Bishop Peter Ball and Elizabeth Butler-Sloss

BBC News reports today:

Sex abuse victims of former Sussex bishop Peter Ball are suing the Church of England for hundreds of thousands of pounds. 

Ball, 83, who admitted offences against 18 teenagers and young men in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, is being sentenced at the Old Bailey on Wednesday.

I am not a believer in conspiracy theories - you don't have to be when evidence of the extraordinary unwillingness of the establishment to see Bishop Ball suffer for his crimes is openly available.

When Peter Ball resigned as Bishop of Gloucester in 1993, after receiving a police caution for committing an act of gross indecency against a teenage trainee monk, he was given a grace and favour house by the Prince of Wales.

In the current court case, a deal with struck with the Crown Prosecution Service. By pleading guilty to the offences for which he will be sentenced tomorrow, he avoided more serious charges.

As the Church Times reports:

Bishop Ball pleaded not guilty, on Tuesday, to indecent assaults on two boys aged 13 and 15 in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided not to proceed with these charges. 

Phil Johnson, who first made allegations against Bishop Ball in 1996, claims that he was abused at the age of 13. He told The Guardian that he had been “silenced and denied justice”. He has lodged a complaint with the Director of Public Prosecutions and with the Crown Prosecution Service.

You can hear Phil Johnson in the audio recording above.

The other person taking part is Baroness Butler-Sloss, who had conducted an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse in the Chichester diocese. Peter Ball was Bishop of Lewes before he went to Gloucester.

As you can hear, Butler-Sloss does all she can to persuade Johnson to agree that Ball should not be mentioned in her report.