Carey, George, 1935-

George Leonard Carey, Baron Carey of Clifton, (born 13 November 1935) is a retired Anglican bishop who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, having previously been the Bishop of Bath and Wells. During his time as archbishop the Church of England ordained its first women priests and the debate over attitudes to homosexuality became more prominent, especially at the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops. In June 2017, Carey resigned from his last formal role in the church after Dame Moira Gibb's independent investigation found he covered up, by failing to pass to police, six out of seven serious sex abuse allegations relating to 17- to 25-year-olds against Bishop Peter Ball a year after Carey became archbishop. The next year the UK Child Sex Abuse Report confirmed Carey had committed serious breaches of duty in wrongly discrediting credible allegations of child sex abuse within the Church and failing to accompany disciplinary action with adding to the church's own safeguarding watchlist. In February 2018 Carey was granted permission to officiate by Steven Croft, the bishop of Oxford, allowing him to preach and preside at churches in the diocese. This was revoked on 17 June 2020 after the Church found Carey could have done more to pass to police allegations of beatings by a barrister John Smyth, who drew his victims from schools and evangelical children's camps. Permission was restored to Carey by the Bishop of Oxford seven months later.