UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Robert Booth
The Guardian, Tuesday 9 April 2013
More than a dozen children at a Barnardo’s home in Sussex were victims of sexual abuse by a Church of England priest, a court heard on Tuesday.
Boys and girls aged five to 18 were subjected to indecent assaults during the 1960s in the dormitories, outbuildings and grounds of Ifield Hall near Crawley by Canon Gordon Rideout, it was claimed. Some were severely beaten by orphanage staff when they complained, as part of “a brutal regime where children were taught to behave by beatings”.
Rideout, now 73 and retired from the diocese of Chichester, was then an assistant curate at the nearby St Mary’s church in Southgate, where the children attended Sunday services.
A jury at Lewes crown court heard that Rideout faces charges of 37 separate sexual offences against 17 children between 1962 and 1973 at Ifield, at another Barnardo’s home at Barkingside in Essex, and at the Middle Wallop army base in Hampshire where he served as forces chaplain.
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