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Written by
Emilio Casalicchio
Last updated
01.01.16
A former Conservative minister wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions in defence of a bishop who was under investigation for, and later convicted of, child sexual abuse.
Tim Renton, who had been Arts Minister in John Major’s government, wrote more than 20 years ago that the “shame” of criminal action would be “far too great a punishment” for former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, Peter Ball.
The inquiry against Mr Ball was dropped, but a fresh probe in 2012 led to his conviction last year for 18 counts of sex abuse against vulnerable young men between 1977 and 1992.
Mr Ball, now aged 83, was sentenced to 32 months in prison after pleading guilty to the offences.
Writing to the DPP during the original investigation, then-Mid Sussex MP Mr Renton said had never heard a “breath of any suggestion of impropriety” regarding the period that Mr Ball was bishop in his former constituency of Lewes.
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