The alleged victim told how he was abused by Father John Tolkien, son of The Hobbit author JRR Tolkien, in 1970, two years after the priest had apparently admitted ordering a group of Scouts to strip naked.
A week-long series of hearings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is examining the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham’s response to allegations made against four priests including Fr Tolkien, who died in 2003.
The inquiry has already heard that the archdiocese had been made aware in 1968 of a complaint against Fr Tolkien, but that he had been “sent for treatment” and the matter had not been reported to police at the time.
On Tuesday an alleged victim said it was “unbelievable” that the priest had been able to return to ministry, as he described the abuse he suffered.
He told the hearing in central London: “Knowing that two years later he abused me in the same church or the same school and then they had the nerve to deny the claim that he did anything wrong when they must have known about it for years.
“And Vincent Nichols, the so-called cardinal of England and Wales, has the nerve to start talking to the solicitors on how to cover things up. That’s not Christian. Unbelievable.”
The former archbishop of Birmingham Vincent Nichols, now the Archbishop of Westminster, was due to give evidence to the panel this week but is unwell and will now…
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