‘Sex abuse’ priest was horrified by allegations

A Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing schoolboys in the 1970s and 1980s told jurors today he was horrified by the allegations and went on the run to ‘bury his head in the sand’. Father Laurence Soper, 74, claimed he fled to Kosovo out of ‘stupidity and cowardice’ when police released him on police bail while investigating claims by former pupils at St Benedict’s in Ealing, west London. Soper, the former abbot of Ealing Abbey, told the Old Bailey:…