Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, was asked whether he had suppressed a 1968 note relating to an alleged incident involving Father John Tolkien, son of novelist J.R.R Tolkien.
The note had come to light in legal advice to the cardinal, then archbishop of Birmingham, while considering a civil claim by an alleged victim of Fr Tolkien’s.
Asked about the allegation he failed to disclose the existence of the note to the complainant, the cardinal said: “In the context of the claim and the discussions with the solicitors, my priority was to get that settled and when that was settled I simply didn’t give the matter any further thought.
“For which I apologise.”
The note was drafted by Archbishop of Birmingham Maurice Couve de Murville, as part of a 1993 investigation, suggesting he had sight of information about the 1968 allegation.
No action was taken against Fr Tolkien in the 1990s, and he retired from the priesthood some six months after Archbishop Couve de Murville was told of the allegation.
Fr Tolkien, who died in 2003, was believed to have denied claims he made a group of scouts strip naked.
The alleged abuse happened in the 1950s, when Fr Tolkien was based in Sparkhill, Birmingham.
But evidence which investigators believed suggested the priest may have admitted abuse emerged in the note, which came to…
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