Alleged abuse victim rejects apology from Bishop of Winchester

The woman at the centre of an alleged abuse investigation, involving the Anglican Church in Jersey, has rejected a formal apology.

The Bishop of Winchester, Tim Dakin, has told ITV News he wrote to her to say sorry that 'investigating her case had caused her further distress.'

But today she has hit back, describing it as a "pretence of apology."

The allegation of abuse, involving a church warden, was investigated in 2013, and led to the temporary suspension of Jersey's Dean, Bob Key, over his handling of the case.

He has received his own apology from the Archbishop of Canterbury for the "stress, hurt and uncertainty" of the past three years.

An investigation into the specific alleged abuse incident, and a wider study of safeguarding in Jersey's church, are yet to be published.

A spokesman for the Bishop of Winchester said he'd been advised not to publish the first of those reports so as not to cause any further hurt to the alleged victim.

The saga led to a huge fall out between Jersey's Church and the Winchester Diocese.

As a result, Jersey is now managed, temporarily, by the Bishop of Dover, though ITV News understands the arrangement could last years, and possibly even decades.

In a written statement to ITV News, the alleged victim of abuse reiterated her objections to the way senior church figures have handled her complaint.