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British bishop arrested over sex assault claims
Source: Agencies |
November 14, 2012, Wednesday
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A former Church of England bishop was arrested yesterday on suspicion of sexually assaulting boys as young as 12, police said, the latest public figure to be accused after weeks of child abuse claims that have engulfed the BBC and celebrities.
Separate police investigations into the late television presenter Jimmy Savile have fueled a national abuse scandal that has dominated public debate and provoked a bout of national soul searching.
Police said Peter Ball, 80, was held in western England on suspicion of sex offenses against eight boys and young men, aged from 12 to their early 20s, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was a bishop in Lewes, southern England, and Gloucester, in the southwest.
A woman who answered the telephone at his house in Somerset declined to comment on the arrest.
Ball was arrested at his home after the Church of England passed information from internal reviews to detectives investigating historic sexual offenses.
A second man, a retired Anglican priest aged 67, was detained in Sussex, southern England, on suspicion of separate offenses against two teenage boys in 1981 and 1983, police said.
Detective Chief Inspector Carwyn Hughes, of Sussex Police, said it was a "very complex inquiry."
"Allegations of historic offenses are treated just as seriously as any more recent offenses," he said.
The church has tightened measures to prevent child abuse after it was criticized for either being slow to respond to allegations or covering them up.
Separate police investigations into the late television presenter Jimmy Savile have fueled a national abuse scandal that has dominated public debate and provoked a bout of national soul searching.
Police said Peter Ball, 80, was held in western England on suspicion of sex offenses against eight boys and young men, aged from 12 to their early 20s, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was a bishop in Lewes, southern England, and Gloucester, in the southwest.
A woman who answered the telephone at his house in Somerset declined to comment on the arrest.
Ball was arrested at his home after the Church of England passed information from internal reviews to detectives investigating historic sexual offenses.
A second man, a retired Anglican priest aged 67, was detained in Sussex, southern England, on suspicion of separate offenses against two teenage boys in 1981 and 1983, police said.
Detective Chief Inspector Carwyn Hughes, of Sussex Police, said it was a "very complex inquiry."
"Allegations of historic offenses are treated just as seriously as any more recent offenses," he said.
The church has tightened measures to prevent child abuse after it was criticized for either being slow to respond to allegations or covering them up.
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