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Peter Ball and Misconduct in a Public Office

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2016

Frank Cranmer  and
David Pocklington
Frank Cranmer
Affiliation:
Fellow, St Chad's College, Durham Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for Law and Religion, Cardiff Law School
David Pocklington
Affiliation:
Independent Researcher
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Extract

On 27 March 2014 the Crown Prosecution Service announced that it had reviewed the evidence gathered by Sussex Police during its investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by Peter Ball, former Bishop of Lewes (1977–1992) and Bishop of Gloucester (1992–1993), and that he would be prosecuted on the following charges

Keywords

public officemisconductbishopEquality Act 2010
Type
Comment
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 188 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2016 

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References

1 An earlier and very much shorter version of this comment appeared as David Pocklington, ‘CofE bishops and “public office”’, Law & Religion UK 10 November 2014, available at <http://www.lawandreligionuk.com/2014/11/10/cofe-bishops-and-public-office/>, accessed 8 October 2015. We should like to thank Norman Doe for commenting on this note in draft.

2 ‘Retired bishop Peter Ball jailed for sex assaults', BBC News, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34466842>, accessed 8 October 2015.

3 On 5 October 2015 the Archbishop of Canterbury announced that he had commissioned an independent review of the way in which the Church of England responded to the case: see ‘Archbishop commissions independent review of Peter Ball case’, <https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2015/10/archbishop-commissions-independent-review-of-peter-ball-case.aspx>, accessed 8 October 2015.

4 ‘Women in the episcopate: note by the legal advisers on clause 2 of the draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure’, GS Misc 1068, available at <https://www.churchofengland.org/media/1910562/gs%20misc%201068%20-%20clause%202%20note%20from%20the%20legal%20advisers.pdf>, accessed 8 October 2015.

5 For a recent review of the case law in a range of common law jurisdictions, see Davids, C and McMahon, M, ‘Police misconduct as a breach of public trust: the offence of misconduct in public office’, (2014) 19:1Deakin Law Review 89–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Crown Prosecution Service, ‘Misconduct in public office: legal guidance’, available at <http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/l_to_o/misconduct_in_public_office/#a01> accessed 8 October 2015, quoting Attorney General's Reference No. 3 of 2003 [2004] EWCA Crim 868 at para per Pill LJ. See also R v Chapman & ors [2015] EWCA Crim 539 at para 18, in which Lord Thomas CJ quoted with approval Sir Anthony Mason's dictum in Shum Kwok Sher [2002] 5 HKFAR 381 that ‘The threshold is a high one requiring conduct so far below acceptable standards as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder. A mistake, even a serious one, will not suffice.’

7 Attorney General's Reference No 3 of 2003 at para 62.

8 See, for example, Sharpe v The Bishop of Worcester [2015] EWCA Civ 399.

9 Maga v Trustees of the Birmingham Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church [2010] EWCA Civ 256 at para 45 per Lord Neuberger MR.

10 R v Rimmington [2005] UKHL 63 at para 30 per Lord Bingham.

11 Emphasis added.

12 Crown Prosecution Service, ‘S3: sexual assault’ in Sentencing Manual (updated January 2012), available at <http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/s3_sexual_assault/>, accessed 8 October 2015.

13 R v Peter Ball (Sentencing Remarks) [2015] Central Criminal Court at para 17, available at <https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/r-v-ball-sentencing.pdf>, accessed 8 October 2015.

14 Ibid at para 8, emphasis added.

15 Ibid at paras 4 and 8.

16 See, for example, R v Quach [2010] VSCA 106; (2010) 27 VR 310, in the Court of Appeal of Victoria, which concerned a charge of misconduct in public office involving a police officer who had allegedly used his position to take sexual advantage of a woman who suffered from bipolar disorder; R v Fletcher [2012] 1 CR APP R S 62, in which the court upheld the sentence on a police officer who had had sexual intercourse with a vulnerable woman after being directed to visit her house in the course of his duties.

17 Law Commission, ‘Misconduct in public office: current project status’, <http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/misconduct-in-public-office/>, accessed 20 December 2015.

18 Available at <http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/misconduct_in_public_office_issues-1.pdf>, accessed 30 January 2016.