1 An earlier and very much shorter version of this comment appeared as David Pocklington, ‘CofE bishops and “public office”’, Law & Religion UK 10 November 2014, available at <http://www.lawandreligionuk.com/2014/11/10/cofe-bishops-and-public-office/>, accessed 8 October 2015. We should like to thank Norman Doe for commenting on this note in draft.

2 ‘Retired bishop Peter Ball jailed for sex assaults', BBC News, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34466842>, accessed 8 October 2015.

3 On 5 October 2015 the Archbishop of Canterbury announced that he had commissioned an independent review of the way in which the Church of England responded to the case: see ‘Archbishop commissions independent review of Peter Ball case’, <https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2015/10/archbishop-commissions-independent-review-of-peter-ball-case.aspx>, accessed 8 October 2015.

4 ‘Women in the episcopate: note by the legal advisers on clause 2 of the draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure’, GS Misc 1068, available at <https://www.churchofengland.org/media/1910562/gs%20misc%201068%20-%20clause%202%20note%20from%20the%20legal%20advisers.pdf>, accessed 8 October 2015.

5 For a recent review of the case law in a range of common law jurisdictions, see Davids, C and McMahon, M, ‘Police misconduct as a breach of public trust: the offence of misconduct in public office’, (2014) 19:1Deakin Law Review 89–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Crown Prosecution Service, ‘Misconduct in public office: legal guidance’, available at <http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/l_to_o/misconduct_in_public_office/#a01> accessed 8 October 2015, quoting Attorney General's Reference No. 3 of 2003 [2004] EWCA Crim 868 at para per Pill LJ. See also R v Chapman & ors [2015] EWCA Crim 539 at para 18, in which Lord Thomas CJ quoted with approval Sir Anthony Mason's dictum in Shum Kwok Sher [2002] 5 HKFAR 381 that ‘The threshold is a high one requiring conduct so far below acceptable standards as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder. A mistake, even a serious one, will not suffice.’

7 Attorney General's Reference No 3 of 2003 at para 62.

8 See, for example, Sharpe v The Bishop of Worcester [2015] EWCA Civ 399.

9 Maga v Trustees of the Birmingham Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church [2010] EWCA Civ 256 at para 45 per Lord Neuberger MR.

10 R v Rimmington [2005] UKHL 63 at para 30 per Lord Bingham.

11 Emphasis added.

12 Crown Prosecution Service, ‘S3: sexual assault’ in Sentencing Manual (updated January 2012), available at <http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/s3_sexual_assault/>, accessed 8 October 2015.

13 R v Peter Ball (Sentencing Remarks) [2015] Central Criminal Court at para 17, available at <https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/r-v-ball-sentencing.pdf>, accessed 8 October 2015.

14 Ibid at para 8, emphasis added.

15 Ibid at paras 4 and 8.

16 See, for example, R v Quach [2010] VSCA 106; (2010) 27 VR 310, in the Court of Appeal of Victoria, which concerned a charge of misconduct in public office involving a police officer who had allegedly used his position to take sexual advantage of a woman who suffered from bipolar disorder; R v Fletcher [2012] 1 CR APP R S 62, in which the court upheld the sentence on a police officer who had had sexual intercourse with a vulnerable woman after being directed to visit her house in the course of his duties.

17 Law Commission, ‘Misconduct in public office: current project status’, <http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/misconduct-in-public-office/>, accessed 20 December 2015.

18 Available at <http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/misconduct_in_public_office_issues-1.pdf>, accessed 30 January 2016.