Priest Jailed For Second Time For Sexually Abusing Boys

A former Church of England priest who sexually abused boys has been put behind bars for a second time.

Colin Pritchard changed his name to Ifor Whittaker after he was handed a five-year sentence at Northampton Crown Court in 2008 after admitting abusing two children in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, between 1979 to 1983.

The 73-year-old was jailed for 16 years at Hove Crown Court in February 2018 after being found guilty of abusing a third boy between 1987 and 1991 while he was the vicar of Sedlescombe in East Sussex, police said. 

He was convicted of seven offences including inciting the child, aged between 10 and 14, to commit gross indecency and buggery.

A jury also found him guilty of conspiring with fellow vicar, close friend and convicted pedophile Roy Cotton to commit acts of indecency.

The pair had already been arrested by Sussex Police in 1997 on suspicion of sexually abusing children and were released on bail.

Cotton retired in 1999 and the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case. He died in 2006.

These details emerged in a critical independent report by Roger Meekings in 2012 which revealed how Cotton had been convicted of indecent behaviour with a child in 1954 while training for the priesthood.

He was thrown out of theological college but then readmitted and ordained in 1966 – the same year he attended with Pritchard.

It was also in 2012 that the force began investigating this latest case, after the victim said he was sexually assaulted by Cotton when he was the vicar in the nearby Sussex village of Brede.

The victim settled a civil claim with the Diocese of Chichester over Cotton that year.

Officers only learned he was also abused by Whittaker when they revisited the investigation in 2014, the force said.

The victim told how he believed Whittaker watched while Cotton carried out his assaults because he would appear in the room immediately after.

He said he was then taken to Whittaker’s vicarage by Cotton to do gardening but was actually plied with drinks of coke laced with alcohol.

Whittaker would sexually assault him and say no-one would believe him if he spoke out.

The victim described how he was made to feel like he was passed between the pair like a “toy borrowed from a friend”.

Whittaker was arrested in 2015 and questioned again in January 2016.

A video statement given by the victim in 2014 had to be taken again in November 2016 when the recording was found to be faulty. He disclosed more details of the abuse during the second statement.

Whittaker, of Sutton, is already a registered sex offender for life.

Judge Paul Tain ordered him to serve 15 years in custody and one year on extended licence. He cannot apply for parole for 10 years.

 

Lord Carey Criminal Case Would Amount To “Attack on Christianity”

– By Alex Williams

Mounting a criminal investigation into how Lord Carey (pictured above) handled allegations of abuse within the Church of England would equate to an “attack” on “biblically faithful Christianity,” it has been claimed.

A number of conservative Church of England figures have signed a letter which defends the former Archbishop of Canterbury against any criminal probe, calling the idea “bizarre”.

The note, which appeared in Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph, says: “The notion that a criminal case could be brought against Lord Carey is so bizarre that we can only surmise that the object of the persistent pressure that brings these public attacks is not only Lord Carey but what he represents of biblically faithful Christianity.”

“An attack on him is an attack on us all.”

The signatories – which include former Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali and the founder of Christian Concern, Andrea Williams – said similar high-profile cases have all been dropped without prosecutions.

They also wrote: “No one has been charged with any offence in relation to the misdemeanors of Jimmy Savile.

“The cases against Lord Bramall, Leon Brittan, Edward Heath and Cliff Richard were all dropped.

“Why is Lord Carey being targeted at this time? Certain public leaders appear to be being attacked by insinuation without due process.”

The Daily Telegraph reported on Monday that police and prosecutors were considering whether to bring a criminal investigation against the 82-year-old, following the publication of a report last June which heavily criticized him.  

The document, produced by Dame Moira Gibb, concluded Lord Carey was among several senior Anglican figures who “colluded” with former Bishop of Chichester Peter Ball (pictured above) – a convicted sex offender.

The Gibb report found that the former Archbishop did not forward to police six letters containing allegations of abuse by Peter Ball.

It also concluded the Lord Carey did not add Peter Ball’s name to a list of clergy deemed unsuitable to be conducting church ministry.

In the wake of the Gibb report, Lord Carey said he accepted the criticisms made of him and he apologized to the victims of Peter Ball.

In a statement, he said: “I believed Peter Ball’s protestations and gave too little credence to the vulnerable young men and boys behind those allegations.”

He also resigned from his position of honorary bishop in the Diocese of Oxford at the request of current Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.

 

Let Little Boys Wear Tiaras, ‘Church of England’ Tells Anglican Schools in New Guidance

(Daily Mail) — Boys as young as five should be able to wear tiaras at school without criticism, teachers in Church of England schools are to be told.

Male pupils should also be free to dress up in a tutu or high heels without attracting any comment or observation, according to anti-bullying rules sent out by the Church yesterday.

The instructions for the CofE’s 4,700 schools said they should not require children to wear uniforms that “create difficulty for trans pupils.” This appears to give official backing to schools that ban skirts to avoid discrimination against transgender children.  

Schools are also told they cannot use the Christian faith or Bible teachings to justify behavior that is considered to amount to bullying – for example, identifying a transgender pupil by a sex other than the one they have chosen. The advice contains instructions on how to report bullying, including sample forms on which teachers are encouraged to name the alleged bully and their target, and use tick boxes to describe what happened.

Examples include name-calling, social media trolling, or insulting gestures.

The rules to ‘challenge homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying’ follow initial guidelines published by the Church three years ago which said being gay can be good and pupils should ‘revere and respect all members of the diverse community’.

The official teaching of the CofE, however, remains that gay sex is sinful and that members of the clergy should not be in an active sexual relationship with someone of the same sex. The Church also says marriage must continue to be between a man and a woman. 

