Church of England leaders failed to deal with sex abuse claims, report finds

The Church of England has promised to make major changes in the way it handles abuse cases after an independent investigation found senior figures ignored a victim's appeals for support.

The report commissioned by the Anglican Church into its safeguarding record says that "very senior figures" were among those who failed to respond to the "credible" complaints as recently as 2015.

The victim said that he was subjected to sadistic assaults as a 15-year-old boy by a leading London vicar 40 years earlier. According to the Church of England the man has received an unreserved apology and a financial settlement. The Church published on Tuesday the conclusions and recommendations of the report by Ian Elliott, a former head of the Catholic Church's safeguarding body in Ireland.

The recommendations include special training on how to deal with disclosures of abuse particularly for those at senior levels. He emphasised that financial considerations should not be placed above pastoral care of survivors.

Elliott’s findings were published as the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), chaired by Dame Lowell Goddard (pictured), prepared to examine the Church of England's handling of abuse amid claims of a clash between the two bodies. On Monday the news website Exaro claimed that at a "fraught" meeting last month IICSA's staff gave the Church 14 days to hand over all relevant documents in time for last Wednesday’s preliminary hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice.

The website said that more than one million documents had been produced by just three of the Church’s 42 dioceses. Church officials said the demand was "unreasonable" and felt the inquiry would be overwhelmed if it had to examine every case.

According to Exaro, when IICSA staff asked the Church to nominate one diocese for in-depth examination, it refused, saying it was for the inquiry to select where it investigated. Dame Lowell Goddard has already said she will look specifically at the Diocese of Chichester where apparent failures of safeguarding processes allowed repeat sexual offending by Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and later Bishop of Gloucester. Ball was jailed last October after admitting the abuse of 18 young men between 1977 and 1992.

A Church of England spokeswoman said: "We [and IICSA] are on good terms and working constructively and collaboratively."