PRESSURE on Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell has increased after revelations that a priest at the centre of a sexual abuse case was twice reappointed under him while he was serving as bishop of Chelmsford.

Mr Cottrell admitted things “could have been handled differently” as the crisis at the very top of the Church of England deepened.

He will become the Church’s most senior figure when Justin Welby steps down as Archbishop of Canterbury in January following criticism of his own handling of an abuse case.

But Bishop of Newcastle the Rt Rev Helen-Ann Hartley questioned how Mr Cottrell could have any credibility, and Bishop of Gloucester the Rt Rev Rachel Treweek declined to publicly back him.

Mr Cottrell has already faced calls to resign over his handling of the case of David Tudor, who was banned from ministry for life this year after admitting what the church described as serious sexual abuse involving two girls aged 15 and 16.

Decades earlier, Mr Tudor was suspended from ministry for five years in 1988, having admitted, according to a tribunal document, having sex with a 16-year-old girl he met when she was a pupil at a school where he was chaplain. But he was later able to return to working in the church in 1994.

The Archbishop claimed it was “not possible” to remove the priest from office until fresh complaints were made against him in 2019 despite having been briefed on the situation in 2010 when he took over the Chelmsford diocese.

But according to a fresh BBC investigation, Mr Tudor’s contract as area dean in Essex was renewed in both 2013 and 2018.

Mr Cottrell would have known that Mr Tudor had been barred by the church from being alone with children, had paid compensation to a sex abuse victim and served a five-year ban from being a priest.

A spokeswoman for Mr Cottrell said: “On reflection, he acknowledges this could have been handled differently, and regrets that it wasn’t, but his focus throughout his time as bishop of Chelmsford was, with the help of safeguarding professionals, to understand, assess and manage the risk of David Tudor.

“No-one advised him that David Tudor should not continue as an area dean.”