MANCHESTER, England (CNS): England’s most senior churchman, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster, said he would co-operate fully with a police inquiry into his role in transferring a priest later convicted of sexually abusing children.
Reports in the London newspaper The Sunday Mirror on September 22 said police were investigating the cardinal’s role when he was Bishop of Arundel and Brighton.
A spokeswoman for the Crown Prosecution Service, which has responsibility for all criminal prosecutions in England and Wales, told Catholic News Service that it had been advised by Sussex police officials that they were conducting an investigation.
The investigation concerns a former priest of Arundel and Brighton diocese, Fr Michael Hill, who was convicted in the mid-1990s on child abuse charges. He was jailed for five years for nine cases of indecent assault and one of gross indecency.
A statement issued by the cardinal’s office on September 23 said: ‘Before the appearance of media reports this weekend, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor had no knowledge of any formal inquiry concerning Michael Hill’s moves 20 years ago within the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton. This inquiry is apparently in response to complaints made by a particular individual. The police have never contacted the cardinal in this or any other connection.’
