Archbishop of Westminster put church's reputation before children, says abuse inquiry

The Archbishop of Westminster was focused on protecting the church's reputation over the welfare of children, an inquiry into child sexual abuse has found.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols is the current leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales and was archbishop of Birmingham between 2000 and 2009.

More than 130 allegations of child sex abuse have been made against 78 people associated with the archdiocese since the mid-1930s, but the true scale of offending is likely to be far higher, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) concluded.

The panel found the church had "repeatedly failed" to alert police to allegations, and said the consequences of those failings "cannot be overstated".

While 13 people have been convicted of some of the most serious offences against children and a further three cautioned, many of the 78 individuals have died meaning the allegations cannot be fully investigated.

The report said: "In some cases, the lack of action by the church meant that the abuser was free to continue to commit acts of child sexual abuse."

Inquiry chairwoman Professor Alexis Jay said she was "truly shocked" by the abuse and hoped the findings would help to ensure no repeat of such failings.

"The number of perpetrators and abused children is likely to be far higher than the figures suggest," she said.

"Victims and survivors' allegations were mostly ignored for years, while perpetrators avoided prosecution.

"It is clear that the church could have stopped children being abused if it had not been so determined to protect its own reputation.

"We hope this report will help ensure that never happens again."

The report's findings include that "little or no steps" were taken to protect children from the risk of abuse by the late Father John Tolkien, son of novelist JRR Tolkien.

The archdiocese settled claims arising from allegations against the priest, who died in 2003 and was never convicted in court.

The inquiry heard Cardinal Nichols had been aware of a 1968 note which included a reference to Fr Tolkien having apparently admitted ordering a group of Scouts to strip naked.

The report found that the church "was aware of the risk Father Tolkien posed to children and yet the archdiocese took little or no steps to protect children from those risks".

In another instance the cardinal issued a press release complaining about anti-Catholic bias after a BBC documentary in which serial child abuser James Robinson was confronted by reporters after fleeing to the US.

Complaints about Robinson, who was found guilty in 2010 of 21 child sex abuse offences against four boys, were made to the church in the 1970s and 1980s but the inquiry said he had simply been moved to a different parish and that the archdiocese did not appear to have reported allegations to police.

The hurt and damage caused by Robinson had been compounded, the panel said, by Cardinal Nichols' press release which "focused too much on his grievance with the programme makers and too little on the public interest in exposing the abuse committed by the clergy and the harm done to the victims of such abuse".

The report, which looked at the responses of the church to four priests in total, also concluded that the Archdiocese of Birmingham is still falling short in its child safeguarding arrangements, despite recommendations from major reports in recent years.

Responding to the findings, Cardinal Nichols thanked the inquiry for "their review of the past," adding: "I look forward to the next phase which I trust will help us in our present and future tasks."

A statement from the archdiocese said it will study the findings and use them to "inform our ongoing commitment to do more and do better".

It said: "We accept that we have failed victims and survivors of abuse and again apologise for the grievous failings we have made in the past.

"Apologies are just words though, if not backed up by action.

"We will the take the time needed to review the IICSA report thoroughly in order to make a considered and detailed response, which will inform our ongoing commitment to do more and do better."