The BBC programmes on Peter Ball have naturally provoked a fair degree of comment, alongside expressions of regret and sorrow. Because Ball is no longer with us, it is possible to attempt to understand something of the whole. On Thinking Anglicans one commentator has provided additional intriguing information about Ball’s early years, his encounter with the clergy selection process and his sponsorship for ordination by none other than George Bell, then Bishop of Chichester. With his help, Ball negotiated the initial blocks put up by CACTM, the selection body, and obtained his first curacy in Bell’s diocese. Having become a ‘blue-eyed boy’ in Bell’s eyes, Ball was allowed to move on very quickly along his chosen path to an involvement with a school and later, in 1960, to found his own religious community. The early details are intriguing and are evidence of the considerable charm and powers of persuasion (manipulation?) that Ball was able to exercise over others right back at the beginning.
The crimes which finally sent Ball to prison and public disgrace are well-known. The overall theme of this blog has never wanted to spend time on dwelling on the details of the sexual deviations Ball was guilty of. It is however worth noting the fact that he appears to have been, for much of his life, fixated on abusing adolescent boys and young men. The only thing resembling a comment that I will insert here is one relating to a discipline beyond my expertise. I would surmise that such behaviour is possibly indicative of a disrupted maturing process. Part of his personality, in other words, seems never to have developed beyond his own adolescence. History would have been far more tolerant if he had had a secret liaison with a mature male partner in a genuine relationship of mutuality. What actually happened, the coercing and control of young vulnerable men, was evil and deeply harmful to his victims.
From my point of view, the deeply interesting part of Ball’s story is not this sexual behaviour but the way throughout his life he succeeded in covering up his crimes by the use of the techniques of persuasion and charm. The first victim of Ball’s charm was George Bell back in the 1950s. Bell wrote about him, when promoting his candidature for ordination. “Junior Squash champion for the South of England and Sussex, and is regarded as a possible Blue at Cambridge. He represented Lancing at soccer, athletics and tennis, besides being head prefect, and managing the school remarkably well, though undoubtedly a reserved boy. Surely this says something for character?” Although these are not the only remarks about Ball that were made, it is clear that the public-school persona and excellence at sport impressed Bell. To use my language, Ball was a ‘chap’, a secure member of the English social elite and much to be valued among the clergy at the time. This was apparently the dominant reality about his personality that overrode any other considerations in the eyes of his bishop.
This social confidence which attendance at Lancing had given Ball in those early years were finely honed at later stages of his life. Cambridge University in those days was attended by disproportionate numbers of boys from public schools. Later still Ball mixed easily with aristocrats, princes of the realm and senior politicians, such as Margaret Thatcher. Being part of the social elite and wearing all the confidence that goes with it, will always make it easier to hide whatever damaged aspects of the personality may exist. I am not in a position to speculate on the exact nature of the woundedness that enabled Ball to hurt and damage so many of his fellow human beings. These actions do suggest that he was indeed himself seriously flawed. The social power he possessed helped him to be in a place where he could put into effect his nefarious plans. Later on, he used the same social power to defend himself against the attacks of those who were to challenge his behaviour.
