Prince Charles Misused Influence to Shield Cleric, Abuse Inquiry Reports

“I wish I could do more,” the prince wrote at one point. “I feel so desperately strongly about the monstrous wrongs that have been done to you and the way you have been treated. It’s appalling that the archbishop has gone back on what he told me, before Xmas, that he was hoping to restore you to some kind of ministry in the church. I suspect you are absolutely right — it is due to fear of the media.”

When questioned as part of the inquiry, Prince Charles played down the significance of their correspondence, saying he answered Mr. Ball’s letters, “believing it the polite thing to do.”

Investigators, who pored over a large file of correspondence between the two men, said “the replies are suggestive of cordiality rather than mere politeness.”

They noted, as well, that the prince’s private secretary had made inquiries about Mr. Ball’s reinstatement with a top aide to the archbishop of Canterbury.

Within six weeks of his resignation, the archbishop publicly said that he hoped to see Mr. Ball returned to the ministry.

The inquiry concludes that Mr. Ball’s supporters were not knowingly covering up crimes, but failed to consider that someone they knew and liked might also be an abuser.

“It is likely that they genuinely believed in Peter Ball’s innocence,” the inquiry says. “These individuals could not conceive of the possibility that someone like Peter Ball could be guilty of such offending behavior.”

They “thought they knew more than they did and, in fact, knew nothing about the extent of the allegations faced by Peter Ball,” it continued.

Mr. Ball’s victims, many of them teenagers, described approaching him for spiritual guidance and being asked to strip naked, take cold showers while he watched, masturbate him, submit to beatings, or sleep naked with him.

One cleric, who had asked Mr. Ball to support his ordination, said he refused to remove his clothing at Mr. Ball’s request. Mr. Ball subsequently withdrew his recommendation for ordination. The cleric was later rejected for ordination, told that there was “a big black mark against him in the Church of England.”

Mr. Ball was eventually arrested as a result of a complaint by Neil Todd, who began to visit Mr. Ball at the age of 17, and became fearful when the bishop began speaking of beating or whipping him as part of their religious practice. Mr. Todd attempted suicide at age 19, and subsequently made reports of Mr. Ball’s behavior.

Mr. Todd killed himself in 2012, days before the case was officially reopened.