UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times
By Henry Austin
January 10, 2016
Paedophile bishop Peter Ball, who was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 after admitting he abused 18 young men between 1977 and 1992, was allowed to escape with a caution after the original investigation in the early 1990s under a deal allegedly agreed by police and the Church of England.
However, a 29-page report written by detectives investigating the allegations of sex abuse in 1992 and 1993 warned the then Bishop of Gloucester had “been less than truthful”.
“He has hidden his sexual desires behind the role of religion,” detective inspector Wayne Murdock and acting detective sergeant Andrew Wasley wrote in the dossier, which was obtained by The Sunday Times.
After meeting with the legal team of Ball, 83, the officers recorded that “the defendant would be prepared to accept a ‘formal caution’ for an offence of gross indecency”, would resign from the church and go abroad and do missionary work.
Charging Ball would “counter any possible suggestions of an establishment cover-up”, Murdock wrote, although he noted it would “probably have a devastating effect on the church, which is already in turmoil”.
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