A former Church in Wales priest has called on the Welsh parliament (Senedd) to hold an independent inquiry into the church’s safeguarding.
Rev Graham Sawyer was speaking after further abuse allegations emerged against the former bishop of Swansea and Brecon, Anthony Pierce who is currently serving a four year jail sentence after pleading guilty to five counts of indecent assault on a child under the age of 16 in the 1980s. Several men have now told the BBC that Pierce also acted in sexually inappropriate ways with them.
The BBC has also spoken to a woman who claimed that she was sexually assaulted by David Gedge, a choirmaster at Brecon Cathedral when she was 17 in 2001. Pierce was bishop at the time and had oversight of safeguarding. The woman reported the alleged abuse two years later, but no action against Gedge was taken and he died in 2016.
Rev Sawyer was working in Pontypool in 2002, when he raised concerns about inappropriate touching by Darren Jenkins who was a youth leader and lay reader, but he said: “I was told that I should be very careful or I'd end up in court."
He said he went to the police after he became concerned about the lack of action by the Church in Wales and emigrated to Australia. Jenkins was jailed in 2006 for raping a 16-year-old boy five times.
Police are examining the new allegations about Pierce and it’s emerged they are also looking at the case of a ‘former vicar’ in the Church in Wales.
Rev Graham, who moved to Ireland in 2018, said cases like Pierce's show "the culture has not changed".
The Church in Wales, which has been subject to two independent safeguarding reports - the Historic Cases Review in 2009 and the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) which started in 2014, said it was ‘profoundly sorry’ and apologised to ‘anyone who has suffered or been let down by failings’
Last month the Archbishop of Wales Andrew John resigned after a safeguarding review revealed 'blurred sexual boundaries', safeguarding weaknesses and excessive alcohol consumption at Bangor Cathedral. While there is no suggestion the archbishop behaved inappropriately, the church's representative body said there must be a 'change in leadership, procedures and governance in the Diocese of Bangor'.