Members of the establishment, including the heir to the throne, the then archbishop of Canterbury and a senior member of the judiciary, rallied to the support of Peter Ball, a Church of England bishop accused of sexual abuse, an independent inquiry has heard.

“The story of Peter Ball is the story of the establishment at work in modern times,” said William Chapman, representing survivors. “It is the story of how the establishment minimised the nature of Peter Ball’s misdeeds … and silenced and harassed those who tried to complain.”

One survivor told the inquiry the C of E’s response to his disclosure of abuse amounted to “enduringly cruel and sadistic treatment”.

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse is examining how the church handled allegations. A five-day hearing this week is scrutinising the church’s response to claims of sexual abuse against Ball, a former bishop of Lewes and then Gloucester, who was jailed in 2015.



Ball was able to call upon the “willing assistance of members of the establishment”, said Chapman. “It included the heir to the throne, the archbishop and a senior member of the judiciary, to name only the most prominent.”

Between them, they provided Ball with money and accommodation, legal advice, a private detective, references and approaches to the police and the prosecuting authorities.



“The alacrity and the extent of the response by Peter Ball’s friends to one of their own in trouble was impressive. It makes a horrible contrast to the way Peter Ball’s victims were treated,” Chapman said.



He told the inquiry: “These establishment helpers claim they were duped by Peter Ball … But you will have to consider if it is credible, given what they must have known or could easily have found out about Peter Ball, whether they were really as ignorant as they claimed they were about the nature of Peter Ball’s activities.



“Some claimed they did not know what a caution meant. Well, Prince Charles has many advisers; he only had to ask. So does the archbishop of Canterbury.”



Ball’s friends were willing to “add their weight” against the due criminal process. “They went far beyond the normal obligations of friendship.”



Allegations were first made against Ball in 1992, but he accepted a police caution and resigned his position as bishop. An independent review of the case commissioned by the C of E and published last year found evidence of collusion and a cover-up at the highest levels.

Richard Scorer, also representing survivors, said that Ball found in his fellow bishops the “perfect accomplices, prepared to turn a blind eye to his abuse over many decades”.



None bore greater responsibility than Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, Scorer said. “We fear that when we hear from him this week, the usual litany of excuses will be trotted out,” he said, adding that Carey must give a “transparent account of his actions”.



Prince Charles’s assertion that he did not understand the significance of a caution was “frankly astonishing”, he said. The prince has access to “the best legal advice that money can buy,” Scorer added.



The prince chose not to clarify the legal position. “To my clients, this extraordinary lack of curiosity looks like wilful blindness,” he said.



In her opening statement, Fiona Scolding, senior counsel to the inquiry, said that Ball’s “fall from grace was a huge shock to the church”.



She added: “He was a very senior clergyman with enormous spiritual authority. He also had power and charm.”



People inside and outside the church had attested to Ball’s charisma and oratorical brilliance. She said that power had been “further enhanced by his cultivation of influential friends both within and outside the church”.

As an example, Ball had told people after his arrest that four cabinet ministers had offered him a “bolthole from the press”.



“He did not stint from mentioning those friends in prominent places when he thought it would assist his cause,” Scolding added.



She told the hearing of a scheme set up by Ball for young men interested in religious life that gave him the opportunity to groom them for sexual abuse and exploitation. The men were encouraged to pray naked, and engage in massage and spanking. One, Neil Todd, who first made allegations against Ball, killed himself in 2012.

Scolding said that Ball, now 86, was too unwell to give evidence either at the inquiry or by video link. But in one of two statements he had submitted he made an apology and said he had “neither been open nor shown penitence in the past”.

The hearing heard from three survivors who described their abuse by Ball. One, the Rev Graham Sawyer, who has waived his right to anonymity, said: “The sexual abuse that was perpetrated on me by bishop Peter Ball pales into insignificance when compared to the enduringly cruel and sadistic treatment that has been meted out to me by officials, both lay and ordained, in the Church of England.”

He described the culture within Anglicanism as an “ecclesiastic protection racket – and anyone who seeks in any way to threaten the reputation of the church and institution has to be destroyed”.

Safeguarding should be taken out of the church’s hands he said, as “it cannot police itself with any credibility”.

At the start of proceedings, Alexis Jay, the chair of the inquiry, said she had ordered an investigation into the leaking to the media of the Prince of Wales’s letter.



She said the leak was a “very serious breach of confidence by someone with direct access to information in this investigation” and promised “firm action” should the source be uncovered.



Scolding said a suggestion reported by the Times that the timing of the statement, to be read on the final day of this week’s hearings, was to prevent the prince being called for cross-examination “could not be further from the truth”.



She said: “There is no requirement for him to attend in person as his evidence, whilst important, is not of central relevance to many of the issues raised by this case study.”



The hearing continues.

