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Organized Coverups of Sexual Child Abuse by Priests, Clergy and Christian Institutions

United Kingdom (UK)

National abuse unit for Church (BBC News 2001)
Police investigating that a known paedophile resumed as a priest in 1985
(BBC News 2000) Catholic church shaken by sex scandals (BBC News 2002)

The United Kingdom has seen many cases of paedophile priests, including
many cases where Bishops and other senior Christians have protected paedophiles, moving them from post to post when accusations surface.

Child abuse priest housed by Church (BBC News 2002)
Archbishop defends paedophile move (BBC News 2000)
Father Michael Hill was a known paedophile, who was jailed for a
20-year span of sexual child abuse. "Archbishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor
ignored the advice of doctors and therapists that Father Michael Hill
would carry on assaulting children" and reinstated him in 1985. Father
Michael Hill then went on to indecently assault more altar boys before
being jailed in 1997. His other victims included retards and homeless
boys. When he was released, the Church again took him back under its
wing, and he lived rent-free in a £100,000 flat a few minutes from a
primary school. The Church argued that it wanted him to be in a
position where they could supervise him, but I rather think that the
Church is last organisation I'd trust to 'supervise' a paedophile,
and, that when people give to church they'd rather their money went to
good causes. Not many working people can even afford such a flat!

UK Church ignoring rules on child abuse (BBC News 1999)
An investigation a year earlier, in 1999, found similar results: "An
investigation for Radio 5 Live found one priest under investigation
who was still working. Another, recently suspended, was allowed to
work in a primary school while under suspicion of abusing children. He
had been accused of abuse twice before. Since 1996, six priests have
been convicted of child abuse. In each case, the church knew of
previous allegations". This was before the horrific explosion of
exposés that occurred in 2002, when the world truly learnt that
paedophilia and child abuse was rife within the Christian hierarchy.

London's Ealing Abbey and St Benedicts School: "The Charity Commission
has issued an unusually strongly-worded criticism of the monks of
Ealing Abbey in west London, when one of their number, who was known
to have abused children, was allowed to have contact with a teenager
at the abbey, who he then sexually assaulted. "Father" David Pearce, a
former head teacher at St Benedict's Junior School, was jailed in
October after he belatedly admitted 10 indecent assaults and one
sexual assault. Complaints of abuse against Pearce had already been
heard in a civil court and damages were awarded against him. He was
allowed to return to the Abbey, but was arrested in 2008 for sexually
assaulting a sixth-form pupil who was employed to wash up for the
monks. [...] The report said that the Diocese of Westminster was well
aware of the allegations against Pearce and had told the trustees to
keep him away from children or young people. The trustees failed to do
this, and the consequent assault took place"27.

As of 2011 November, two perpetrators of sex crimes against children
have been convicted, and another has jumped bail. In 2009 Oct, Father
David Pearce "was jailed for eight years over a string of sex attacks
on five young boys, four under 14, at St Benedict's over a period of
36 years. Earlier this month police revealed they were hunting a
Catholic cleric wanted over allegations of child abuse reported to
date back to when he taught at St Benedict's. Father Laurence Soper,
who was abbot of Ealing Abbey from 1991 to 2000, failed to return to a
police station for questioning. He is believed to have been living in
a monastery in Rome and was due to return to London to answer bail in
March, but he failed to turn up".28

Buckfast Abbey in Devon was under investigation for clerical child
abuse, and the Catholic Church had appointed Christopher Jarvis to
lead their inquiry. "The scale of abuse now being uncovered at
Buckfast Abbey is disturbing. Paul Crouch 'Father Benedict' had
already been jailed for ten years in 2007 for a string of offences
with boys stretching over 20 years. One victim had been 'so terrified
that he hid in his locker' and had 'complained to the school Matron in
1987', After an internal investigation, Crouch was allowed to carry on
teaching and the police were not alerted. Father William Manahan,
called 'Daddy Prior', was jailed, also in 2007, for 15 months for
abuse between 1971 and 1978". Unfortunately, the safeguarding officer
Chris Jarvis has now himself been jailed "for having 4,000 child abuse
images on his work laptop computer, including ten involving sadistic
violence, the most serious category"29 and including making and
distributing child porn28.

