The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey resigned from his role in the Church of England yesterday after an inquiry found he colluded with senior clergy and establishment figures to protect paedophile bishop Peter Ball.
Carey quit his position as honorary Assistant Bishop of Oxford after he was accused of helping to ‘deliberately conceal’ evidence which helped the paedophile bishop escape prosecution for 22 years.
Ball, was the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester and also friend of Prince Charles. He was finally jailed for 32 months in October 2015 after admitting sex offences against 18 teenagers and young men between the 1970s and 1990s.
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The Mail Online reports:
Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, had asked Lord Carey to ‘carefully consider his position’ after the independent review by Dame Moira Gibb branded the Church’s response to the scandal ‘lamentable’.
The Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend Dr Steven Croft, said: ‘I have met with Lord Carey following the Archbishop’s letter to him.
‘Lord Carey has resigned from his role as honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Oxford.
‘Lord Carey has accepted the criticisms made of him in the Gibb review and has apologised to the victims of Peter Ball.’
Ball was let off with a caution for molesting a teenage novice monk in 1993.
At the time, Lambeth Palace failed to pass on to police six letters with other allegations about sex abuse ‘or worse’ by Ball, the review found.
Lord Carey also lobbied prosecutors on Ball’s behalf during the 1993 police investigation and later declared him ‘basically innocent’.
He also gave Ball £12,500 of Church cash, and only three years after his caution allowed him to preach in public schools.
The inquiry found Ball boasted of being a confidant to Prince Charles which he attempted to use to ‘bolster his position’.
It also said the ‘greatest failure’ in the case was the failure to pass on six letters alleging sexual misconduct against Ball to the police, with Lord Carey said to have been aware of them and even responded to two of them personally.
