Britain's Methodist Church says sorry for historical pedophile cases

The largest Wesleyan Methodist body and fourth largest Christian denominational church in the United Kingdom has apologized cases of sexual abuse.

The church makes public apology after an independent probe unearthed nearly 2,000 cases of abuse within the institution dating back to 1950.

“On behalf of the Methodist Church in Britain, I want to express an unreserved apology for the failure of its current and earlier processes fully to protect children, young people and adults from physical and sexual abuse inflicted by some ministers and members of the Methodist Church”, Rev. Martyn Atkins, secretary of the Methodist Conference, said on Thursday.

Atkins described the finding as “deeply regrettable” and said it “will remain a deep source of grief and shame to the church”.

The church officials have vowed to improve systems to protect children, young people and adults from abuse within the life of the church and on church premises, and to review them diligently on a regular basis.

However, some analysts say the churches need to take more step to console the abuse victims.

“It’s good that the church has apologized and its good that it saying steps to make sure that doesn’t happen again. But what we think they need to do is to provide support to those victims to get the therapy they desperately need. That’s still not in place. They have said sorry but they haven’t done anything really for those who had been raped”, Dr. John Bird, Operations Manager from National Association for People Abused in Childhood, told Press TV.

The inquiry on the Methodist Church was conducted by Barnardo’s children’s charity and it took almost three years to complete the probe led by Jane Stacey, the charity’s former deputy chief executive.

The inquiry identified 1,885 cases, which included sexual, physical, emotional and domestic abuse as well as neglect. In about a quarter of these cases, 26%, church ministers or lay employees were identified as the perpetrators or alleged perpetrators. In 61 of these cases, there was contact with the police and there are six ongoing police investigations as a result.

“We have been hearing for many years that abuse is occurring in different organizations and institutions. Unfortunately, there are people in almost every religious faith who do these appalling things with children. At least police have now realized that these have been widespread in the UK. It seems to me that many countries have started realizing it as well like the Catholic and other churches in the US and let’s say Ireland”, Bird told Press TV.      

The UK has witnessed a surge in child molestation and sexual abuse cases, some of which go back to the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Reports say that in some cases, children as young as 11 were “raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated.

With regard to the Methodist Church, each identified case was reviewed on whether it had been safe, pastorally appropriate and compliant with legislation and policy. It remains to be seen how law enforcement agencies act once those cases are referred to them.

SKL/MA

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