UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent
@harrietsherwood
Sunday 20 March 2016
A group of academics, lawyers, politicians and church figures has challenged the Church of England over an apology it issued last year for sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated by one of its most revered figures, George Bell.
Bell’s supporters say his “condemnation as a paedophile” by the church has irreparably damaged the reputation of the former bishop of Chichester and has resulted in the renaming of schools and institutions dedicated to his memory.
Members of the George Bell Group include Desmond Browne QC, historian and Bell’s biographer Andrew Chandler, Labour MP Frank Field, and Martyn Percy, dean of Christ Church Oxford.
They say the C of E failed to make adequate inquiries before apologising and paying compensation over Bell’s alleged abuse in the 1940s and 50s. The church’s statement, according to the group, “appears to accept the allegation as true”.
In a statement accompanying a report of its own investigations, the group said: “The valuable reputation of a great man, a rare example of self-sacrificing human goodness, has been carelessly destroyed on the basis of slender evidence, sloppily investigated.”
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