PAEDOPHILE HUNT COPS INVESTIGATE ARCHBISHOP

THE head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales is being investigated by police over claims he covered up the activities of a paedophile priest.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, is being probed by officers from Sussex, Surrey and Scotland Yard.

A Crown Prosecutions Service confirmed police were investigating. A spokesman said: "We have been providing advice to police for a number of months about this case,

"Eventually they will complete their investigation and then they will pass the file to us for consideration." No decision about whether to charge the Cardinal would be taken until the full file has been received, he added.

Officers from the three forces met last week and discussed whether the cardinal should be formally arrested and interviewed. The main part of the investigation into the cardinal, is whether in the 1980s he turned a blind eye to a priest he knew to have paedophile tendencies. Police have been told that despite warnings that the man was a danger to children the cardinal, then Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, appointed him to a position in his diocese.

Police are discussing whether there is evidence the cardinal knew an arrestable offence had been committed and performed an act intending it would impede a prosecution, or whether he did any act to pervert the course of justice

The priest was finally jailed for five years in the mid-90s for nine case of indecent assault and one of gross indecency.

At that time the cardinal said: "I maintain that, with the facts known to me, the decisions made in this regard were not irresponsible." Later he said the police were not called because it was regarded "as more a moral and pastoral problem than a police problem".

The priest assaulted a youngster with learning difficulties and later abused him on a Lourdes pilgrimage.

The court was told the assaults began in 1977 while the priest was at a church in the south of England. He abused an altar boy and also boys - some as young as 11 - with learning difficulties.

In 1979 he was transferred to a Surrey church where he assaulted more altar boys and a 10-year-old boy preparing for Communion. From there the priest was transferred to a church in the South where he abused two brothers.

In 1983 the Church finally moved the priest to a Catholic retreat for treatment. But two years later the Cardinal appointed the priest to a post in his own diocese, where he met his last victim.

The new action was sparked by a letter from a member of the public sent to police. Evidence now with the CPS includes statements from the priest's victims saying they reported the abuse to Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor's office as far back as 1981

Last night a spokesman for the Cardinal said: "We are not aware of any investigation but he would co-operate 100 per cent as and when required.""

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