How the establishment covered up for a bishop who sexually abused boys and young men

An independent review by Dame Moira Gibb into the Church of England's response to the activites of Bishop Peter Ball was published yesterday.

As David Hencke says:

It is a grim story only coming light after the former Bishop of Gloucester was successfully prosecuted and jailed in 2015 after a career of physically and sexually abusing and exploiting boys and young men, including some who were particularly vulnerable.

He goes on:

Equally culpable, though not an abuser, is Michael Ball, his twin brother and former Bishop of Truro, who ran a campaign after his brother had been given a caution for abusing Todd in 1993 to rehabilitate him using every type of pressure he could find. 

None of the authorities, with the exception of Sussex police, come out of this well, Neither the Church, Lambeth Palace, Gloucestershire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. It is litany of failed responsibility among those in power and also the misuse of power and reputation to protect the powerful. 

Peter Ball comes out of this report as a manipulative, sadomasochistic predator who appears to have used every trick to entice young men from public schoolboys to priests and damaged and vulnerable youths coming to the Church for his own sexual gratification. It is not clear even now at 85 whether he shows any remorse as he refused to co-operate with Dame Moira’s inquiry.

One worrying aspect of this affair was the way George Carey, then the Archbishop of Canterbury involved himself in it.

As Hencke says:

Lord Carey emerges as a very weak character in this sorry saga. On the one level he is aware of Ball’s transgressions and tries to investigate, on another level he intervenes with the aim, whatever he says in a letter to Gloucestershire’s chief constable, to prevent a public trial of a Bishop by just issuing a caution. 

In the end this is done in return for his resignation as bishop. It is here that Gloucestershire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, which now admits its mistake, are totally at fault.

Hencke goes on speculate on whether Ball would today be able to be openly gay or whether he was always a predatory abuser.

One angle that neither Hencke nor the report - which you can read in full online - explores is the role of Baroness Butler-Sloss, who led a review of Ball's conduct on behalf of the diocese of Chichester.

You can hear her in the audio above trying to persuade one of his victims not to name Ball on the grounds that "the press would love a Bishop".

As I wrote when I first posted this audio:

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.