13/02/2012 Inside Out South East

Coming up on Inside Out. The Church of England sex abuse scandal the

Eastbourne brothers fight for justice. I felt completely

responsible. I've killed as if I could have prevented this and I

have not done so. How a newlydiscovered wartime letter

tells the tragic tale of a forgotten hero from Southborough.

Not to know that this big event happen than by a family were

involved, it is strange that a big thing like that can just miss you,

entirely. And where has all our water gone. Is there really a

drought in the middle of winter? This was a vase should be full at

this time of year, but it is not. We should be four metres

underwater? We should be completely submerged. I'm Natalie Graham with

untold stories, closer to home. From in and around Kent and Sussex,

Hello, tonight we're at Salomon's House in Southborough. I'll be back

here later with an extraordinary story about the family's role in

the First World War. But first, for over a year, BBC South East has

been investigating Anglican paedophile priests who abused

children. It's prompted, for the first time in over 100 years, an

inquiry ordered by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But at the very

heart of this story are the victims, as Colin Campbell reports. This is

a story about predatory paedophile priests and the damage they cause.

It did start when I was just nine or ten but continued for the best

part of a decade. Victims who've been left fighting for truth and

justice. There was no one to turn to, no one that would believe me.

And abject failings within the Anglican Church which have left

children vulnerable to sexual abuse. We're deeply and profoundly sorry

for what happened and really ashamed on behalf of the church

community. And this is where the story begins. Eastbourne. As a

child Phil Johnson was groomed then seriously sexually abused by a

priest. It started when he was a nine year old choirboy and church

server. His abuser Father Roy Cotton was at the time a revered,

trusted Anglican priest. But it was a deceptive veneer. Cotton was a

prolific serial paedophile - with a frightening ability to silence his

victims. It was prolonged it went on for years and years and was

regular, systematic and became completely routine in the most

horrible sort of way you could imagine. So how, did this happen?

Cotton was manipulative and highly intelligent. He was ordained in

spite of having a previous conviction for abusing a choirboy.

It was a green light for a community priest, an opportunity

for him to satisfy his lust for boys. And this set the scene for a

culture of collusive sexual abuse minded individuals that pervaded

this seaside town in the 70's, 80's and 90's. He managed to put himself

in a position where nobody questioned his motives. As it turns

have come forward I find it almost incomprehensible how he managed to

do this. At least twelve men abused as boys have now revealed they were

targeted and abused by Cotton. was scared, I was very scared, I

was a big part of me that wanted to run away but I felt trapped" Many

like Simon were lured then sexually assaulted inside the vicarage. It's

had an enormous impact on my life. I had quite a difficult childhood.

I've self harmed over the years or in my younger years I should say.

It's something that you just don't get out of your mind it's a bit

like losing somebody it may soften over time but it never ever ever

goes away. Convicted of abusing boys in 2008 this priest, Rev Colin

Pritchard knew exactly what Cotton was up to. The pair who'd been

friends for years had swapped victims. Cotton also regularly took

boys on his own to France where he visited a Catholic priest, who took

indecent photographs of the children. I can't believe that

firstly that it was allowed to happen and that nobody seemed to

question it. It just shouldn't be allowed for anybody really to take

unrelated children away one on one to share hotel rooms. The man in

charge, the area Bishop at the time was Bishop Peter Ball. Later, in

1993 he was forced to resign in disgrace after accepting a police

caution for gross indecency against a 17 year old trainee monk.

have the vicar, clearly was an abuser with a previous conviction.

