Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Ealing, London, United Kingdom · 2017

United Kingdom: former Abbot of Ealing Abbey convicted after fleeing abroad for five years to avoid prosecution

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Former Abbot of Ealing Abbey, the Benedictine monastery adjoining St Benedict's School

Organization

Ealing Abbey, St Benedict's School, English Benedictine Congregation

Spiritual nexus

The victims were pupils of the abbey's own school, subject to the authority of a monastic community whose head — the Abbot himself — was the perpetrator, the highest expression of the community's religious authority turned against the children in its care.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2017-01-01 · conviction

    United Kingdom. Laurence Soper, former Abbot of Ealing Abbey, was convicted in 2017 of sexually abusing pupils at St Benedict's School. He had fled the UK in 2011 while under investigation, withdrawing roughly £182,000 from a Vatican bank account and living abroad, including in Kosovo, before being extradited following his 2016 arrest to face trial.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • abbatial and monastic office over the abbey's own school, exploited to abuse pupils under the community's authority

Primary record

Sources

specialist commentary arrest and extradition report Failed Bail 2011 NOW 2016 Arrested – Andrew Charles Kingston Soper – Laurence aka Laurence Soper.

Contemporary report of Soper's 2011 flight, Vatican bank withdrawal, Kosovo residence, and 2016 arrest and extradition.

official inquiry report statutory inquiry report IICSA: Ealing Abbey and St Benedict's School Investigation Report, Executive Summary.

Official inquiry summary confirming Soper's conviction as former Abbot alongside Pearce's.

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