UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph
19 Mar 2016
The Church of England’s decision to name the former Bishop of Chichester, George Bell, as a paedophile has been strongly criticised by a group of senior Church leaders, academics, politicians and retired police officers.
The group claims that the internal inquiry which found Bishop Bell guilty of abuse committed a “grave miscarriage of justice” after failing to interview key witnesses or examine documents which could have cleared his name.
Before he was condemned as a child sex abuser, in October last year, Bishop Bell had previously been one of the most revered figures in the Anglican church, praised for his work in speaking out against Hitler during the 1930s, welcoming refugees from Germany and later condemning the Allied destruction of German cities.
But his reputation was destroyed after the church accepted the claims of a woman who came forward to say she was sexually abused by him during the late 1940s and early 1950s, when she was aged between five and nine.
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