Alongside the social power that Ball obtained simply by being part of the public-school/Cambridge nexus of the early 50s, Ball possessed another form of power – charismatic power. It is difficult to define precisely what we are talking about when we use the expression charismatic power as it has social and religious meanings. But to summarise, it is the ability to inspire others, to point them to a place beyond the here and now. It suggests that the one with this ability is able to excite others with some vision for the future. Peter Ball was by all accounts an impressive speaker and preacher. As one of his clergy, for the short period while he was Bishop of Gloucester, I could see the way he operated. I did not have the insights of character analysis that I possess now, but I could see that Ball had ways of persuading people of his holiness and integrity which were compelling. It was hard to believe at the time that he was capable of cruel exploitative behaviour of young men. Large numbers of people were caught up in the myth of Ball’s holiness and very few were able to glimpse the reality of his narcissistic cruelty
One person who forms a crucial part of the Ball story, but whose role has not been closely examined is Margaret Thatcher. The first(?) meeting of Ball and Thatcher seems to have occurred in the immediate aftermath of the Brighton bombing of 1984. Ball was the local bishop (Lewes) and helped to provide a calm unflappable pastoral presence in the midst of the carnage. Thatcher, having noticed and befriended him sought to use her prime minister’s influence to push his name forward for a diocesan post. She was unable to achieve this during her tenure of office but the influence of Robin Catford, her ecclesiastical appointments secretary, seems to have prevailed under John Major who followed her. (For further information on this, see Colin Buchanan’s letter in the Church Times 24th Jan.) Thatcher’s active interest in ecclesiastical appointments is well-known. She helped to propel George Carey to Canterbury and Brandon Jackson to the Deanery at Lincoln. We cannot now disentangle the chemistry that linked Ball and Thatcher but we can speculate that she was, like many others, susceptible to his charismatic charm combined with finely honed social polish. It was this combination of skills that later served Ball well, even after he had been cautioned by the police in 1992. With it he distorted the judgement of both the Prince of Wales and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Both were drawn in to become Ball’s supporters even when there was demonstrable evidence of criminal behaviour. Somehow the sheer power that Ball possessed, charismatic and social, overwhelmed the capacity of both men to make rational coherent judgements about one of their fellow men.
A longer version of this paper, were it to be written, would want to explore further, from the clues that we are given, other dimensions of the life of Peter Ball. My own amateur assessment of his psychological profile suggests that he was the victim of a full-blown narcissistic personality disorder. This would account for a number of features in the story which are otherwise puzzling. How are we account for the evident convincing charm combined with an almost total absence of conscience? The ultimate ambition of Ball seems to have been the exercising of power to gratify his outsize ego. The sexual exploitation of adolescents was only one part of his wider insatiable desire to be admired and honoured. He especially looked to be noticed by the great and the good of society. Narcissism, charisma and charm all often work together and when in operation they are able to fool and confuse the rest of us. If we are to learn from this life of an extraordinary but deeply flawed individual, I believe we should understand Peter Ball primarily as a man who abused others through the misuse of his power. Beyond the dozens he sexually abused there are the thousands he fooled through his deadly manifestation of charm and faux holiness. That is the great devastating legacy of this man and, as I write this, I realise that I am among the many who during his life time were fooled in this way.
Am I correct in my recollection that people in Norwich Diocese passed him over as their potential bishop? It might not be as straightforward as not being fooled but, for whatever reason, they decided he was not for them.
From https://www.iicsa.org.uk/publications/investigation/anglican-chichester-peter-ball/case-study-2-response-allegations-against-peter-ball/c4-peter-balls-appointment-bishop-gloucester
C.4: Peter Ball’s appointment as Bishop of Gloucester
61. Peter Ball openly expressed his ambition to become a diocesan bishop for some time. In 1985 he was a candidate for the position of Bishop of Norwich. A member of the Commission said they had been under some pressure from the Prime Minister’s appointments secretary, Robin Catford (subsequently Sir Robin Catford) to appoint him. He was a resident of West Sussex and sat on the Chichester Diocesan Synod from 1979 to 1984 and 1980 to 1990. It had been hinted that Peter Ball would be especially welcome at Sandringham. His appointment had been opposed by diocesan representatives who reported that “Norwich could not take a group of young men living with the bishop in the Bishop’s House”.
Wow! Good grief! How stupid do you have to be?
Let’s say 10% of us identify as survivors of abuse. We could perhaps identify another 10% as perpetrators. That leaves another 80% in the middle. For a moment please let’s not argue about the exact percentages.
Complicity resides predominantly (but not exclusively obviously) in the 80%.
For Stephen to identify as being ”fooled through his [Ball’s] deadly manifestation of charm and faux holiness”, is an important confession.
