Ex-Bishop admits to sex shame past

Published on Monday 4 August 2008 10:56

A FORMER Bishop of Edinburgh has confessed his part in a sex assault on a woman more than 60 years ago.

As Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway was the most senior Anglican cleric in Scotland.

But in his new book, the 74-year-old retired churchman reveals how, as a schoolboy, he held down a lady while others ravished her.

"I've been wrestling with this for a number of years," said Holloway, who retired eight years ago.

Holloway was nine years old when he worked as a messenger boy at his local Co-op store in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire.

"It was in a storeroom that the attack on a female worker took place.

The sex attack is disclosed in his memoirs, to be published this month, Between the Monster and the Saint: Reflections on the Human Condition.

He writes: "Mr Self Importance (the ring-leader) gave the signal and the men grabbed the woman and lifted her onto the table on her back.

"Though she struggled a bit, it seemed to me to be more of a lark than a lynching and she didn't cry out for help.

"I took hold of her ankles and lifted her legs onto the table.

Mr Self Importance then groped her. It was all over."