Ex-priest has further child abuse complaint upheld

A Church of England tribunal has upheld a new complaint of child sexual abuse by a disgraced priest who was banned from ministry last year.

The Southwark diocese tribunal found David Tudor sexually abused a 15-year-old girl when he was a priest in Surrey in the 1980s.

The full details of the case will be made available when the penalty is decided by the Church of England.

The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Right Reverend Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, thanked the woman who brought the new complaint, saying "she has shown great courage in coming forward to report David Tudor's abuse, and I am profoundly sorry for the harm he has caused her and the other survivors of abuse he perpetrated".

In October 2024, Tudor was struck off for life after he admitted sexually abusing two girls, including one under the age of 16, between 1982 and 1989.

Soon afterwards, a BBC investigation exposed deep failings in the Church's handling of his case over decades.

Tudor had been convicted in 1988 of indecently assaulting three girls, although the conviction was quashed on technical grounds. He was then banned by the Church but allowed to return to ministry after five years.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey quit his service as a Church of England priest after the BBC revealed he had advocated for Tudor, who subsequently rose through the ranks to become a rector and area dean on Canvey Island, Essex.

He became an honorary canon of Chelmsford Cathedral in 2015 when Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell was the bishop, despite an agreement preventing him from being alone with children or entering schools in Essex and despite knowing Tudor had paid compensation to a sexual abuse victim.

Archbishop Cottrell refused calls to resign over his handling of the case, saying he could only act when a fresh complaint was made against Tudor in 2019, after which the priest was suspended and subsequently banned.

The archbishop said at the time that he regretted his handling of the case. A spokesperson said that "he acknowledges this could have been handled differently" and that "all the risks around David Tudor were regularly reviewed" and that "was the main focus".

The Church of England has revealed the deadline for a safeguarding review into the Tudor case has been put back to early next year, because of what it said was "new police information".