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	Paedophile Vicar Still Being Paid Worcester News [United Kingdom] July 5, 2007 http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/wnnewslatest/display.var.1521050.0.paedophile_vicar_still_being_paid.php A paedophile vicar who once served in Malvern is still being paid his £20,000-a-year salary by the Church of England - two months after he was sent to prison for abusing young boys, it emerged today. The Rev David Smith, aged 52, is also still technically the priest at St John's in Clevedon, Somerset, where he groomed and molested two vulnerable youngsters. Smith, who served at St Peter's Church, Cowleigh, Malvern, in the 1980s, was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail in May after being convicted of a string of sexual assaults on boys over a 30-year period. Officials at the Church of England today blamed red tape and procedures for delaying his removal from office, but insisted it could happen in a matter of days. Smith, despite being suspended for more than a year by the Diocese of Bath and Wells, is entitled to continue to claim his stipend. The Rev John Andrews, spokesman for the diocese, said the process of removing a vicar from office was subject to legal procedures, which could take time. "We have to follow the law and implement it as expeditiously as we can," he said. "We are anxious that the whole matter should be resolved as soon as possible." But one of Smith's victims, who was molested by the paedophile when he was a pupil at a boarding school in the 1970s, said the Church should have stopped paying him after his conviction. "I would rather have a clean break and he should have to suffer all the consequences of his actions, including not being paid, but that's secondary to the fact he's not in a position to abuse children any more." Smith has always denied the charges, but is not thought to be challenging a Church decision to sack him.
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