Peter Ball documentary - how the Establishment looks after its own

Alex yes and the Profumo affair was also an example of the patriarchy in action - just that young vulnerable women were the victims here, not young vulnerable men.

Marie's point of view is interesting not only because of her point about the feminine influence but also because of the RCC as high authority. Take the Catechism for instance. This is indoctrination and very different from the sort of educational procedure that leads children to feel autonomous.

I have had several catholic friends and all were open minded and very kind, so the RCC must be getting some things right. I suggest what these authoritarian churches get wrong is treating their flocks as sheep indeed.The aspiring young monks that Bishop Ball used were too sheep like for their own good.I am not blaming victims but I am blaming authorities that are set up as proxies for God.

Suziewoosie, the Bishop Ball scandal and the Profumo scandal have in common how lowly people are victims of elites who get their powers from certain institutions. George Carey is still in the House of Lords!

Some institutions seem to be free from the immorality of ends justifying means. For instance universities , and the NHS, keep a high moral tone. So what is it about some other establishment institutions that make them prone to self-serving?

I suggest the cause of self serving and entitled attitudes is the myth of authority as conferred by custom, or by God.

Marie thank you for an interesting post. When the role of women and men within a church institution is equal, my guess would be that you would be less likely to attract a certain sort of man to the priesthood as the culture would be completely different. When the patriarchy is institutionalised ( as it is in the RC church and this has only recently begun to change in the C of E) it endows false and undeserved status and power on men vis-a-vis women. When sex inequality is entrenched, then other inequalities are in the mix - children are not afforded sufficient respect, homosexuality is unacceptable (which is ironic given that generally child sexual abuse in the church is directed towards boys and young men)When one group( ie men) has the power, then they have carte blanche to write, interpret, ignore all the rules as they wish.

Had the A of C or any of a long list of popes or cardinals been women with sons of their own, I wonder how many letters would have been hidden from enquiries, abusive priests relocated to carry on as before and abusers housed , sheltered and protected? It’s also imo less likely that the abuse would have happened in the first place as the abusers may not have been attracted to an institution that gave equal value to women.

MarieEliza, I suspect there's some truth in your views about the way the involvement of women can influence areas of work that have been traditionally male dominated. The retired police officer and social worker who were appointed by the Church to investigate the allegations and promote safeguarding were both women.
An aside but the Rochdale grooming scandal was only brought to public notice by the women involved with the children. That would be the police officer (Maggie Oliver) and the three female staff at the health centre.
This isn't to say female workers can ignore what's under their noses as well of course.

I am a latecomer to this discussion but after watching the same programme on Peter Ball my comments are these. I am Catholic and have been concerned for years about the all male heirachy and ‘we can do no wrong’ attitude by some clergy. Some friends refused to watch Spotlight despite local clergy being imprisoned for sexual abuse. We have been burying our heads in the sand partly because from a very young age we have been told to accept church authority rather than accepting truth and goodness. We need to get back to the truth of the gospel and challenge the church constantly. The Church needs also to put women in high places and ordain women in the RC church. In the programme it is women who sorted the problem. The old boys network wouldn’t have survived so long if women worked alongside the men.

Grandma2213, thanks for your post. Your comment about being a trusting person but recognising the need to learn about abusers from programmes like the one about Peter Ball is imo, spot on.
It's good to see a post that acknowledged the potential personal cost to those who work with child sexual exploitation.

It is heartbreaking to see the effects of the abuse of young people by anyone they are supposed to trust and even more so when cover ups happen by those in authority. Imagine being brave enough to report it and not be believed.

As a mother it never entered my head that such things could happen to my children but now as a grandmother I am constantly aware that my grandchildren go to Church schools, attend football, sports, physical activities, trips etc and spend time with adults that we trust. I am a naturally trusting person but I think I need to watch and listen to programmes like this, distressing though they are, so that I know how to protect them.