However we identify, we as a society were/are complicit in Ball’s crimes or others like him. How is this so? Because we too idealise our favourite leaders. We too look the other way when people scream in pain. We “mute” them on social media. In old money, we crossed the road and went on our way. Perhaps we should have a #wetoo hashtag.
And until we can see that, and until we can honestly join in the confession, we will delay a better world coming.
Is it stupid to have missed Ball’s abusive proclivities, now obvious in hindsight? Wilfully blind perhaps. But for the “80%” we have to reach and engage with, our approach needs to be different.
Some people have no difficulty living with themselves as abusers. Ball was an absolute expert, and narcissistically believed implicitly in his own right to abuse.
Most of us are, however, very uncomfortable making the slightest mistake. It is appalling to think we could have assisted in stopping a perpetrator in our midst. We didn’t even know it was down to us.
I didn’t speak about the Anglican priest who abused us at school for many decades. I regret this. My loyalties were conflicted between living up to the decision made to send me there, and now speaking out and supporting others.
Supporting others is repentance. The “80%” could help here. Support means engagement. I’m not talking about lengthy good quality psychotherapy, although this can help, I’m talking about cups of tea. Plural. I’m talking about humanity. Jesus was human and often provided food, rather than a theological response. Perhaps His theology was one of sustenance?
The exposure of abuse is vital ongoing work. Long may it continue. But let’s do so acknowledging our own failures and the difficulties the many have in accepting their/our part in the maintenance of an abusive milieu.
Amen!
Susceptibility to the blandishments of a certain [outward] asceticism seems to be a recurrent theme for the Prince of Wales: some readers of this blog might recall the controversy surrounding Sir Laurens van der Post. My understanding is that this stems from a – presumably reasonable – wish to take people at face value, and because HRH appears to be a chronically well-meaning personality.
Catford lived in Chichester. Again, I come back to Kemp: Kemp, in a sense, made Ball. He ‘made’ him by giving him a prebend, encouraging the CGA, and by securing his preferment to Lewes. He also gave Ball effective carte blanche to abuse by dint of his area scheme, which I understand was in gestation from 1974 (pretty much the start of Kemp’s time) and formalised in 1984. This meant that, whilst Kemp retained pastoral oversight of Brighton, Worthing and Chichester itself, he yielded pretty much everything else to the bishops of Horsham and Lewes elsewhere; as such Kemp ceased to be a genuine diocesan for the diocese as a whole (when I went around East Sussex in the early 2010s I went to Oare: the incumbent held up a picture of John Hind, whom no one in the congregation recognised). Oversight of Ball was therefore minimal. I cannot fathom why Ms Scorer made comparatively little of Kemp’s role and management of the diocese during the hearings.
However, I got the sense from the IICSA hearings that Kemp may have viewed Ball warily; he will have heard the reports about Ball’s behaviour (which he evidently discounted or actively suppressed, including after meeting with the relatives of at least one victim); he may also have viewed Ball as something of a cuckoo in the nest with an unsavoury gift for self-promotion (which Kemp definitely did not possess). I suspect that Kemp may have been secretly relieved by Ball’s departure for Gloucester, and I do wonder whether he may have been encouraging Catford to obtain preferment for Ball.
This reminds me: shouldn’t the records of the appointments secretary be subject to the 30 year rule? We all know that the Church itself is not subject to FOIA, but the appointments secretary is a civil servant and is part of the Cabinet Office. Hopefully, we will be able to see some of the thought processes (at least those which were minuted or recorded in correspondence) relating to Ball’s translation to Gloucester in about eighteen months time (i.e., 30 years on from 1992). It’s possible that some of the records about Ball’s angling for preferment during the 1970s and 1980s and the responses to them may already be available, if anyone has the time to go and root through any materials that may be in Kew. Let’s not hope these records have been held back or ‘lost’ (what with all that flooding that occurs in Downing Street and Whitehall).
