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	Never Again By Andrew Greaves The Citizen [United Kingdom] May 3, 2007 http://www.prestoncitizen.co.uk/news/headlines/display.var.1374324.0.never_again.php One of Lancashire's most senior clergymen has assured parents that mistakes made in the past will not be repeated. Patrick O'Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster, was speaking just days after former Preston priest Father Edmund Cotter, 60, pleaded guilty to three specimen charges of indecent assault at Preston Crown Court. The bishop admitted that the Catholic Church did not have adequate systems in place when dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse in the past. But he said he had full faith in current child protection measures. Cotter is yet to be sentenced for the offences which involved a girl under 14 and took place between February 1981 and December 1984 when he was based at St Gregory's RC Church in Blackpool Road, Deepdale. Cotter was based at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish Church in Dalton, Cumbria, at the time of his arrest. He also served at St Anthony's, Fulwood. Bishop Patrick said in the past the Church had a tendency to accept that any misdemeanours were isolated incidents and would often just move the priest to another parish. He said: "In the past the priest who has committed the offence has usually apologised and we have frowned upon their actions but found them another position in a different parish. This is where we have been guilty in the past. "We are very distraught when this kind of thing happens because not only does it call all priests into question, it also shatters a trust that parents put in Catholic Church and its workers in the community, the school yard, the youth club or wherever." He said that today, everyone in the church who works with children is subject to criminal checks. Each diocese has a Child Protection Commission which is chaired by a lawyer and also has representatives from the police and social services. The commission, which is multi-denominational, investigates all allegations, including historic ones, and is under obligation to pass on any which appear to have substance to the police. Bishop Patrick said: "Once the police become involved, we step out of the investigation while they conduct a criminal inquiry. We take every case very seriously and I am very happy with the system we now have in place. "All people who work within the church are subject to criminal checks and even if it is a teacher who has already been vetted by their school, we still make checks on them."
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