I am in awe of those who have often spent years of their lives at great personal cost to expose the perpetrators and the establishment that closes rank around them. I hope that I would have the strength to do the same.

Namsnanny I'm not suggesting anything but just wondering whether we were all easily taken in, or whether our bishop was the nice man he seemed and had no idea what his brother was up to. Perhaps there was gossip at the time and I was too naive to notice.

suziewoozie Hmm? Committing crime is why!!

I wonder how so many BAME people end up in prison given the terror the police have of being accused of racism?

Where’s your evidence ticking?

Iam64 The police were terrified of being accused of racism. It’s also about class. I’ll say nothing more as this thread is about a different matter.

ticking you are over simplifying a very complex issue. The grooming gang cases are multi- factorial not one dimensional. And money is not wasted on historical child abuse enquires - that was Johnson’s appalling view. The child abuse enquiry that is ongoing involves cases where the abuser is dead ( like PB) but it’s about learning from what happened not just about convictions. And because we failed these girls miserably, doesn’t mean that we should ignore other firms of sexual abuse and harassment that older females are subject to.

Tickingbird, were you involved in working with police and other agencies involved in child sexual exploitation?
It’s wrong to simply dismiss the dreadful neglect of these children as due to ‘political correctness’.

Iam64 It’s totally disingenuous for any police force to say the grooming gangs weren’t investigated due to lack of resources. It was down to political correctness or the fear of being accused of racism, as well as a class issue. After Saville there was a rush to investigate many cases of historical abuse costing millions, often with no possibility of a conviction as the alleged perpetrator was dead. It comes to something when there’s an outcry over a middle class tv personality having her backside patted by some executive or MP, but vulnerable, young, mainly white girls are raped, drugged and pimped out and nobody cares. It’s a disgrace.

The documentary did talk of a ‘network’ - there were certainly other priests involved so who knows?

Deedaa I don't want to put words into your mouth, but are you questioning whether the Bishop Truro has behaved in a similar way to his brother? Possibly because his outward behaviour was the same?

It was found that J. Saville's brother acted in a very similar manner.

Peter Ball's brother was Bishop of Truro at the time. We all thought how nice the pair of them were. I knew a few people at the cathedral and never heard any rumours about the brother but he didn't get much of a mention in the documentary.

Namsnanny -yes, I agree with you. You aren't de-railing I don't think, you're widening the discussion. In saying I saw differences between the establishment /Peter Ball etc and the grooming gangs I hope I'm not denying the obvious similarities.

i think there are moves now to improve teaching in schools, so children are aware of their body autonomy.
that links in with some of the rather silly discussions on here about not making children kiss/be kissed by random aunties, or indeed by anyone.
same with tickling. well known now as an abuser's entry-level activity. remember they groom the parents first.
there is such a lot of this, abuse, cover-up, minimise/ blame the victim.
also denigrate the victim; there is an example of this by a well known ex labour MP, who from when she was a London councillor, denigrated the credibility of a man who reported how he and others had been repeatedly, violently sexually assaulted by staff when he was in a council childrens home.
then she denied all this, but documentary proof later emerged.
so after that I disregarded whatever she said on any subject, as I thought what axe is she grinding here, against whom, and why.

BWM a little, I'm not trying to derail.....

But it's well understood by psychologists how individuals make decisions of where to place their trust

Its complicated but the larger the number of people endorse A and the more powerful those supporters are, the more likely others will follow/agree with/endorse etc.,

It may seem silly on my part but
There is a correlation between grooming gangs, c of e, catholic church, Saville, Weinstein, the recent banking crisis etc.,

It's the opportunity for corruption due to the suspension of common sense based on the blanket acceptance of a popularly held belief.

ie the church isn't capable of this, or it's wrong to accuse people as they all belong to the same race, or actress's know the score, important people are endorsing the banking system so must be ok ect.,

Facts were consistently ignored/covered up.

The need to follow the heard is strong.

