Later, I learned that he had been a priest at a well-known Catholic boys' school, and he had been dismissed for having improper relations with boys. The women with him were providing friendship and support while awaiting legal developments. They had respected this priest as a teacher and wanted to help.

It wasn't the first, or the last, time I have encountered a situation where a man who is accused of child abuse - one of the most despised crimes in our societies today - has found a circle of friends to support him.

Perhaps a parallel can be drawn with the case of Jonathan King, the pop musician, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2001 for sexually abusing five boys between the ages of 14 and 15, in the 1980s. King has always maintained that his trial was unfair, and a group of women supported him throughout. My late sister, Ursula, was one of his firmest champions, and Jonathan King has contacted me on several occasions to express thanks for my sister's kindness.

The sexual exploitation or abuse of under-age teenagers is unambiguously wrong, and a crime, but nevertheless there are individuals who feel that it is compassionate to stand by any person accused, or convicted, of this crime. The latest case in Britain involves Prince Charles, who has been accused of being part of an "Establishment cover-up" supporting the Church of England Bishop Peter Ball, aged 83, who has just been jailed for 32 months for sexually abusing teenage boys (ranging in age from 12 or 13 to 19 or 20.)

And there is indeed suspicion of an Establishment cover-up, protecting Peter Ball, from the 1990s. At the Bishop's recent trial it was stated that a member of the royal family, a lord chief justice, cabinet ministers and public school heads-"many dozens" of people-had campaigned to support him in 1993 when allegations first emerged. He had been let off with a caution because the then Director of Public Prosecutions, the late Barbara Mills, decided not to prosecute, and the suggestion is that his high connections played a part in her decision.

Ball has described Prince Charles as "a loyal friend" for some decades now. Though he was forced to resign from his ecclesiastical post in 1993, in 2006, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, had him officiate at her father's funeral. It has been reported that Charles's friendship with the cleric has remained "unwavering".

The secularist campaigner, Keith Porteous Wood, is calling for a full enquiry about the Bishop's "friends in high places". The family of one of Peter Ball's victims certainly believe that there should be further investigations into the circle of protection which seems to have enveloped the disgraced cleric. Neil Todd, then 17, was one of the teenage boys abused at the Bishop's house in the 1990s: in 2012, he committed suicide. His mother says that "this man is pure evil, a beast…this man ruined my son's life." And yet the defence team claim to have "two thousand" letters in support of Peter Ball.

In all cases where sexual abuse has been proved, the victim or victims should be the primary concern. But it is also a fact that some people believe that they are doing the right thing in offering support and solidarity to the offender. Their motives may be mixed. Some believe, like the late Lord Longford - who befriended the child-killer, Myra Hindley - that everyone deserves redemption and forgiveness.

Some feel they should be loyal to an old friend, even if he has erred in a way that is considered odious. Some feel that paedophilia is a mental illness and paedophiles should be treated with therapy, not just punished. And some would claim that the age of consent (16 in Britain) is a bit of a movable feast, and some teenagers of 15 or so are no longer children - so "paedophile" is not the exact application.