Conservative Christian activists condemned the new rules yesterday.

Andrea Minichiello Williams of Christian Concern – an evangelical member of the CofE’s parliament, the General Synod – said: ‘These rules are unkind, unloving and lacking in compassion. We are all against bullying, but the Church is using these guidelines to pursue an agenda that runs counter to the Church’s teaching.’  

She added: ‘We are getting to the point where if you are not careful the slightest slip from the correct agenda in a Church of England school will get you punished. The anti-bullying agenda is aimed against people who step out of line – the anti-bullies are becoming the bullies.’

The new guidance came as a Christian teacher was suspended from a school in Oxfordshire after accidentally calling a transgender pupil ‘girl’ instead of ‘boy’. Joshua Sutcliffe, 27, faces a disciplinary hearing this week in which he could lose his job, after the parents complained.  

Justin Welby said: ‘This guidance helps schools to offer the Christian message of love, joy and celebration of our humanity without exception or exclusion.

The CofE rules say children in nurseries and the primaries that make up the majority of Church schools should be free to follow their own inclinations when they dress. They state: ‘In the early years context and throughout primary school, play should be a hallmark of creative exploration.  

‘Pupils need to be able to play with the many cloaks of identity … Children should be at liberty to explore the possibilities of who they might be without judgment or derision. For example, a child may choose the tutu, princess’s tiara and heels and/or the fireman’s helmet, tool belt and superhero cloak without expectation or comment.’  

The guidance adds that there can be ‘no justification for this negative behaviour based on the Christian faith or the Bible’. It states that ‘the Church of England’s teaching on human sexuality and a range of Christian views should be taught, as well as a range of perspectives from other faiths and world views’.

The Most Rev Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said: ‘Central to Christian theology is the truth that every single one of us is made in the image of God. Every one of us is loved unconditionally by God. This guidance helps schools to offer the Christian message of love, joy and celebration of our humanity without exception or exclusion.’

Roman Catholic schools are to cut the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from admissions forms to avoid offending step-parents and same-sex couples.

It follows a complaint by a parent against Holy Ghost Roman Catholic Primary School in Wandsworth, south London, after it used ‘mother/guardian’ and ‘father/guardian’ on a form.

The Office of the Schools Adjudicator upheld the complaint, saying the wording might ‘be taken to imply that the school is restricting its definition [of parent]’.

The Catholic Education Service is understood to be preparing a form using ‘the family’ instead.

 

Church of England bishops join calls for end to indefinite migrant detention

Church of England bishops are accusing politicians of ‘dehumanizing’ migrants after an investigation unearthed ‘shocking’ levels of abuse at an immigration detention center.

In a rare move 17 bishops plus other senior officials and different church leaders are coming together urging the government to end indefinite detention in the wake of a BBC Panorama documentary that described Brook House immigration center as ‘a toxic, brutal and failing environment where self-harming is common place’.

In a letter to the Telegraph on Wednesday the bishops say they are ‘deeply concerned’ by the findings and accuse ‘some politicians and sectors of the media’ of dehumanizing immigrants.

‘Yet again it raises questions about our immigration policy and practice in this country,’ they write. ‘We fear that this treatment is symptomatic of a rhetoric fostered by some politicians and sectors of the media that dehumanizes immigrants and paints the public as “victims” of immigration.’

Signed by the Bishop of Durham Paul Butler, the third most senior figure in the CofE, as well as several other senior bishops and the chief inspector of prisons Lord Ramsbotham, the letter adds: ‘As a nation we must demand better than this – both for our own citizens in whose names this takes place, and for all who find themselves in the system.’

t was organised by former G4S manager and now whistle-blower and priest, Nathan Ward. It echoes his call for an absolute cap on 28 days of detention with court approval needed to hold any immigrant for longer than 72 hours.

Ward said: ‘This is not about immigration; it is about ending inhumane practices which are expensive and infective. The UK is a developed nation with high standards – we must demand better than this for our detention centres.’

The criticism aimed at ‘some politicians’ for dehumanising migrants is similar to remarks made by the Archbishop of Canterbury last year where he accused UKIP leader Nigel Farage of racism.

Justin Welby told the home affairs select committee in the build up to the EU referendum Farage was guilty of ‘inexcusable pandering to people’s worries and prejudices, that is giving legitimisation to racism’ and said he was ‘accentuating [people’s] fear for political gain and that is absolutely unacceptable’.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was the first head of the Church of England to give evidence before a House of Commons select committee as he answered questions on migration with the Bishop of DurhamParliament.tv

Home Office minister Brandon Lewis said: ‘The Panorama footage is extremely disturbing and the sort of behavior on display is utterly unacceptable. The dignity and welfare of all those in our care is of the utmost importance and we are taking this very seriously.

‘It is right that G4S took swift action as soon as the allegations were brought to their attention and we will continue to work with them and the police to ensure all necessary action is taken.

‘Detention and removal are essential aspects of effective immigration control and Home Office policy makes clear that detention is only used for the short period necessary. There is a presumption of liberty for all individuals.

‘Home Office policy is clear that detention will only be maintained while there is a reasonable prospect of removal within a reasonable period of time.’

[written by Harry Farley]

Christian Couple to Sue Church of England School After 6 Y/O Boy Allowed to Wear Dress to Class

By LEAH MARIEANN KLETT ( news@gospelherald.com )

A Christian couple is suing a Church of England elementary school and said there is an “agenda” overriding their religious beliefs after their six-year-old son’s classmate was allowed to wear a dress to school.