Monks should be stripped of control at two leading Benedictine schools after sex abuse was covered up for 40 years, a report has found.

Leaders at Ampleforth in North Yorkshire and Downside in Somerset hid allegations of "appalling" abuse against pupils as young as seven to protect the church's reputation.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) on Thursday published a damning report on the English Benedictine Congregation, which has ten monasteries.

Ampleforth and Downside are two schools linked to the monasteries, run at times by "secretive, evasive and suspicious" church officials who avoided reporting misconduct to police and social services.

The inquiry found that sexual abuse spanning four decades at both schools was likely to be "considerably" more widespread than previously thought.

Both must implement a “strict separation” between the governance of the abbey and the school, if safeguarding arrangements are to be free from “often conflicting priorities”, the report concluded.

Allegations stretching back to the 1960s encompassed "a wide spectrum of physical abuse, much of which had sadistic and sexual overtones", it said.

Ten individuals linked to the schools, mainly monks, have been cautioned or convicted over sexual activity or pornography offences involving a "large number of children".