Froghole asks, “Shouldn’t the records of the appointments secretary be subject to the 30 year rule? We all know that the Church itself is not subject to FOIA, but the appointments secretary is a civil servant and is part of the Cabinet Office.”
Indeed, and one of the documents disclosed to IICSA in July 2018 was the memo/letter the then appointments’ secretary, Robin Catford, wrote to the Prime Minister, John Major, on 25 October 1991, encouraging the Prime Minister to appoint Ball to the see of Gloucester even though he was the second choice of the Gloucester CAC. (As the memo reveals, the CAC’s first choice, by 8 votes to 4, was Christopher Mayfield, then suffragan Bishop of Wolverhampton, who was subsequently to be appointed Bishop of Manchester in 1993.) Major endorsed the memo in manuscript the next day, “OK – Peter Ball.”
The relevant records, including Catford’s memo (IICSA document CAB000013), only ‘appeared’ from the Cabinet Office a week before Lord Carey gave his evidence at IICSA: see Fiona Scolding QC’s questioning of Carey, transcript, 24 July 2018, pages 37/21 to 38/4. As IICSA record in their report of May 2019, Lord Carey found the revelation “deeply disturbing” and “appalling.” (Report, page 122, para 68.) As he said in evidence (transcript, 24 July 2018, pages 46/24 to 47/20): “I find this deeply disturbing. I didn’t know this was going on, so very clearly the secretary was influencing the mind of the Prime Minister and going beyond his responsibilities. I find this quite appalling. I didn’t know it was going on at the time… What should have happened, the Prime minister should have seen me to go over this letter and then a decision should have been made, and this happened several times with respect to Tony Blair… “ (Catford retired in 1993)
One wonders what Sir John Major thoughts about the episode are now, albeit with the benefit of hindsight and what subsequently became known publicly about Peter Ball.
Thank you, Steve, well said. I’m troubled by the tendency to pin all the blame on a few figureheads, which in my view is unfair. the reality was more complicated than that.
‘ I cannot fathom why Ms Scorer made comparatively little of Kemp’s role and management of the diocese during the hearings.’ Froghole, do you mean ‘Mr. Scorer’ or ‘Ms. Scolding’?
Sorry: yes, I meant Ms Scolding – the lead counsel for IICSA. Apologies for that, and I should add that her task has been so momentous, running across so many fields, that the least the authorities can do is to offer her a place on the High Court bench after IICSA winds up.
I feel I am probably maligning Kemp to a degree. I am sure that he had his virtues in many way: he was obviously a thoughtful and intelligent man; he was also a distinguished scholar (to win the Alexander prize of the Royal Historical Society as a young scholar is no mean feat: for ‘Alexander III and the Canonization of Saints’) – ‘Canonization and Authority in the Western Church’ (1948) is still worth reading. He was fellow of Exeter College for over twenty years, and was close to N. P. Williams, whose memoir he wrote. Absent Rowan Williams and Tom Wright, he was the last bona fide DD on the diocesan bench. Had he not left Oxford for the Worcester deanery in 1969 he might have been in with a shout for the ecclesiastical history chair after Stanley Greenslade retired in 1972 (though, frankly, John McManners was always going to be the more likely candidate; perhaps Kemp realised that).
However, I cannot help but compare Kemp’s attitude to Ball and other abusers in Sussex with his treatment of Anthony Freeman, whom Kemp forced out of Staplefield in 1994. Freeman, as you may recall, published a book promoting a form of Christian ‘humanism’, in a tradition of Christian (or post-Christian) literature which had been evolving since the 1830s: https://philosophynow.org/issues/12/The_Real_God_A_Response_to_Anthony_Freemans_God_in_Us. He therefore lost his livelihood for a perceived ‘thought crime’. Some of his colleagues, evidently, kept their jobs despite having committed actual crimes. Had Kemp obtained the regius chair of ecclesiastical history at Christ Church he would have had a colleague in Maurice Wiles, whose views were not too far distant from those of Freeman.
