A FORMER Church in Wales bishop is alleged to have admitted sexually assaulting a teenage boy, according to a document seen by the BBC.
Anthony Pierce – who was jailed earlier this year for historic sexual abuse of another child – is said to have confessed to what the report’s author described as a “criminal offence” committed while he was serving as a parish priest.
The handwritten, 25-page report was completed in February 1999, just two months before Pierce was appointed Bishop of Swansea and Brecon. Although Pierce had asked a “friend” to write it, the Church in Wales kept the document for 11 years before passing it to police.
The report states the assault took place in 1990 and says Pierce, now 84, felt “intensely guilty” and “could not escape the reality that he was an adult” while the victim was a child. “He was frightened of his own shame being made public, and of losing his ministry,” it reads.
The boy at the centre of the allegation – referred to as Dean to protect his identity – had attended Pierce’s former parish near Swansea. Dean, who has since died, was 15 at the time. The report depicts him as “mercurial” and “very attractive”, and suggests Pierce, then in his late forties, was “naive” and “had no defence” against him.
Lawyers acting for Dean’s mother described the report as a “character assassination”, criticising its focus on Dean’s childhood, behaviour and sexuality. They argue the document appears designed to protect Pierce and undermine the credibility of the complaint.
Dean’s mother reported the allegation twice to the church. Her first complaint was made in 1993 to the then Bishop of Swansea and Brecon, the Rt Rev Dewi Bridges. According to the document, Pierce admitted the “criminal act” to its author following this initial disclosure. She raised the matter again in January 1999, one month before the report was written and three months before Pierce succeeded Bishop Bridges.
Despite these warnings, the allegation was not referred to police until 2010 – two years after Pierce retired as bishop following nine years in office. The Church in Wales said it referred the matter again in 2016, when it provided documents, including the report, to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. By that time Dean had died.
A previous BBC investigation revealed that concerns about Pierce had reached senior clergy as early as the mid-1980s. The church has said it could find no evidence that he was disciplined.
Dean’s family say the handling of the case has caused them “immense distress”. David Greenwood, a solicitor specialising in child abuse claims, said: “It’s designed to put anyone investigating the case off giving Dean’s account any credibility. It’s brought up this new revelation that someone was trying to cover it up.”
The BBC understands the report was created so it could be shown to a senior cleric, although it remains unclear who, if anyone, acted on its contents. Correspondence seen by the BBC shows a church employee later writing: “It should never have been written from what is clearly highly confidential information and certainly should not have formed part of any decision-making process.”
The report suggests Pierce was “naive and inexperienced in coping with anybody who treated him in this way”, describing him as “confused and mesmerised”. It continues: “I am not condoning what Pierce did but trying to see how it happened. I do not think for a moment that Dean was being malicious. He was just being himself and exploring life and his own sexuality.”
It also claims Pierce had “maintained an invisible barrier around himself… and Dean effectively crashed straight through that barrier”.
The Church in Wales said the document now forms an “important part” of its review into how the allegation was handled, with the findings expected to be published in the new year.
The BBC wrote to Pierce in prison, but he declined to comment. Earlier this year he was sentenced to four years and one month after admitting five counts of indecent assault against another child between 1985 and 1990.
A Church in Wales spokesperson said: “The letter was written by a friend of Anthony Pierce and was not commissioned by the church. It forms an important part of the evidence of the review, where it is dealt with in a thorough and detailed manner, and where the other questions that have been asked will be answered with full context.”
