Sexual Abuse Victims of Peter Ball Sue Church of England

The Guardian
October 6, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/06/sexual-abuse-victims-of-peter-ball-sue-church-of-england

Peter Ball, pictured in 1992, is to be sentenced on charges relating to 18 victims of sexual abuse. Photograph: David Jones/PA

Victims of the former bishop Peter Ball are suing the Church of England for hundreds of thousands of pounds after he admitted abusing his position to groom young aspiring priests for sex.

The ex-bishop of Lewes and Gloucester will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on Wednesday for misconduct in a public office between 1977 and 1992 and two counts of sexual assault on young men in their late teens.

In all, the charges relate to 18 victims, excluding two counts of indecent assault on a boy of 12 or 13 and a 15-year-old youth, which were denied and will lie on file.

Ball, 83, abused the young men who had come to his home in Litlington, East Sussex, for religious instruction, before he was moved to Gloucester in 1992.

Twenty-two years after allegations were first made against him, Ball was brought to account in court, despite repeated attempts to get the case thrown out.

David Greenwood, who represents four of the victims, said that since Bell’s guilty plea, legal action had been lodged against the diocese of Chichester.

He told the Press Association that, given the “wealth of evidence”, the case was unlikely to reach court and would probably end in a settlement. The amounts could vary between a few thousand pounds and “hundreds of thousands of pounds”.

“Obviously no amount of money will compensate for what happened to them and each claimant has different circumstances: some have lost opportunities for careers, some have had lots of anguish and torment personally,” he said.

At least two victims, who have waived their right to anonymity, are expected to attend court to see Ball sentenced.

Greenwood said that despite the defendant’s age and ill health, it was hoped that Mr Justice Wilkie would jail Ball if he was “fit and able” to withstand it.

“I think the decision the judge has to make tomorrow is finely balanced. If he is fit and able to withstand prison, he should receive a custodial sentence. But certainly I think the hope is that he will have some severe punishment anyway. It has been a difficult course getting to court in the first place this time around.”

He said one of his clients had done a lot of work behind the scenes trying to “persuade the police to take it on”.

Earlier this year, Mr Justice Sweeney refused to dismiss the case on a legal technicality after it emerged that Ball and the then archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, had been assured in 1993 that there would be no future action.

They both believed the matter was closed when Ball accepted a caution for one act of gross indecency and resigned his post, despite police knowing about more complaints.

Giving evidence in court, Ball recalled being told by a police officer: “Bishop, it’s all over”, when he asked for a guarantee that his caution would include all other offences “of the same nature”.

Carey appeared to back up this claim in his recollections of the incident which led to Ball’s resignation as bishop of Gloucester.

On making a phone call to the Crown Prosecution Service, the court heard Carey was told: “He [Bell] has resigned. He is out of it. The matter is closed. We are not going to take anything any further.”

But in 2012, prompted by a Church of England review, Sussex police reopened the case and last year charged him with a string of sex offences against teenage boys and young men.

This week the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, commissioned an independent review of how the church responded. It will examine the church’s cooperation with the police and other statutory agencies, and the extent to which it shared information in a timely manner.

The review will also assess the extent to which the church properly assessed the possible risk that Ball might pose to others, and whether it responded adequately to concerns and representations submitted by survivors.

But Greenwood said: “The church should no longer be allowed to police itself and the introduction of mandatory reporting is long overdue.”

Ball, who now lives in Langport, Somerset, was bishop of Lewes between 1977 and 1992 and bishop of Gloucester from 1992 until his resignation the following year.

He was said to have many high-profile friends and acquaintances, including Prince Charles.