The archbishop of York has said he acted as soon as legally possible against a priest accused repeatedly of sexual misconduct and abuse after facing calls to resign over his handling of the case.
Stephen Cottrell is due to take over temporary leadership of the church in three weeks when the resignation of the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, over his failures to deal properly with abuse takes effect.
In a personal statement on Monday, Cottrell said he had no legal grounds to take action against David Tudor until 2019, when fresh allegations were made against the priest.
His statement followed a BBC investigation that claimed that when Cottrell was bishop of Chelmsford he allowed Tudor to remain in post despite knowing that the Church of England had banned him from being alone with children and had paid £10,000 compensation to a sexual abuse victim.
The woman who received the compensation told the BBC she felt like Cottrell had “spat in my face” by failing to take action when he was told about the payment.
The Rt Rev Helen-Ann Hartley, the bishop of Newcastle, said Cottrell should stand down. “One archbishop has resigned over a safeguarding failure, and now the remaining archbishop has a very serious matter that calls into question his ability to lead on the urgent change that is required,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“My personal view is that the evidence before us makes it impossible for Stephen Cottrell to be the person in which we have confidence and trust to drive the change that is needed.”
Last month, Hartley was the sole C of E bishop to call publicly for Welby to quit after an independent report on a serial abuser said he had failed to take effective action. Welby’s resignation plunged the church into a major crisis.
Cottrell, the number two in the church, will take over as de facto leader in early January until a new archbishop of Canterbury is appointed and takes office.
In his statement, Cottrell said: “I suspended David Tudor from office at the first opportunity, when a new victim came forward to the police in 2019. Up until 2019, there were no legal grounds to take alternative action.”
He said it had not been possible to remove Tudor from office until fresh complaints were made. “Once this happened in 2019, I acted immediately. I suspended David Tudor from all ministry pending [an] investigation.”
Following that investigation, Tudor was banned from ministry and dismissed two months ago, after he admitted child sexual abuse allegations relating to two girls in 1980s. By then he had been a priest for 46 years, in London, Surrey and Essex.
Cottrell said he was “deeply sorry that we were not able to take action earlier”.
A C of E source said Cottrell had been given “clear and consistent legal advice” that he had no power to take action against Tudor on the basis of previous complaints.
The source added: “As soon as new complaints were made against Tudor to the police in 2019, Archbishop Stephen acted immediately to suspend him. Tudor has since been banned for life from ministry and dismissed.”
The BBC reported that in 1988, Tudor was convicted of indecently assaulting three girls and was jailed for six months. The conviction was quashed on technical grounds because the judge had misdirected the jury.
In 1989, Tudor was banned for sexual misconduct by a church tribunal but was allowed to return to ministry after five years. In 2005, he was suspended as police investigated an allegation he had indecently assaulted a child in the 1970s. He was not charged and was allowed back to work under conditions.
From January 2008, Tudor had been working under a safeguarding agreement preventing him from being alone with children or entering schools in Essex. Soon after, he had become an area dean in charge of 12 parishes, and was later made an honorary canon of Chelmsford Cathedral.
Tudor has not commented in response to the BBC investigation.
Hartley said there was a “generation of bishops in the C of E” who were “very much in the mould of it being an old boys’ club”, and that was something the next archbishop of Canterbury was going to have to deal with.
The fallout from the church’s failures over sexual abuse has been seismic. Last month’s independent report into John Smyth, a barrister who sadistically beat boys and young men he groomed at Christian holiday camps and Winchester college, was the latest in a long line of reviews and inquiries that have pointed to complacency and cover-up.
Welby, who had known Smyth, failed to act when survivors came forward to disclose the abuse soon after he became archbishop of Canterbury in 2013. Welby said he had no previous knowledge of the abuse claims that surrounded Smyth, who died in 2018.
Welby enraged survivors when he made a jocular farewell speech about his resignation in the House of Lords this month. Victims of Smyth said they were disgusted that Welby did not express remorse for survivors. He later apologised.
