Church defends its role in Wright case

The Roman Catholic church yesterday defended its handling of the case of The Right Rev Roderick Wright as suggestions of yet more affairs rocked his colleagues.

A former housekeeper claimed to have come across notes to him from four women - and said that when she confronted him the bishop had denied everything.

Ileene McKinney, 67, also said she had taken her fears to Cardinal Thomas Winning, who at the time was Archbishop of Glasgow, and to Archbishop Keith O'Brien of St Andrews, but that she had heard nothing further.

This, it has now emerged, was the meeting four years ago at which the two senior churchmen accepted Bishop Wright's categoric denial of misconduct, in which he denied the allegations as "scurrilous".

Two weeks after that meeting, Ms McKinney said, Bishop Wright said she could no longer work as his housekeeper - and told her to get out.

But Fr Noel Barry, spokesman for Cardinal Winning, said today: "The church has to operate according to its own standards. We would never . . . talk about a meeting which was sought and conducted on a confidential basis."