IICSA: 390 Church of England clergy and trusted persons convicted of child sexual offences
Request a correction or replyRecord class
Institutional event
Evidence status
Official finding
Authority role
Church of England clergy and persons in positions of trust, church hierarchy that deferred to clerical authority
Organization
Church of England
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
The inquiry found the abuse was enabled by congregants' and choristers' deference to ordained clerical authority, and by an institutional culture that protected priests over the children in their pastoral care.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
- Institutional obedience or isolation
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2020-10-01 · statutory inquiry report
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), United Kingdom — statutory inquiry. IICSA found that 390 people who were clergy or in positions of trust associated with the Church of England were convicted of sexual offences against children between the 1940s and 2018, alongside 330 civil claims, and concluded that a culture of deference to clerical authority helped abusers hide and silenced victims.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- deference to ordained clerical authority
- institutional culture protecting priests over victims
Cited record
Sources
- official statutory inquiry report inquiry report Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, 'The Anglican Church: Investigation Report' (Oct. 2020).
The statutory inquiry records 390 convictions of clergy and persons in positions of trust, and finds deference to clerical authority enabled the abuse.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/investigation/anglican-church/executive-summary.html Corpus classification: official-statutory-inquiry-report; evidentiary role: inquiry-report. SHA-256 26a2fdd828908026ec45d1a5702655b3514c0e02ceac54292421b16a9d31b16d
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts
- 2018 · Harrisburg, PA, USA PA grand jury: 301 priests, 1,000+ child victims documented ('weaponized' faith)
- 2009 · Dublin, Ireland Ryan Commission: abuse 'endemic' in Catholic-run institutions (state inquiry)
- 2021 · Paris, France CIASE/Sauvé Report: est. 216,000 abused by French clergy since 1950
- 2019 · Vatican City McCarrick: ex-cardinal found guilty by Vatican canonical process, laicized
- 2010 · Oregon City, OR, USA Beagley faith-healing death: parents convicted (criminally negligent homicide)
- 2014 · Philadelphia, PA, USA Schaible: 3rd-degree murder, second child dead of untreated pneumonia
- 2001 · London, UK Victoria Climbié: murder convictions; possession belief; Laming Inquiry followed
- 2012 · London, UK Kristy Bamu: kindoki 'deliverance' murder convictions (30/25-yr minimums)