UNITED KINGDOM
Northern Echo
Rachel Conner, Reporter (Weardale)
A VICTIM of child abuse at the hands of a priest is calling for the Bishop of Durham to be retrained after claims he failed to respond to his complaint adequately.
The man, who has asked to be identified only as “Joe”, has written to the Durham Diocesan Safeguarding board calling for Bishop of Durham Paul Butler to be retrained before dealing with other victims.
Joe reported the abuse to Bishop Paul, who is the Church of England’s head of safeguarding, in July 2014 and received an apology from him around 18 months later. A church spokesperson said he was taking the lead in changing its policies.
Joe has also written to the House of Bishops, a body of senior members of the Church of England, ahead of a meeting in York next week calling for them to repent and act on the findings of an independent report into sexual abuse.
The Elliott Review, which looked into Joe’s case, was published in March and contained a number of recommendations calling for changes to be made to the church’s safeguarding structure and training on dealing with disclosures of abuse to be introduced.
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