‘There needs to be a public investigation – Justin Welby should be made an example of’

When he was 15 years old, Craig Freedman was caught stealing from the collection box at his local church.

Rather than report him to the police, John Roberts, the priest at the church, asked him to odd jobs at the vicarage as a form of recompense.

But what began as a simple way to pay back what he stole turned into a living nightmare – one that has haunted him for decades.

Craig, 51, is one of four survivors who were sexually abused by Roberts at St Peter’s Church in Woolton, Liverpool.

While Roberts was later convicted of indecent assault following his actions towards Craig, he was allowed to continue practicing and rose through the ranks of the Church of England.

During his tenure as Dean of Liverpool from 2007 to 2011, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, allowed Roberts to continue officiating despite knowing about the historical conviction.

Craig, who has waived his right to anonymity, is now calling for an independent investigation into the former Archbishop – and says the Church of England’s safeguarding process is not fit for purpose.

‘The church put me down, slandered me, and my whole family who adopted me as a child disowned me, never believed me, and to this day they still don’t believe me,’ he told Metro.

‘The church is now trying to allow Welby to sneakily retire. He is a disgrace.’

Craig had been going to the church with his foster family for years as a child before the assault.

It’s known as The Beatles Church as it’s where John Lennon and Paul McCartney met in the 1950s, and inspired them to write classic song Eleanor Rigby after seeing the name on a headstone in its graveyard.

Following Craig’s theft in 1987, Roberts began paying attention to him. But the attention soon turned to sexual grooming, and Roberts began bribing him with gifts.

Two years later, when Craig was 17, Roberts was arrested and charged with indecent assault. Following a trial at Liverpool magistrates court in 1989, Roberts was fined £500 and placed on the sex offenders register, but kept his position within the Church of England.

Following the conviction, the then-Archbishop of Liverpool David Sheppard called Roberts’ conviction a ‘miscarriage of justice’ and described Craig as a ‘liar’.

It destroyed his reputation and ruined his relationship with his adoptive family – something that has never recovered, Craig said.

‘All David Sheppard could rant on about was “It was a miscarriage of justice, this boy is a liar” and it was all about Mr Roberts, not about the fact a 15-year-old had put up with all of this.

‘It’s like the church is saying, “You can commit as many heinous crimes as you like, but once you’re over the threshold of the church you’re safe, and you can carry on committing these crimes.”‘

Following his conviction, Roberts was made a Canon of Liverpool Cathedral in 1995, which Craig said gave him more ‘protection’ and authority.

‘I, as a victim of Mr Roberts and the church’s hands, I’ve done everything I possibly can as a victim to be heard again,’ Craig, a dad of three, said.

‘I couldn’t believe that they knew Mr Roberts had had a conviction but they put him in the cathedral and made him a canon.

‘How come these people are in such high positions and they’re the ones doing heinous crimes? He’d been given free run to abuse people.’

Roberts is currently in prison serving a 12-year sentence after being convicted for abusing three other victims, two children and one adult.

Now aged 89, the disgraced vicar was convicted of 10 counts of historic indecent and sexual assault in 2020 against two victims and jailed for nine years.

Following the publicity from that trial, another victim came forward and Roberts was found guilty of five more historic indecent assault charges in June 2024.

He was sentenced to four years in prison, three of which were added on to his original sentence.

During the Roberts trial in 2020, Welby appeared as a prosecution witness and apologised for his handling of a complaint made against Roberts by one of his other victims. He says he did not know the full extent of Roberts’ previous conviction at the time.

A spokesperson for Welby told Metro he ‘regrets’ the handling of that specific complaint.

But Craig wants a full, independent investigation into what Welby and Sheppard – who died in 2005 – knew about Roberts.

Lambeth Palace told Metro ‘at no stage’ did Welby conceal information.

In November, Welby resigned following the release of the John Smyth report, which found Smyth, considered the most prolific serial abuser associated with the church, had abused more than 100 children and young men.

The report added that Smyth could have been brought to justice if Welby had acted sooner.

Last week, Welby served his last day as Archbishop of Canterbury, a role he had held since 2013.

