Birmingham Archdiocese let children be abused and harboured paedophile priests 'to protect its own reputation'
'The plight of victims was ignored or swept under the carpet,' says inquiry in damning report
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Your support makes all the difference.Birmingham’s Catholic church protected paedophile priests and allowed child sex abuse to continue in order to preserve its own reputation, a damning inquiry has found.
The Archdiocese of Birmingham “repeatedly failed” to alert police to allegations against its clergy and in doing so let perpetrators carry on abusing victims for years, the report concluded.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) examined more than 130 allegations of abuse against 78 people associated with the archdiocese since the 1930s. But it said the true scale of offending was likely to be far higher.
Thirteen abusers have been convicted and three other individuals received cautions over offences involving 53 children. Many other victims have since died, meaning their allegations cannot not be fully investigated.
Professor Alexis Jay, who is chairing the inquiry, said: “I am truly shocked by the scale of child sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Birmingham. The number of perpetrators and abused children is likely to be far higher than the figures suggest.
“Victims and survivors’ allegations were mostly ignored for years, while perpetrators avoided prosecution. It is clear that the church could have stopped children being abused if it had not been so determined to protect its own reputation”
The “default position” of the archdiocese when confronted with abuse allegations was “to take no action or to move the priest to another parish”, the inquiry panel said.
It added: “The consequence of these failings cannot be overstated.”
The inquiry found the church’s inaction had “sealed the fate of many victims whose trust was placed in these abusers. The plight of victims was ignored or swept under the carpet, allowing the perpetrators to carry on abusing, often for many years.”
The report also criticised the UK’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who it said chose to “defend the reputation of the church rather than fully acknowledge the possibility of its shortcomings” while he was Birmingham’s archbishop between 2000 and 2009.
In 2003, the cardinal – who is now Archbishop of Westminster - accused the BBC of anti-Catholic bias after a 2003 documentary, which tracked down and confronted Birmingham priest and serial child abuser James Robinson.
Senior figures at the archdiocese were first informed of allegations against Robinson in 1972 – some 30 years before police launched the criminal investigation that led to his arrest. Over the following decades the church was warned repeatedly about the priest, who was finally convicted of 21 offences against four victims in 2010 and jailed for 21 years.
Instead of reporting the allegations to the police or investigating internally, the archdiocese moved Robinson to another parish and in 1985 helped him to flee to the US, where he received financial assistance from the church for seven years.
The inquiry panel said Cardinal Nichols had compounded victims’ pain by issuing a press release following the BBC documentary which focussed “too much on his grievance with the programme makers and too little on the public interest in exposing the abuse committed by the clergy and the harm done to the victims of such abuse”.
The panel, which held six days of hearings into the Birmingham archdiocese’s handling of abuse claims, also considered the cases of three other priests.
The report found “little or no steps” were taken to protect children from the risk of abuse by the late John Tolkien, son of novelist JRR Tolkien, despite the church knowing he posed a danger.
The archdiocese settled a civil claim out of court with an alleged victim of the priest, who died in 2003 and never faced prosecution because of his failing health.
Another former victim of Tolkien said the abuse had "ruined my life". The former alter boy, now in his 50s, added: "I had a very bad distaste for Vincent Nichols for many years and I held him responsible for stopping me seeing Tolkien so I couldn't find out why he did it.
"I didn't think that was a very Christian way of being - in fact it's disgraceful."
Cardinal Nicholas has since apologised for the "inadequate and not lastingly helpful" response the victim received when he requested a meeting with the archbishop in 2002.
Another priest, Samuel Penney, abused child parishioners from the late 1960s until 1992. The inquiry found his offending was repeatedly brought to the archdiocese’s attention but instead of reporting it and supporting victims, Daniel Leonard, the vicar general in charge of investigating such allegations, attempted to make arrangements for Penney to leave the UK and evade arrest.
Penney was jailed for seven and a half years in March 1993 after being convicted of abusing seven children.
The fourth priest, referred to by the inquiry only as RC‑F167, was ordained by the church despite having previously resigned as a teacher after being accused of indecently assaulting two young pupils.
During the course of his application to the archdiocese he did not deny inappropriately touching the boys but said “it was an involuntary action with no malicious intent”. Despite a later police investigation into the allegations, he was appointed to a parish affiliated to a large primary school.
The inquiry also concluded that the archdiocese was still falling short in its child safeguarding arrangements, despite recommendations from major reports in recent years.
The panel said: “The Archdiocese of Birmingham must professionalise both the way the safeguarding team operates and the way the team is managed and overseen.”
Responding to report, the archdiocese said in a statement: “We accept that we have failed victims and survivors of abuse and again apologise for the grievous failings we have made in the past.
“Apologies are just words though, if not backed up by action. We will take the time needed to review the IICSA report thoroughly in order to make a considered and detailed response, which will inform our ongoing commitment to do more and do better.”
Cardinal Nichols added: “I thank IICSA for their review of the past and in my witness statements address all the points contained in the report.
“I look forward to the next phase which I trust will help us in our present and future tasks.”
But Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon who is acting for some Catholic victims and survivors at the inquiry, said it was “alarming” that safeguarding in the Archdiocese of Birmingham was “still beset by significant failings”.
He added: “This gives the lie to the idea that child protection in the Catholic church has been transformed.
“Major problems still persist, and until we have mandatory reporting and independent oversight of church safeguarding, no child can be considered safe in church institutions.”
The IICSA's report, published on Thursday, is part of a wider investigation into sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in England and Wales.