Bishop Peter Ball Facing Two More Charges of Sexual Offences

Eastbourne Herald
July 14, 2014

http://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/news/local/bishop-peter-ball-facing-two-more-charges-of-sexual-offences-1-6177624

Bishop Peter Ball has been summonsed to court over two alleged sexual offences which took place in Litlington and Berwick.

Bishop Ball, 82, a former Bishop of Lewes and currently of Aller, near Langport in Somerset, had already been summonsed in March this year for alleged:

- Misconduct in public office between October 1977 and December 1992 while a Bishop in the Church of England, by misusing his position and authority to manipulate and prevail upon others for his own sexual gratification;

- Indecent assault on a boy then aged between 12 and 13, in 1978;

- Indecent assault on man aged 19 to 20 between 1980 and 1982.

All those offences are alleged to have taken place at Litlington.

He has now been served with two additional summonses alleging indecent assault on a man over 16 between 1990 and 1991 in Berwick and on a boy under 16 between 1984 and 1985 in Litlington.

The new summons, applications for which were authorised, as with the previous summonses, by the Crown Prosecution Service, are returnable at Brighton Magistrates Court on July 17.

These decisions by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) follow Operation Dunhill, an investigation by Sussex Police detectives into information received from the Church of England in May 2012.

Peter Ball is also due to appear at a Crown Court for a plea and case management hearing on August 1 in relation to the summonses announced in March.

Vickery House, 68, of Brighton Road, Handcross, a Church of England priest, who was charged in January, on the authority of the CPS, following another investigation by Operation Dunhill detectives from Sussex Police, is also due to appear for a plea and case management hearing at the same Crown Court on August 1.

House faces eight charges of indecent assault on one boy then aged 15, and five men, ranging in age from 17 to 34 between 1970 and 1986 in East Sussex and Devon;

- two charges relating to a boy then aged 15 in Devon between 1970 and 1971;

- two charges relating to a man in East Sussex between 1976 and 1978, and 1983 and 1985;

- one charge relating to a man in East Sussex between 1978 and 1980;

- one charge relating to a man in East Sussex between 1981 and 1984;

- one charge relating to a man in London between 1984 and 1986:

- one charge relating to a man in East Sussex between 1984 and 1985.