UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun
December 11, 2017
By Oliver Harvey
Andrew Soper, 74, a former Abbot of Ealing Abbey who abused boys during the ’70s and ’80s, is the fifth person related to St Benedict’s School to be convicted of sex crimes
THE implements on Father Laurence Soper’s desk looked like something from a medieval torture chamber rather than a master’s study at a leading Catholic school.
Led to his office on trumped- up misdemeanors, schoolboys blanched in horror at the sight of the “sadistic” monk’s cat-o’-nine-tails whip, canes and a leather strap.
Outwardly pious, Soper “cunningly” used corporal punishment as an excuse to pull down the boys’ trousers and sexually abuse them.
He even hoisted up his priestly robes to rape a 12-year-old boy over his desk at West London’s £5,368-a-term St Benedict’s School — then run by monks from Ealing Abbey.
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