Church bishop’s sex abuse trial put back until next year

By Frank Le Duc
Brightand Hove News
November 4, 2014

http://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2014/11/04/church-bishops-sex-abuse-trial-put-back-until-next-year

The trial of a retired bishop on sex abuse charges has been put back until next year.

The case against the former Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball, 82, of Langport, Somerset, has been adjourned until Wednesday 14 January.

He appeared at Hove Crown Court by video link from Taunton Magistrates’ Court in May.

He was accused of misconduct in a public office, indecently assaulting a 12 or 13-year-old boy and indecently a 19 or 20-year-old man.

The misconduct charge faced by Ball, of Langport, Somerset, accuses him of misusing his position and authority to manipulate and prevail upon others for his own sexual gratification.

He now faces another charge of indecently assaulting a boy under 16 in 1984 or 1985 and a man over 16 in 1990 or 1991.

Ball, who began his career as a curate in Rottingdean in the 1950s, is accused of indecently assaulting the two victims in East Sussex before he became Bishop of Gloucester in 1992.

The decision to add the extra charges was made by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after an investigation by Sussex Police detectives.

The investigation arose from information passed to the police by the Church of England.

Ball is expected to stand trial alongside Vickery House, the former vicar of St Bartholomew’s Church in Brighton, who faces eight charges of indecent assault.

House, 68, of Brighton Road, Handcross, is accused of abusing a boy of 15 and five men ranging in age from 17 to 34 over a 16-year period before he retired.

House, who has also officiated at the Church of the Annunciation, in Washington Street, Hanover, was arrested in November 2012.