LONDON (ENGLAND)
Independent Catholic News
December 7, 2017
A former abbot who fled to Kosovo to escape justice has been convicted of abusing 10 boys at a Catholic school in west London during the 1970s and 80s.
Andrew Soper, 74, was found guilty of 19 charges of rape and other sexual offences after a lengthy trial at the Old Bailey. He will be sentenced on 19 December.
In a statement issued today, Ealing Abbey said:
Andrew Soper has finally been brought to justice.
Our thoughts and prayers are with his victims. We admire them for their courage in coming forward as witnesses in order to secure his conviction.
We apologise to everyone who is affected by the crimes Soper committed while he was a monk of Ealing and a teacher at St Benedict’s School in the 1970s and 1980s. The prosecution of non recent sexual offences is an important element in ensuring that, so far as possible, such events do not occur in future.
Soper, whose religious name was Laurence, was Head of St Benedict’s Middle School between 1975 and 1984 and Abbot of Ealing from 1991 to 2000. After stepping down as Abbot he became Bursar at S’Anselmo, the Benedictine University in Rome. When allegations were made against him these were subject to investigation by Police and Social Services with the co-operation and assistance of the Abbey and St Benedict’s School. Soper was immediately placed under restrictions at S’Anselmo, which included no unsupervised contact with children or young people and restrictions on his movements away from the campus.
Having agreed to co-operate with the Police by returning to London for further questioning, in March 2011 he failed to return for a police interview and left the monastery in Rome. To our knowledge nothing further was heard from or about him until he was arrested in Kosovo in May 2016.
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