ENGLAND
The Guardian
July 28, 2018
By Harriet Sherwood
Child abuse inquiry hears prince told Peter Ball in 1995: ‘I wish I could do more’
Prince Charles told Peter Ball “monstrous wrongs” had been done to the disgraced bishop and that he wished he could do more to help, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse has heard.
The comments came in a letter sent by the Prince of Wales to Ball in February 1995, two years after the former bishop of Gloucester accepted a police caution for gross indecency and resigned his position in the church.
The prince also told the inquiry in a six-page statement that he had been deceived over a long period of time “about the true nature” of Ball’s activities, but denied that he had sought to influence the outcome of police investigations. He said he was unsure whether he was told about Ball’s caution until 2009.
In 2015, Ball was convicted of sexual offences against 18 young men and sentenced to 32 months in prison. An independent inquiry last year found that senior figures in the Church of England had engaged in collusion and cover-up over the case.
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