include: Reverend Gordon Rideout Reverend Gordon Rideout was ordained as a priest in 1962 and became an assistant curate in Sussex. He acted as chaplain to a nearby Barnardo’s Children’s Home, where he indecently assaulted a number of children. He then moved to an English army base where there were also allegations of indecent assault against three girls, for which he was acquitted. He later returned to Chichester. In 2013, Rideout was convicted of 36 offences of child sexual abuse involving 16 victims. He was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. No safeguarding file was ever opened on him by the Diocese, even though the historic allegations were known about. He was allowed permission to officiate, with no conditions attached, despite Bishop John Hind and Bishop Wallace Benn knowing about previous arrests. Reverend Robert Coles In 2012, Reverend Robert Coles pleaded guilty to 11 offences of child sexual abuse. This included seven counts of indecent assault and one count of buggery, which related to his time as a parish priest in Chichester. He was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. In 2015 he was convicted of two further counts of sexual assault on a male aged under 13 years. He had retired in 1997, but continued to take services without permission. A serious case review in 2015 found that he had sexually groomed a child in 2007–08 and had befriended the iii Anglican Church Case Studies: Chichester/Peter Ball: Investigation Report families of teenage boys. He took them out alone and gave them keys to his flat. This was known to some individuals in the Diocese, but no steps were taken to prevent him working with children. Reverend Jonathan Graves In 2017, after a second investigation by Sussex Police, Reverend Jonathan Graves was convicted of seven counts of indecent assault, two counts of indecency with a child and four counts of cruelty to a child. He was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. Graves befriended teenage boys in his role as priest, and then engaged in sexual activity with them. This included sadism and masochism. He was warned by the safeguarding adviser in 2000 that he should not have under 18s in the house, but nothing was done to enforce this or follow up on suspicions about him within the parish. Reverend Colin Pritchard Reverend Colin Pritchard was a friend of another perpetrator, Reverend Roy Cotton. Both abused Mr Philip Johnson during his teenage years. Pritchard pleaded guilty in 2008 to seven counts of sexual assault against two boys in a parish in Northamptonshire. He was jailed for five years. In 2018, he was convicted of several counts of indecent assault and rape against a boy aged between 10 and 15, for which he received a sentence of 16 years’ imprisonment. The allegations were that he conspired with Cotton to commit these offences, which took place while he was vicar in a Chichester parish. The Diocese From the early 1990s until 2013 onwards, when the conclusions of the Visitation were implemented, there were inadequate safeguarding structures and policies in place within the Anglican Church and in Chichester Diocese. The responses to child sexual abuse were marked by secrecy, prevarication, avoidance of reporting alleged crimes to the authorities and a failure to take professional advice. It was the opinion of Mr Colin Perkins, Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser, that Coles represented “the worst case in the Diocese, the most serious case ... a diocesan bishop, an area bishop, an archdeacon and two safeguarding advisers knew that he had admitted some of the matters about which he had been questioned … and none of them told the police”.1 Several internal reviews failed to expose the nature and scale of the problem of child sexual abuse within the Diocese. Instead, they were used by Church leaders to act out their personal conflicts and antagonisms. The reviews ultimately came to nothing until the Archbishop of Canterbury intervened by ordering a Visitation. The 1997–98 Sussex Police investigation into Cotton and Pritchard, both later convicted, was inadequate. There was unnecessary delay and a failure to explore all lines of enquiry. As a consequence, no charges were brought and both offenders escaped justice at that time. The later investigations by Sussex Police, namely Operations Perry and Dunhill, were of a much higher quality. The police and the Diocese worked closely together during those investigations.
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