You had his best friend who was subsequently convicted of abusing

of boys. You have a Bishop who accepted a police caution for acts

of abuse and you have other associates. We've discovered Cotton

took teenage boys to see Bishop Peter Ball in the 1980s. Bishop

Peter put young men, some in their teens who'd stayed with him at his

residential retreat in Litlington, under the care of Cotton in

Eastbourne. But Bishop Peter Ball denies there was any collusion. In

a statement he told us he saw as much of Roy Cotton as he did any

other priest. He says he certainly did not know of any abuse. He told

us the police had inspected his files at Lambeth Palace but had not

found any legal offence. In an interview conducted last year, the

Bishop of Chichester the right reverend John Hind declined to

comment on Peter Ball. Do you believe Bishop Peter Ball turned a

blind eye to what was going on? don't think i'm willing to talk

about someone from the past like that I think that it would be

inappropriate for me to go into that. Adding to Phil's torment was

the shattering discovery that his younger brother had also been

targetted by Cotton. An angelic looking choirboy, Gary Johnson kept

the abuse he'd endured a closely guarded secret. I just directly

asked him the question, and asked him if anything had happened to him

with Roy Cotton. And how did you respond to that? I just froze I can

remember not moving and not breathing and not doing anything. I

didn't even look round we were actually adjacent to each other and

so my back was to him when he spoke to me and I didn't look round or

anything I just froze and obviously he knew what that meant, and I

couldn't tell you how long that lasted it could have been 5 mins or

an hour but from that point on it was kind of like I was rumbled you

know this had been my deepest darkest secret I'd never breathed

it to anybody and that point my whole life had to change. I just

felt completely responsible - I felt as though you know I could

have prevented this from happening to him and hadn't done so. Together

Phil and Gary sought justice. But two years after going to the police

the Crown Prosecution Service said there weren't enough independent

witnesses. Obviously I felt immensely let down and depressed

and thought that was the end of it. I thought all that effort and grief

and heartache had been for nothing. Despite this major setback, 15

years later the brothers chose to fight for justice through the civil

courts. To gain compensation from the church both were repeatedly

evaluated by psychiatrists who assessed the damage caused by the

abuse. A process that often retraumatises victims. During this

assessment back in 2010 Phil accompanied his younger brother to

give him moral support. How did it go? Horrible. Do you want to go

somewhere and get a drink? Yeah, what time have we got to be at the

station? Half past two, we've got Right, let's go somewhere. Gary and

Phil eventually received a compensation payout from the church.

More importantly, they say, the settlement included a formal

apology accepting mistakes that led to their abuse. Being abused is bad

enough by a person in such a position means I don't trust

doctors, I don't trust the police I don't trust anyone in a position of

authority I don't trust men. Can you imagine going through life not

trusting all those categories of people? The sexual abuse in this

case which spans 60 years is extensive and disturbing. But just,

if not more worrying are the failings within the Church of

England and growing suspicions of a cover-up. Roy Cotton's career file,

spanning 27 years, likely to have contained details implicating

church hierarchy, appears to have simply vanished as if it never

existed. We've learnt that elsewhere in Sussex one senior

member of clergy is suspected to have instructed the burning of

potentially incriminating files. Following our investigations the

Archbishop of Canterbury has for the first time in over 100 years

launched an inquiry into the safeguarding practices in the

Diocese of Chichester. The Bishop of Chichester who retires in two

months, has welcomed the investigation. I think there's been

an instinct which I think is quite a good Christian instinct which is

to think the best of someone until you know the worst. I think in

safeguarding terms that's actually a very dangerous policy. And I

think one of the things we've learnt is that anybody may be an

abuser. I think the failings have been profound and devastating to a

lot of people. I don't think that the Bishops and senior clergy

understand at all just how big the impact this has on people's lives.

Cheating his many victims of justice, Roy Cotton died in 2006.

His ashes are marked by a headstone in St George's church graveyard in

the village of Brede. The parish he went to after Eastbourne. Locals

requested it be removed. Church officials recently planted a nine

pound holly bush in front of it in an attempt to cover it up. It's

been such a long slog, such an uphill battle I don't understand

why a body supposed to represent everything that's just and true and

right can't just put their hands up and be open and honest and share

the truth with people however embarrassing that might be for

Tragically, his story is not an isolated one. It is merely

representative of something that leaves many unanswered questions

which we will be pursuing in the months to come. If you have been

affected by any of the issues, you Are we heading for a drought? Are

feeling back from October 2010 to October 2011, this is the driest

Now we live in a world where a captain who deserts a sinking ship

is more likely to be remembered than a captain he does his duty.

