A vicar has admitted raping and sexually abusing a young boy and has been remanded in custody to await sentence next month.
Ifor Whittaker, also known as Colin Pritchard, admitted gross indecency with the same boy in a hearing at Hove Crown Court before Recorder Michael Brompton on Friday (25 October).
The 80-year-old was rector of St John the Baptist Church, in Sedlescombe, near Battle, and later vicar of St Barnabas, Bexhill.
Whittaker was jailed for 16 years in February 2018 for repeatedly raping another child over several years, having sexually abused the boy along with another priest, Roy Cotton, now dead.
Sussex Police said today (Sunday 27 October): “A former Anglican vicar has pleaded guilty at Hove Crown Court to rape and gross indecency with a boy under 14 years of age.
“Ifor Whittaker, 80, was a vicar going by the name of Father Colin Pritchard at St John the Baptist Church, in Sedlescombe, where he committed the offences.
“The offences are reported to have taken place during the late 1990s when the victim – now a man in his thirties – was a young child.
“Whittaker has been remanded in custody for sentencing on Tuesday 12 November.”
The former Church of England priest was charged in May with the offences that he has now admitted and which took place more than a quarter of a century ago.
