"Jail Archbishop Who Covered up My Abuse': Victims Say Nothing Was Done to Stop Paedophile Priest

By Richard Marsden
Daily Mail
October 23, 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2805655/Jail-archbishop-covered-abuse-Victims-say-stop-paedophile-priest.html

Cover-up: Former Archbishop Lord Hope allowed a paedophile priest to escape punishment for sex crimes, a judge's report claims

A former archbishop who failed to act on alleged crimes of a paedophile priest should be jailed, the abuser’s victims have said.

Lord Hope, the former Archbishop of York, did not act on 19 occasions when allegations of abuse or inappropriate conduct by the priest were raised with him, a scathing report revealed yesterday.

But despite that, Lord Hope remains as an honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Bradford.

Eli Ward and Bim Atkinson, who were among seven victims of the Very Reverend Robert Waddington, former Dean of Manchester, said it is ‘incredible’ that the man who did nothing to stop the priest has been allowed to keep his post.

The report by Judge Sally Cahill QC said Lord Hope failed to act because his ‘concern for the welfare of Robert Waddington seems to have been paramount’.

Waddington, who kept an official position in the church until 2005 and died in 2007, targeted young choirboys over several decades. One of the seven victims committed suicide in 1989.

Mr Atkinson, 59, who was abused when Waddington was a priest in Australia in the 1960s, sent a picture of disgraced Tory peer Lord Archer, who was jailed for perjury, to the Bishop of North Queensland Bill Ray, adding: ‘I would be pushing for Lord Hope to be treated in the same way as this fellow.’

Mr Ward, now 41, was abused by Waddington between the ages of 11 and 15 as a chorister at Manchester Cathedral. He said: ‘It’s just incredible Lord Hope still has a position. Here is a guy who shoved it all under the carpet.

'He failed and failed to do anything and yet nothing has happened to him. He is still allowed to sit in the House of Lords.’

He added: ‘I’d like to see him punished. My opinion is that he’s committed a crime, perverting the course of justice, and should face the consequences.’

Robert Waddington died in 2007 - he had been accused of abusing seven different victims between 1955 and 1996

Mr Ward said he left the choir when he was 15 after church officials became concerned – but the priest was allowed to remain as the dean in charge of the cathedral until 1993.

Waddington then moved to York Minster, where more children were abused. He stayed in a lesser post there until 2005, despite the allegations made to Lord Hope, according to the report, which was commissioned by current Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend John Sentamu.

Mr Ward said: ‘Here we had a church body which had been preaching at us to be morally correct yet, when it came to doing the same thing themselves, they were incapable.’ Mr Ward, now living in the Home Counties with a long-term girlfriend, added that he has put the abuse behind him.

But he believes Waddington’s abuse was responsible for the death of another victim, a former chorister from Carlisle named in the report only as Peter, who was abused in the 1970s, developed depression and schizophrenia, and committed suicide in 1989.

Lord Hope, 76, has described Judge Cahill’s report as ‘flawed’ but offered a ‘personal and profound apology’.

He said: ‘This report makes it clear that not applying the policy is not the same as a cover-up. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.’