Maybe this is time to tell the forgotten story of HMS Hythe and if

heroic final act of one man from Almost 100 years ago, this house

just outside Tunbridge Wells received a letter. It was addressed

to this man and it told how his son, known as Reggie, had died. The

story of red tape and a 127 local men who died with him began to fade

into history as the letter was lost. One century on and the house is

part of Canterbury Christ Church University. Today, I am seeing one

room which has changed very little since Reggie's day. There is a

corner office still devoted to his memory. And this is his Royal

engineers uniform? Yes, they would all have been issued with these.

His body was never recovered. Presumably, one of the outfit went

that way. He went on 28th October, 1915, at the end of Britain's

disastrous campaign in Gallipoli. The decision to pull out was one

day too late for HMS Hythe. More than 100 men to run. -- were more

than 100 men drowned. For his father back here, it was not just

his son he lost, but his regiment as well. They must have hit him

very hard? It must have been terrible. It was a terrible tragedy.

Yes, it was a tragedy for the entire area but here, it must have

been felt keenly as well. To commemorate the terrible loss of so

many local men, Sir David had a plaque made. It is mounted on a

wall here at St Matthew's Church. The lives of each of the men named

on the plaque are being researched by local authority -- a local

author. The men were very young. There is one road, Silverdale Road,

where a great many of them came from abroad and died. A local

postman had to deliver to every house when someone had died and

halfway down the road, he abandoned his task because it was so

distressing for him to hear the cries and weeping of the women who

were opening their letters. They were hearing that their sons or

husbands are brothers, or whatever, had died. This historian recently

began to look into the sinking of the HMS Hythe, but there is not a

lot of material. This is the only surviving photograph of the HMS

Hythe. This was in its pre-war days as a cross-Channel ferry. It was

preparing to land its troops on the rocky headland at Gallipoli. They

were preparing to go on show to take part in the ongoing campaign,

and in the darkness of the night, there were no lights on the ship or

the other ship that ran into them. It almost cut HMS Hythe into and

the ship sank within 10 minutes. The foremast apparently came down

on to an awning on the deck. Most men became trapped under this

awning. Others were thrown into the sea, couldn't swim, and have

lifejackets. A few lucky men managed to get from HMS Hythe to

another ship, which was locked into HMS Hythe. After that, the two

ships separated and will be if you manage to get across. The details

of those final moments were written down soon after by the commanding

officer and said in a letter. The letter, after a hundred years, has

turned up in a shop in Hastings. A look at the name on the front and

the name rang a bell. I suddenly thought, there's a place of that

name in Tunbridge Wells. I discovered this does -- this

astonishing story. The contents are quite moving and it is very

historic. And the letter, it tells how his son, Reggie, had the chance

to jump to the safety of the other ship but that he chose not to. He

gave his life attempting to save as many of the men as he could. You

will sometimes sense have learnt of the death of your son. You will be

anxious to hear how it occurred. At anxious to hear how it occurred. At

the beginning, the two vessels clung to each other for a few

minutes and about 50 men and a few officers scrambled across onto the

other at best will. -- onto the other ship. He did not go himself

because I am sure he wanted to see He was seen giving his lifejacket

and other men who -- to another man who could not swim. He was known to

be very fond of his men. They were all men who knew him. This tragic

loss hit the community heart. In just that one night, 99 children in

May there were left without fathers. This is the family cottage. -- thus

the family copy of the local paper. There is a face to every men -- to

every name. The article that the company's the picture says that,

this couple are mourning the loss of two sons. Four members of the

final family were lost that night. Even their story was forgotten

until one of the descendants decided to search for information

about her family tree. I did not know that my family were so

involved in this. You do not think that something like that could just

miss you entirely. It is the strangest thing to look it up and

realise just what was going on. You wonder, why wouldn't you know? If I

had children, I would tell them all about it. I would hope they would

then pass that on to another generation. It has just not

happened. Despite the plaque in the Church, and even a street named

after HMS Hythe, it seems this tragedy was forgotten about in just

a few generations. There is a simple explanation for this. It was

catastrophic for those who lost their lives but unfortunately, the

scale involved, a couple of hundred poor souls involved, pales into

insignificance when you compare it to the rest of that campaign and

the totality of the First World War as a whole. Today, we here every

name of every soldier that is lost in Afghanistan. It is read out in

the House of Commons. But would not have been possible in the First

World War. They would have taken years to read out all those names.