In 2022, an Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), investigated several institutions including the Church of England in relation to child sex abuse.

The Roberts case was barely mentioned due to his ongoing trial at the time the IICSA report was being written – so Craig wants another inquiry focusing solely on the Church of England in Liverpool.

He has concerns that any probes run by the Church themselves could mean other cases are swept under the rug and victims will not get the justice they deserve.

He said: ‘An independent body needs to step in and take over control, because you can’t have perpetrators checking themselves out, that’s the deception in it all.

‘Us victims, who have come forward and gone through atrocities, need to be heard and listened to.

‘There needs to be a public investigation into Welby and after that I would like him made an example of.

‘The church needs to stand up and make a big impact to prove their worth, not just to victims but to everybody.’

Craig’s wife Gemma, a vital support for her husband, agrees. She asked: ‘At what stage will the church commission a report that actually has somebody who can answer for these issues?

‘Roberts can speak for himself, Welby can speak for himself, why are they not facing some sort of judicial review or investigation?

‘The church has to take some sort of responsibility for leaving Roberts there. He created direct harm to innocent people, and they’re complicit in that.’

A spokesman for the Diocese of Liverpool told Metro they ‘salute the bravery’ of Craig and Roberts’ other victims for coming forward.

The spokesman said: ‘We regret that in 1989 Bishop David Sheppard publicly declared support for Mr Roberts, declaring him to have suffered a miscarriage of justice.

‘We also regret that this was not appropriately challenged at the time as it set a tone for future interactions.

‘We also understand the deep hurt that survivors felt on seeing that Mr Roberts was given the title Canon in 1995, as we recognise that this gave the appearance of a promotion and a status in the church.

‘We made several attempts to manage Mr Roberts’ behaviour and restrict his contact particularly with children. This led to Mr Roberts being told to step down from his cathedral ministry in 2014.

‘The then-Bishop of Liverpool, Bishop Paul Bayes, withdrew permission to officiate in 2015.

‘He was prevented from conducting funerals, and required to report all conversations in the cathedral in a monthly report as part of a safeguarding agreement.’

The Diocese of Liverpool said the Roberts case has been ‘subject to a number of reviews and scrutiny’ but would ‘fully cooperate’ if any further investigation was launched.

In response to Craig’s calls for an independent safeguarding team for the Church of England, they said the church would ‘welcome systems that support a robust approach to safeguarding’ and would be happy for its practices to be ‘robustly and independently scrutinised’.

The Diocese also admitted to making ‘mistakes’ in past attempts to manage Roberts, saying: ‘We understand Craig’s concerns about how allegations of abuse are dealt with.

‘However, it was our internal investigations that brought forward two more victims of Mr Roberts who until we disclosed were unknown to the police.

‘This action strengthened the second trial at which Mr Roberts was convicted and imprisoned.

‘We have carried out internal reviews and recognised organisational deficiencies and a failure in the past to challenge those in senior positions and enable Mr Roberts to continue the appearance of a successful ministry.

‘We understand that cases like this reduce the trust of survivors like Craig and in the past, we did not do enough to place survivors first.

‘We are addressing this and encourage anyone who has suffered abuse to report their allegations.’

Lambeth Palace, the office for the Archbishop of Canterbury, described the assaults carried out by Roberts as an ‘appalling breach of trust’ and says the church must ‘always be accountable and learn lessons’ from its handling of these cases.

In a statement it told Metro: ‘The Archbishop has publicly apologised to survivors of abuse at the Church’s IICSA hearing – and he repeated this apology at the trial of John Roberts.At no stage did he conceal information. 

‘Following the conviction of John Roberts in December 2020, the National Safeguarding Team looked into the actions of Justin Welby relating to this case, when he was Dean of Liverpool.

‘After considering all relevant information – including evidence given by the Archbishop at both the Church’s IICSA hearing and John Roberts’ trial – it was concluded that the matter was referred on to the relevant authorities and therefore no further action was considered necessary.

‘Justin Welby fully cooperated with the National Safeguarding Team during this process, as well as the police investigation.’

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