UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post Today
Mark Branagan
POLICE investigations into crimes from years gone by are never easy – and in this case were complicated by the setting of one of England's leading Roman Catholic schools presided over by an order of Benedictine monks.
More than 30 officers, plus social workers, were involved in the 15-month inquiry at Ampleforth.
Ampleforth College – motto God Protect Him – is buried in the countryside near Helmsley. Old boys include Cardinal Basil Hume, Andrew Parker-Bowles, Rupert Everett, the Today TV programme presenter Edward Stourton, and Philip Lawrence, the murdered head of St George's RC School in Maida Vale, London.
There had been a case against a monk in 1996, and the school's former finance chief was jailed in 2000 for downloading child porn, but there seemed no cause for further concern until 2002 when a complaint was referred to them about housemaster Christian Shore.