That's not quite the end due to another case unrelated to Buckfast
Abbey. A now-deceased monk Father Edward Stewart 'is alleged to have
repeatedly abused a young boy over three years. Even worse is that it
has become clear that Stewart was moved around parishes in Britain and
Scandinavia despite (and of course because of) 'frequent complaints
about his behaviour'.'

Buckfast Abbey brought in a replacement safeguarding co-ordinator,
Father James Courtney, who has happened to previously 'discovered a
trunk of photographs of adolescent boys engaged in sexual activities
belonging to Stewart but neither he nor the Abbot reported them to the
police, and the incriminating material was destroyed.' Such inactivity
in the face of such serious immoral and criminal behaviour is hardly a
good sign for a safety officer whose job it is to look after
children's welfare against sexual abuse, especially as that person is
replacing the previous safeguarding officer because he's been
convicted for the type of offense he was supposed to be stopping!29

Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society again highlighted
his common-sense argument that no-one in the Church should be a child
protection officer, and that all current plans to try to curb child
abuse by Church officials lack independence. Clergy suicide during sex
abuse investigation (The Guardian 2003) John Pugh, 54 was a minister
of the United Reformed church in Stowmarket, Suffolk. Accused of
indecently assaulting a teenage boy on multiple occasions, he
committed suicide rather than try to defend himself in court.

Child porn charge priest in court (BBC News 2002)
Priest jailed on child porn charge (BBC News 2003)
The Dean of Reading, the Catholic priest "Michael O'Kelly, 46,
appeared at Newbury Magistrates Court on Wednesday charged with
possessing indecent photographs of children" (BBC News 2002). He was
found with 18,000 indecent photographs of children that were
"disturbing, degrading and disgusting" and spent up to £1500 a month
downloading these images and talking in chat rooms. He described it as
his "guilty secret" and said he couldn't control it.

Eight years' jail for sex priest (BBC News 2000)
"Father Jordan, who was Cardiff City Football Club's chaplain, kept a
hoard of hard core child porn on a personal computer at his presbytery
in St Helen's church, Barry". This Roman Catholic priest was
eventually convicted for 8 years for a "string of sex offences"
including indecent assault. But a major complication was the fact that
when the investigation started, someone in the Church warned him a
week before he was arrested. He used the time to hide evidence - it
was months after the (first) trial before police knew of the Priests
computer, which contained hundreds of pictures of boys.

Abuse inquiry at top Catholic school (BBC News 2000)
Father David Martin was a chaplain at Catholic school in London. An
investigation into 6 cases of abuse in the attached Church follows
even though he died from a disease related to a STD which he was
alleged to also have passed on to two of his victims.

Paedophile cases haunt the church (BBC News 2000)
"In October 1999, Pope John Paul II sacked Father John Lloyd, who
raped a 16-year-old girl and indecently assaulted two altar boys in
south Wales".

Paedophile priest jailed (BBC News 1998)

The paedophile Roman Catholic priest, Father Eric Taylor, was
convicted on 16 charges of indecent assault. He worked at an Orphanage
in Staffordshire. He already had previous convictions for indecent
assault in 1975, where he abused four boys at his vicarage. Some of
his victims had committed suicide "because they could not live with
what the priest had done to them".

Father Anthony McSweeney, a Catholic priest aged 68, was under
investigation for abusing 3 boys. He owned a "large collection" of gay
porn, which he admitted to Southwark Crown Court, and, John
Stingemore, a friend, had previously shown him porn including some
child porn, and he did not think to do anything about it, and did not
tell anyone about it, even though Mr Stingemore is a care home
manager.30. Together, they preyed on children at Grafton Close
children's home in Hounslow, London. McSweeney was also "a member of
the governing body of a Catholic school. [...] He was also found
guilty of three counts of making indecent images of children between
2012 and 2013". Two Bishops in the Catholic Church had "ignored at
least two clear warning signs of his sexual interest in children" but
he was merely made subject to internal disciplinary procedures - he
was sent for therapy and not reported to the police. He was jailed for
three years.31. If the Bishops involved acted properly, the police
could have obtained more timely evidence and the conviction could have
been somewhat longer, and sooner.

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