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	CofE 'Was Warned of Choirmaster's Abuse' By Natalie Paris The Telegraph [United Kingdom] April 26, 2007 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/26/nchoir126.xml A former choirmaster for the Church of England went on to abuse children for years despite his behaviour being brought to the attention of the church. Peter Halliday, 61, was today jailed for two-and-a-half years at Winchester Crown Court after pleading guilty to abusing children between 1985 and 1990. The CofE received a complaint about Halliday, the organist and choirmaster at St Peter's Church, Farnborough, Hampshire, from a boy's family in 1990. Following this, it was decided that Halliday should be asked to leave the church and stay away from boys. No further action was taken until a former choirboy bumped into Halliday at a residential course in 1993 where he volunteered with The Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) as a tutor. Halliday continued to work for the RSCM until he was charged with indecently assaulting children last year and resigned from his position in October. The Reverend Mark Rudall, a spokesman for the Guildford Diocese, said: "When something of this kind comes to light and it becomes clear that the lives of young people might have been blighted by events somehow linked with church in the past, we're extremely sad." The CofE's national safeguarding advisor, Reverend Pearl Luxon, admitted that practice on dealing with such complaints had "varied in the past". Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme she said: "We can't comment on the particular case but we can say the Church of England treats the safety of children with the utmost importance." "Police and social services would be told of matters immediately nowadays if these things occur." She acknowledged that the same "apparently" did not apply at the time of Halliday's offences. "These matters are always reviewed after they occur and we learn from our mistakes and our good practices improve at all stages," she said. The CofE said in a statement it carefully selects and trains ordained and lay ministers, volunteers and paid workers who work with children and young people. It does background checks using the Criminal Records Bureau - amongst other tools - on each person, responds without delay to complaints and fully cooperates with investigations by police and social services. The RSCM said in a statement that the child abuse was "entirely unconnected with the RSCM". It "strenuously" denied claims that it knew about these offences as early as 1993, and continued - in spite of that knowledge - to engage Halliday as a volunteer. "We have policies and procedures in place which accord with the best practice in child protection and safety and continue to monitor, review and update these regularly," it said.
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