The most senior Catholic in the UK stands accused of being more concerned with protecting the Church’s reputation than historic victims of child sex abuse in a government inquiry report.

An official report published yesterday concluded that children could have been saved in the Archdiocese of Birmingham had the Catholic Church not “repeatedly failed” to alert police to allegations.

Since the mid 1930s, there have been more than 130 allegations of child sexual abuse made against 78 people associated with the Archdiocese. At least 13 of them have been convicted in criminal courts and three others have been cautioned.

However the true scale of offending is likely to be “far higher”, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) concluded. It said that "in some cases, the lack of action by the church meant that the abuser was free to continue to commit acts of child sexual abuse".

In his former role as Archbishop of Birmingham between 2000 and 2009, Cardinal Vincent Nichols claimed that a documentary - about the confrontation of a "serial child abuser" priest after he fled to the US - was "insensitive".

However the report criticised Cardinal Nichols, 73, who now sits as the Archbishop of Westminster, for failing to prioritise the welfare of children over the reputation of the church during his tenure.