An independent report into the handling of the case of an abuser priest paints a picture of the Archdiocese of Birmingham as more interested in the abuser than in his victims. The archdiocese has a very different culture now, its current bishop says

Number 18 Pocock Street is an anonymous London office building, wedged between a branch of Pret A Manger and an estate agents’, a few minutes’ walk from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, on the south side of the Thames. In November 2018, it, too, was a place of drama – a drama that was to have a significant impact on how the biggest diocese in England and Wales would handle child abuse. The office was used for the hearings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), including an investigation into the Catholic Church at which survivors of abuse gave testimony and there was tough cross-examination of senior clerics. But it was behind the scenes that something truly significant would happen – even though some experts in child sexual abuse considered how it came about absolutely hair-raising.