Until last autumn George Bell was a widely respected figure within the Church of England. The former Bishop of Chichester - the diocese covering East and West Sussex - was best remembered for his work to help refugees fleeing Hitler's Germany. He had an Anglican Holy Day - 3 October - named after him.
But on 22 October last year the Church revealed it had made a payment to someone who had made a complaint against Bell. The current Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, had made a formal apology for allegations, dating from the late 1940s and early 1950s, of "sexual offences against an individual who was at the time a young child".
The Church said it had carried out a "thorough" investigation, including the use of "expert independent reports". "None of those reports," it added, "found any reason to doubt the veracity of the claim."
The statement shocked the Anglican world. One newspaper headline went further than the Church, saying: "Revered Bishop George Bell was a paedophile." Another's read: "Church of England bishop George Bell abused young child."
Within a week of the Church's statement on Bell, Vickery House, the former vicar of Berwick, East Sussex, was convicted of five counts of indecent assault on males - one as young as 14 - over a period of 16 years.
Two weeks before the statement was released, 83-year-old Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes, in East Sussex, was sentenced to 32 months in jail for misconduct in public office and 15 months for indecent assaults, to run concurrently. He admitted offences against 18 teenagers and young men in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
In 2013, Keith Wilkie Denford was jailed for 18 months for indecently assaulting two teenage boys between 1987 and 1990, while vicar at St John the Evangelist Church in Burgess Hill, West Sussex.
There's been a wide drive to uncover historical child abuse. But, while many crimes have been solved, some commentators argue that a "witch-hunt" atmospherehas developed and some prominent people are having their reputations unfairly besmirched.
Telegraph columnist Dan Hodges has suggested there is a "moral panic" over supposed "establishment paedophiles". Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens has demanded that the authorities and the media respect the "long-established rule that allegations are not treated as proven facts".
The woman who made the complaint against Bell first reported the alleged abuse in 1995, but was not satisfied by the Diocese of Chichester's response. She reported it again, directly to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in 2013, saying she had been inspired by the victims of Jimmy Savile coming forward. This set in train the investigation which led to the payment of about £15,000 and the apology.
In February this year, the woman - now in her early 70s - gave an interview to the Brighton Evening Argus, recounting harrowing memories of abuse by Bell from the ages of five to nine. She said that, while she stayed with a relative who worked at Chichester Cathedral, Bell had taken her to a private room and assaulted her. "He said it was our little secret, because God loved me," she told the paper, adding that she had suffered "nerve problems" and depression in the decades since.
Since the Church's statement, a house named after Bell at Chichester's Bishop Luffa School has been renamed, while Bishop Bell School in Eastbourne is to become St Catherine's later this year. George Bell House, a residential and meeting centre in Chichester, has changed its name, at least until a permanent decision on its future is reached, while the future of the memorial to Bell inside the cathedral has come under discussion.
But others have defended Bell. The George Bell Group, whose members include Labour MP Frank Field and former judge Alan Pardoe, has heavily criticised the Church for the way it carried out its investigation.
It describes it as "quite inadequate as a basis for assessing the probability of Bishop Bell's guilt", arguing that "little or no respect seems to have been paid to the unheard interests of Bishop Bell or his surviving family - a serious breach of natural justice".
One of the group's leading members, the historian Andrew Chandler, completed a biography of Bell shortly before the Church made its apology. He was not consulted for the investigation and there was no cross-referencing of the allegations with Bell's diaries, he says.
"People who felt they knew something about George Bell were incredulous when the statement came out," Chandler says.
Lawyers for the alleged abuse victim, who left Chichester as a nine-year-old, have told the BBC she no longer wants to talk to the media or for anyone else to make statements on her behalf
This post was written by: Raymond Jack
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