Quite apart from the various disciplinary and reputational issues, there was also a palpable sense of drift in the diocese in the 1990s, which overshadowed Hind’s tenure; not enough attempts were made to initiate pastoral reorganisation, meaning that finances became very stretched in the 2000s.
Sorry – one last observation. I understand why Kemp initiated the area scheme for the diocese. Schemes of that nature were in vogue in the 1970s and 1980s, and he will have seen its relative success in the London diocese. Chichester, like London, was strongly bifurcated between two extreme parties, A-Cs and evangelicals; in both dioceses an area scheme could allow the anxieties of each party to be accommodated and allayed.
In addition, before the widening of the A27 between South Lancing and Lewes it would be very difficult to get from one end of the diocese (Chichester) to the other or, indeed, to the diocesan offices at Hove. Indeed, it still is difficult around Arundel (where the 16th and 17th dukes of Norfolk blocked it being bridged across the Arun), Durrington, Broadwater and Sompting where the jams are often interminable. Then, even when you get to Eastbourne, it still takes a long time to get past Hastings to Rye and Camber. Indeed, it takes me about the same time to get from the place where I live (between Tunbridge Wells and East Grinstead) to, say, Lincoln or Cardiff or Stafford or Exeter, than it would take for me to get from Westbourne to East Guldeford. The topography of Sussex, and ancient settlement patterns, also mean that getting from north to south in that county is much easier than going from east to west, as any bishop of Chichester needs to do. The medieval bishops of Chichester at least had a manor at Bexhill (they also had residences between the Witterings on Manhood, at Amberley, near Kirdford, whilst Caroline bishops like Brian Duppa and Henry King also held the see in commendam with the vicarage of Petworth where they would pass some time).
So, from a logistical perspective, the area scheme made sense. Kemp was already 69 when it was formalised. They key to its success was in appointing dynamic people of good character to Horsham and Lewes. Kemp probably thought he was doing just that by giving Lewes to Ball. No doubt, like many others, he eventually had cause to rue having put his trust in Ball (though I do not recall him giving any hint of that in his autobiography, ‘Shy But Not Retiring’ (2006) [the title taken from a remark made by a famous Oxford colleague, Claude Jenkins, who refused to retire]; unfortunately, I do not have that book to hand to check).
He did not rue it – his comment was that people did not realise the extent to which the allegations were the work of mischief makers.
This is fascinating, Stephen, if that is the right word, because we really need to understand better what creates abusers and what allows them to abuse ‘in plain sight’ as well as in secrecy. And why the 80% (actually probably more like 60%) remain silent or blind witnesses.
I think the charisma of abusers is a v important thing to understand. 3 of my abusers, including my father who was a senior local government officer, and both the clerics, were powerful and charismatic people. It’s important to survivors to recognise how this makes the grooming so easy and how it contributes to the imbalance of power and makes it harder for us to communicate our non-consent. Perhaps it helps others to understand better why we often remain in abusive relationships, and why we end up thinking it was our fault. He’s such a good priest, such a charismatic person, it must be something wrong with me.
Indeed some like Ball reinforce this and offer the abuse as the ‘fix’. It helps me to reflect on how if the 60% are easily misled, how much harder for me to resist my abusers, especially when they also have the authority of God behind them.
Steve your point about support and a cuppa is spot on. Going through reporting at the moment, and even when doing therapy, its like mourning. There’s all this distress and confusion and desperation to be heard. Therapy is only 1 hour a week and I carry the distress every waking hour of every day. Safe friends who can offer a cuppa and a listening ear are a life saver
Indeed. I am so angry with those who never said, “Sit down love, and I’ll put the kettle on”.
Thank you everyone for the useful comments and information. Froghole has been telling us things that are not in the public domain. I completely agree over the comments about Eric Kemp. He should have stayed in Oxford. Colin Buchanan’s CT letter also fill out my comments and speculation about Margaret T. I have been fascinated by the corrupting effect of charisma for some years now. It renders people docile and ripe for sexual exploitation as well as the possibility of coming under influence for political and religious purposes. We definitely need to understand it better but there is little evidence of such understanding among our church leaders at present.
