Police Consider Investigation into Former Archbishop as CofE Braced for More Revelations of Abuse

The Church of England is bracing itself for more revelations of how senior figures covered up child sex abuse with police considering whether to press charges against the former archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey.

Anglican leaders will come under the most intense scrutiny they have faced over their handling of abuse allegations as the Church goes before the independent inquiry into child sex abuse for the next three weeks.

Police are considering whether to launch an investigation against the former archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, after he was forced to step down as an honorary bishop last year. Carey was found to have 'colluded' with a convicted sex abuser Peter Ball, the former bishop of Gloucester and Lewes.

When Ball was finally jailed in 2015 he was sentenced to 15 months for indecent assaults against a string of young men and also 32 months for misconduct in public office, opening up the possibility that other senior clergy could be jailed for their role in abuse.

I read this stunning episode about George Carey in an exerpt from the memoirs of Tim Bell, UK's top public relations man (Right or Wrong: The Memoirs of Lord Bell:

George Carey
One day, a friend rang me up and told me the Archbishop of Canterbury—then George Carey—was having a bit of trouble. Apparently, a Sunday newspaper had claimed that he was "tired and emotional" and that his marriage was falling apart.
So I was asked to go over to Lambeth Palace to advise him. I have to say that I found the offer quite interesting, mainly because I’d never met an archbishop before, let alone a tired and emotional one.
As soon as I entered Carey’s study, he pointed to himself and said: "Right! Do I look tired and emotional?"
I said: "Well, let me give you one immediate piece of advice, Your Grace. Don’t ever say that again. Because the moment you say it, you put the thought into somebody’s mind and they start imagining that you do indeed look tired and emotional."
After that, he kept going on about how happily married he was. Then he asked if I could give him my advice as a PR man.
So I said, "Yes, Your Grace. But forgive me; I’ve never met an archbishop before, so would you mind us saying a prayer to make our consultation successful."
This completely nonplussed him. He said: "Er, do you have any particular prayer in mind?"
"No, you’re the Archbishop," I answered. "You know all the prayers. You decide what’s best."
He said: "Do you want us to kneel?" and I replied: "That’s not a bad idea." So we knelt at his desk.
At the precise moment Carey started his prayer, the door of his study opened and a lady with a tea tray walked in and looked at us very strangely.
"Where do you want me to put the tea?" she asked. She was shaking her head as she left the room.
In the end, Carey and I had a perfectly good and constructive session. I told him to stop going on and on about homosexual priests and same-sex marriage and women priests, and instead start talking about belief in God.
Carey looked at me as though I was very naïve. Then he took me over to a horizontal framed picture on the wall that contained all his bishops in a series of long rows.
"It’s not easy, you know," he said. "This job. I mean, I have to control this lot." He started to point at individual bishops in the photograph, saying things like: "This one’s gay, this one has no belief in God, this one believes in black magic, this one is a suspected paedophile..."
It was extraordinary. I said: "I feel very sorry for you. But surely there’s one thing that you’ve got in common. You have faith."
He looked as though he was anything but sure.

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