Stephen Cottrell twice reappointed a clergyman who allegedly assaulted at least five girls, the BBC has reported
The Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell is being urged to resign after a BBC investigation found that he twice signed off on a notorious child abuser keeping his position within the Church of England.
Cottrell, who will be the Church’s most senior figure when Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby steps down next month, reappointed David Tudor as area dean in Essex in 2013 and again in 2018, the British broadcaster reported on Sunday.
Cottrell did so knowing that Tudor had been barred from ministry for five years in 1988 for sexually assaulting three girls, and that he had paid £10,000 ($12,530) in 2012 to a woman who claimed to have been sexually abused by him when she was 11 years old. The Church of England made a six-figure payout to another of Tudor’s alleged victims in 2018, and the cleric was finally suspended a year later when police launched an investigation into yet another case of sex abuse with a minor that allegedly occurred in the 1980s.
Since rejoining the clergy in 1994, Tudor has been banned from being alone with children.
According to the BBC, Cottrell was told by Church authorities in 2018 that he could remove Tudor as area dean if he wished, but the Archbishop ultimately decided not to.
Additionally, Tudor was named honorary canon of Chelmsford Cathedral in 2015. Cottrell’s office told the BBC that the title was automatically bestowed on the disgraced rector, and that it was “not a promotion and not a personal reward.” However, a social media post from Tudor’s parish at the time described the title as a recognition of his “hard work, determination and commitment.”
“Even though David Tudor was already area dean when Stephen Cottrell arrived in the diocese in 2010, as the then diocesan bishop of Chelmsford he accepts responsibility for David Tudor remaining as area dean,” Cottrell’s office said in a statement. “On reflection, he acknowledges this could have been handled differently, and regrets that it wasn’t.”
Two prominent female bishops have called for an investigation into Cottrell’s handling of the Tudor scandal. The bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek, told BBC Radio 4 that “there are big questions to be looked at,” while the bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, declared on social media that Cottrell could no longer be considered a “credible voice as the leadership of the Church of England.”
An unidentified victim of Tudor told the BBC that Cottrell should “do the honorable thing for the sake of the Church and resign.”
Cottrell is considered a liberal within an already liberal church. Last February, he and Archbishop Welby announced that they would “publicly, unreservedly, and joyfully welcome same-sex couples in church,” and would allow clergy to bless same-sex couples who are already married or are in a civil union. Several months later, conservative British media ridiculed Cottrell as “woke,” after he referred to the first line of the Lord’s Prayer as “problematic” for describing God as “our father.”
