BBC News [United Kingdom]
April 26, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6594439.stm
The Church of England has been accused of covering up child sex abuse carried out by a former choirmaster.
Peter Halliday, 61, from Farnborough, was jailed for two-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to sexual abuse of boys in Hampshire in the late 1980s.
BBC News has learned he admitted to the offences 17 years ago but left the Church quietly on condition he had no more contact with children.
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| Peter Halliday continued to work with children until his arrest |
The Church of England said it now had "robust" child abuse policies.
Dormitory abuse
Halliday, who is married, was also ordered to pay all three victims £2,000 each, after admitting to 10 counts of abuse at an earlier hearing at Winchester Crown Court.
He abused the boys who were in his church choir between 1985 and 1990.
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"The Church can be seen to have done the best it could" The Reverend Mark Rudall |
Judge Ian Pearson banned Halliday from working with children and said he would be put on the Sex Offenders Register, both for life.
Following Halliday's sentencing, the Reverend Mark Rudall, of the diocese of Guildford, said: "I can imagine there is anger on behalf of some of those victims and our heart goes out to them.
"But I think also that in accordance with the way things were done in those days the Church can be seen to have done the best it could."
Det Sgt Alison Heydari, of Hampshire Police, said Halliday's actions had had a "devastating impact on his victims and their families".
| "When your first sexual experience is a 40-year-old man forcing himself on you it's pretty horrific" One of the boys Halliday abused |
In 1990 a young chorister at St Peter's Church in Farnborough told his parents his choirmaster had abused him repeatedly during a period of several years, and he was not the only victim.
His parents told the vicar, who consulted the bishop - but rather than call the police the churchmen advised Halliday he should leave quietly and agree to have no more contact with young children.
One of the boys Halliday abused, who was 10 years old at the time, told BBC News: "It was both when I was alone with him and there were others there.
"It happened in his house when I was alone with him having individual tuition, but it also happened on trips. It even happened when I was in dormitories with other boys.
"I was horrified. When your first sexual experience is a 40-year-old man forcing himself on you it's pretty horrific."
The victim thought he had escaped Halliday when the choirmaster left his job in 1990, but he met him again in 1993 on a residential music course where young choirboys were staying and was scared for himself and his friends.
The bishop at the time of the abuse, David Wilcox, said they would deal with such a situation differently now because court and police systems had developed.
'Robust policies'
Halliday continued to work with young boys, as a singer with the Royal School of Church Music, which said the child abuse was "entirely unconnected" with the school.
It was only when Halliday was charged last year with indecently assaulting children that he gave up his work with the school.
Church of England national safeguarding adviser, the Reverend Pearl Luxon, who is responsible for child protection issues, said the Church had "robust policies in place" to deal with child abuse.
Child abuse lawyer Richard Scorer said the Church had not dealt very well with child protection until recent times, but that things were improving.
In a statement, the Church of England said it was committed to the safeguarding, care and nurture of the children within the Church community.
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