A former Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted "fobbing off" victims of sex abuse who complained about a paedophile bishop.

Lord Carey of Clifton said Lambeth Palace failed to deal properly with letters sent by victims and their families after the arrest of Peter Ball in December 1992.

Ball, then the bishop of Gloucester, was arrested following disclosures by Neil Todd, who had been a pupil on his scheme for young men considering a monastic life, that Ball had sexually abused him.

Young men and their parents told the Archbishop's office that Ball had behaved inappropriately, including asking a 17-year-old schoolboy to masturbate in front of him during a counselling session at a boarding school, and asking another 17-year-old to share his bedroom.

In an extraordinary day at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Lord Carey was by turn contrite, apologising to Ball's victims and admitting that he had not dealt with the case properly, and defiant, arguing repeatedly that it was not the church's role to investigate his crimes.

Asked by Fiona Scolding, the lead counsel to the investigation into the Anglican church, why he did not disclose the letters to the police, he said: "No-one came to see me and said 'hand the letters over'."