Whilst this continues to be the case, abusers will alwayfind the best ways to I infiltrate and use institutions for their own ends.

We make it easy for them to do so.

Perhaps if it were possible to teach (in schools) children/people to look for the reasons behind a situation,

Critical thinking as a subject (essentially building the skill to examine arguments and why they are held in esteem) can easily be taught
. It's just a case of having the will to see how useful and important it is to the individual
and society in general, to make competent decisions based not on simply falling g in line with the consensus of the day.

This is more important than any other subject taught in schools today IMO

tickingbird, I don't see the scandal of child sexual exploitation was covered up by 'the establishment' in the way that the crimes committed by Peter Ball were. I don't mean to split hairs but Peter Ball offended against boys aged 8 and upwards, who were active in his Church.

Peter Ball accepted a caution for some offences, which should never have been offered. He should have been prosecuted. The GMP force area had a policy at that time, that no one accused of a sexual offence should be cautioned. Being cautioned means the offender walks out of the police station with no professional assessment of the level of risk he poses, with no ongoing involvement of probabtion/nspcc for example. Cautions are usually used for minor offences.

As Framilode says above, Peter Ball denied the offences for which he was cautioned. The documentary claims he continued to abuse after the caution, which is unsurprising. The 'establishment' cover up involved the AB of Canterbury and other senior clergy. Prince C arranged accommodation for him. I don't know whether Prince C believed PB to be innocent. It's the same kind of cover up that took place with Cyril Smith (as one example)

The way in which the grooming gangs were not investigated, or prosecuted and their victims abandoned by police, social workers,all agencies is a scandal of a different kind. GMP now acknowledge it knew from 2003 but in truth it knew years before that. Nazir Afzal states that in 1998 the force said it's government set targets were car crime and burglary. GMP senior officers acknowledged the problem but said it didn't have the resources to deal with the problem. Why senior officers and directors of children's services didn't go directly to central government to say they needed resources to tackle organised crime against children remains unknown.

My problem is that I have no confidence at all that things have really changed. The price that people pay for coming forward is huge- whether they came forward initially or later.

Cultural as well as structural and institutional change is what is needed but with the differential distribution of power in society there is no one size fits all solution. For example, the abuse of young people in sport by coaches is facilitated by the power the coach has to give you a place on the team. The power a priest has is the esteem he is held in, a belief in all he says and that ‘doing this’ is Gods will. With the young girls and the grooming gangs, there appears to be the power the men had to make the girls feel loved and valued.

Then what’s different is how people react when the young person comes forward and the mechanisms in place for dealing with the allegations ( or not dealing with them). In sport, the reputation and therefore financial consequences for sporting clubs must have been a real motivator for covering up - but I bet they believed the allegations . With the church, I think it’s more complicated - yes the reputational damage that would result but I’d also guess a belief by some that this simply could not have happened and the priest is to be believed and not the boy.

With the ‘grooming gangs’ when girls/ parents came forward there seemed to be a common reaction of minimising the behaviour, of seeing the girls as complicit and consenting in the abuse. So yes they were believed but the behaviour was redefined as not really being abuse. Being a 12 year old prostitute was often quoted despite the fact that you can’t legally be that. As well as those I’ve just mentioned, I believe there were others who for political reasons wanted to avoid facing up to the ethnic dimension of the issue and therefore wanted a deliberate cover up or convinced themselves the girls chose to behave like that.

I just think it’s depressingly complicated

suziewoozie. I don't believe they are so different. Both are shocking and both were covered up by the establishment. The fact that more and more of these dreadful episodes are coming to light is testament to the bravery of individuals determined to be heard in the face of great opposition.

I won't go further as I don't wish to derail this thread but my point really is that we all, regardless of our political persuasions and leanings, must open our eyes, prepare to see what sometimes we don't want to see or accept, and do something about it wherever we can.

I believe people in power, political, royal, commerce are about to fall very soon. I just feel it.....