Stephen, can you give a summary of Colin Buchanan’s letter for the benefit of those of us who don’t subscribe to the Church Times?
From the Rt Revd Dr Colin Buchanan
Sir, — Your editorial (17 January) commented appropriately upon what the BBC documentary Exposed: The Church’s darkest secret had unearthed about the double life of Bishop Peter Ball and some other Chichester clergy in the 1980s. The documentary, however, had omitted a major element in the story which the Gibb report had also ignored and the independent investigation had addressed only in part. As you, too, did not mention what Exposed had omitted, I raise now the crucial question how Peter Ball ever became Bishop of Gloucester in 1992.
There were at least rumours of Ball’s activities around in Sussex from early in the 1980s, and the diocesan bishop, Eric Kemp, was aware of them. Yet, when the Crown Appointments Commission in late 1991 considered candidates for the Gloucester see, they must have had before them impeccable references for Peter Ball for him to be considered at all, let alone to be placed second in the names the Commission submitted to the Prime Minister. So, what had Kemp written about his suffragan? If he had written a very qualified reference, then its arrival before the Commission as wholly commendatory must be attributed to the editorial role exercised in those days by the Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary, Robin Catford.
There is earlier evidence of Catford’s personal attempts to get the Commission to appoint Peter Ball to other dioceses: Bishop David Stancliffe testifies that the Portsmouth diocesan representatives on the Commission in 1984 were asked by Catford to nominate Ball, and they told him that in Portsmouth they knew too much about goings-on in Sussex to contemplate considering Ball; and the Gibb report itself tells a similar story in relation to the Norwich vacancy in 1985: Catford proposed and the diocesan representatives, because of what they had heard about Ball, disposed.
It seems, however, that in 1991, Catford not only found members of the Commission to nominate Ball, but also then provided the glowing references and, as it is natural to infer, subtly steered them to naming Ball as second behind their chosen number one. For Catford’s purposes, Ball’s being second would well serve as the path to becoming Bishop of Gloucester.
This reconstruction is fully vindicated by what happened next, a manipulation which the Independent Investigation did demonstrate with firsthand evidence. In §§65-66 they record how Catford unscrupulously pulled the wool over John Major’s eyes and persuaded the Prime Minister to recommend Ball to the Queen. And thus Ball entered senior public office with both unqualified written references and Downing Street’s public certificate of total integrity.
So, yes, the Church of England had a rotten apple (and should not cover that up), but the State grievously thrust it further into the barrel, and gave it more opportunity to corrupt those it touched.
COLIN BUCHANAN
Thank you Rowland, that’s very interesting, and Stephen’s blog makes more sense with that background.
Fascinating.
Why was Catford so keen to get Ball appointed, I wonder?
And yes, having worked in a Diocesan role, I learnt to always look for the power behind the throne. Yes Minister had it about right.
It was reported to IICSA that the Norwich panel felt Norwich would not have coped with all the young men living with him.
Catford was an Establishment evangelical. He didnt like liberal theology, and as he put it in his advice to Major believed Glou needed a change from Bishop John Yates open and questioning approach . I remember meeting Cheslyn Jones Prin of Pusey House the day Ball was announced as +Lewes…”What does Eric Kemp think he’s doing “he said ( 3x in his inimitable way!) I heard elsewhere that Ball was jealous his twin bro had got a diocese before him and that no doubt made him lobby more. Im not sure why their religious order was taken so seriously..it was a very small affair. I served on the ctte in 1985 that Ball chaired thinking about a revision of the Revised Catechism. I sensed he had v clear ideas about what he thought was needed and steered accordingly. I actually found his manner and spirituality a bit creepy tbh, as did an archdeacon on the cttee too.