Catholic monk wanted over child sex abuse allegations has been arrested in Kosovo after FIVE YEARS on the run

By Charlie Moore
Daily Mail
May 14, 2016

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Laurence Soper has been arrested in Kosovo after five years on the run

A Catholic monk wanted over child sex abuse allegations has been arrested in Kosovo after five years on the run.

Laurence Soper went into hiding after being investigated for alleged sex offences at Catholic Ealing Abbey in London from 1991 to 2000. 

Following allegations by a former pupil, Soper was arrested in Rome and questioned by appointment by the Metropolitan Police in September 2010. 

However, investigators allowed him to retain his passport and did not take a picture, asking him through his solicitor to return to London from Italy where he worked.

Instead, after leaving St Anselmo Church on March 4, 2011, apparently to fly to Heathrow, Soper skipped bail and vanished.

He has now been apprehended in Pec, Kosovo after a European Arrest Warrant was issued for him in 2012.

The extradition process to return him to the UK is reportedly underway. 

A Met Police spokesman said: 'We are aware of the arrest and we are liaising with the relevant authorities'. 

A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokeswoman said: 'Our Embassy is providing assistance following the arrest of a British National in Peja, Kosovo on Wednesday 11 May.'  

According to Albanian news outlet Albeu, Soper lived in Pec for years under the name Andrew Insajderit. 

'He lived in a house of a friend of mine. I have spoken and met with him several times. He said he was writing a book,' a resident told the outlet.

Having worked for nearly 30 years at St Benedict’s, a £12,000-a-year private school attached to the Abbey, now-expelled monk Soper quit Britain in 2001 for Rome to become treasurer at the Benedictine Order's headquarters at St Anselmo.

A source close to the investigation said in 2012: 'He knew he was about to be charged.'

Two former teachers at St Benedict's had been jailed and five, including Soper, were named in Lord Carlile's independent report into allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children at the school over a 40-year period.

A former worker has also raised concerns about Soper's time as part-time chaplain at Feltham Young Offender Institution between 1988 and 2000, while Ealing Abbey has now confirmed that Soper was questioned by police during this period.

In the mid-Nineties, Scotland Yard investigated an alleged paedophile ring visiting boys there.

An Ealing Abbey spokesman said of Soper in 2012: 'All efforts to make contact with him have been without success.

'He was trusted by the police in England to return. He has betrayed that trust.'