Church orders probe over child sex abuse

27 October 2007

The conviction of a Northampton church warden for child sex offences has prompted the Church of England to investigate records of thousands of clergy, dating back decades, in an attempt to uncover unchecked incidents of abuse.

According to the church, more than 2,500 letters will be sent to former bishops, archdeacons, bishops' chaplains and secretarial staff urging them to come forward if they have information or concerns about child sex abuse which were not followed up at the time.

The current files of 23,000 clergy in the Church of England will also be examined by diocesan bishops, while an independent reviewer will assess whether any 'causes for concern' remain.
Any urgent issues will be dealt with immediately by the relevant legal authorities.

The move comes six months after Derrick Norris, now aged 72, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years at Northampton Crown Court for the sexual abuse of two children in the 1980s.

At his sentencing in April, the court heard Norris had confessed the offences to members of Weston Favell's Emmanuel Church in the late 1980s, but they had been 'brushed under the carpet' until one of the victims came forward, detailing the abuse, in June 2006."

Norris, of Dell Crescent, Overstone, pleaded guilty to three indecent assaults, six gross indecencies and two rapes of a girl as well as three gross indecency offences against a teenage boy.

Sentencing, Judge Charles Wide QC told him: "The expression 'an abuse of trust' does not do justice to the enormity of what you did."

A Church of England spokesman said it was a "belt and braces" approach to the situation.

"It's worth it. We've never done anything like this before. But there's only so far back we can go. We can't ask people who are dead and we can't do what can't be done."

The investigation is aimed at incidents that happened before 1995, the year the church published its first policy document on child protection.
Any new cases would still be covered by the guidelines and the process will begin early next year, with clergy officials having 18 months to conduct their review.