A memorial is a fitting and proper way to honour those who have died

for their country, but after a while, names on stone cannot help

but become a little cold and impersonal. A handwritten letter,

discovered nearly 100 years later, brings it all vividly back to life.

You could read countless books on the Gallipoli campaign or on the

loss of HMS Hythe, but I do not think anything would bring you as

close to that event as this letter. This letter reminds us that history

is not just facts and figures, it is about people who deserve to be

remembered. That is why Andy is sending it back to the house where

Ask anyone about the hottest year they can remember and most people

will mention 1976, one of the driest years on record. This year,

we may have match that. As for clues to the impending water

shortage - the clues appeared in spring last year. At this massive

reservoir in Sussex, revels -- levels are at a record low. Are we

running out of water in the South East? Everyone remembers the

Of course, there was a flipside - and drought that almost emptied

what reservoirs and rivers, called he fires, triggered hosepipe bans

and saw standpipes appear across the south. More than 30 years on,

surely we should be more prepared for a drought. That could never

happen again, could it? The reservoir should be filler this

time of year, but it is not. The pumping station has been left high

and dry. In theory, we should be four metres underwater. Yes, we

should be completely submerged. He joined the water board in 1976. Is

this the worst it has ever been? Yes, it is very, very serious. The

reservoir just as 30% of the lottery should have and the area is

officially on drought alert. We would need to have above-average

rainfall from now through to early or mid- spring. Unless we get our

weather, things could be very different. We need to pull all the

stops out. Because of the severity of the shortage, the Environmental

Agency -- the Environment Agency must allow the reservoir to be

topped up by extracting water from near by streams and rivers. This

comes as a cost to wildlife and the environment. Are you surprised by

how low it is? I am surprised and alarmed by it. I am worried about

how it will affect the fish for anglers. Many streams and rivers

along the south coast are renowned breeding-ground for sea trout. The

water should be deep enough for them to lay their eggs upstream now.

It is not. On top of that, we have the issue of extraction. Do we have

to look again at how much we take out of the rivers? They have to

find other ways of finding water. Whether that be reservoirs or not,

I do not know. The think it is too easy for the water companies to up

-- to extract water. It is the easiest source for the water

companies. The pump it out the water and treated. Back in the

1990s, this river used to hit the headlines when it flooded in the

winter months. This is it today. Nothing is flowing because the

ground water levels are too low. It is these underground supply is that

water companies rely on, particularly in times of drought.

Here, the environment and -- the Environment Agency are monitoring

how low levels are. At levels are low, it means there could be

problems for extractors. River flows well below. It looks like it

is just over five and a half metres. That is just a couple of metres

lower than it should be. The Government has just recently

published a White Paper that calls for water companies to rely less on

taking suppliers from our rivers and look elsewhere. The extraction

regime was set out in the 1960s when we never used words like

climate change or resilience. We now have to be resilient and you

are going to start to see more of a flow of water from what a rich

areas to what a poor areas. It is called bulk trading. The most

important change we want to see us that we get prolonged rain. We will

have problems in the summer if we do not get that. The average person

to deal deuces were 450 litres of water each day. -- the average

person uses over 450 metres. As well as giving us a variety of

water-saving devices, they're hoping that installing meters will

encourage householders to cut back. We have to have enough water for

the environment and our customers. Population is increasing, demand

for water -- for water is increasing. You only pay for what

you use. I see a disaster coming. Nature does repair. We have to bear

that in mind. Major may well appear this, but it may be too late. --

If you want any more information on tonight's Shaw, you can visit our

Kent or Sussex website. You can also watch the whole show again on

Next week - it is a holiday rip-off. The online scam at trick hundred.

Complete devastation. Humiliating, as well. Taking your money with no

intention of letting you have a holiday. And on the trail of this