A CHURCH of England (C of E) investigation into a complaint of serious misconduct by the now-retired Bishop of Chester remains "ongoing” more than seven months after it was launched.

A Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) was brought against Dr Peter Forster by Sir Roger Singleton, interim safeguarding director at the Church, back in March.

It relates to allegations he ignored a letter received in 2009 from Warrington vicar Charles Gordon Dickenson alluding to child abuse.

Dickenson, now 89, was jailed for 27 months at Liverpool Crown Court earlier this year after admitting eight counts of sexual assault against a boy in the 1970s.

Bishop Forster would not be drawn on whether he was personally aware of the contents of the letter until he had to give evidence under oath at the Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in July.

During the hearing he accepted that he was the only one to have read the letter in 2009 and failed to pass it on to the police or even to the Diocese of Chester safeguarding advisor.

Dickenson remained free to officiate in the diocese until his retirement in 2014.

The bishop had faced calls to resign after The Standard and its sister paper the Warrington Guardian lifted the lid on Dickenson and his letter, described in court as a ‘confession’, at the start of this year.

Said to be the Church’s longest-serving bishop, Bishop Forster retired from the Diocese of Chester on September 30 this year with no fanfare. A process is now underway to appoint a successor.

This newspaper asked the C of E for an update on the formal complaint (CDM).

A spokesman said: “The CDM process is currently ongoing relating to the complaint brought against the Bishop of Chester by the interim national director of safeguarding. When a final outcome is reached, that decision will be made public.”

There is currently no UK law that requires the mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse – although campaigners have been pushing for such legislation.

However, bishops at the head of their dioceses have responsibility for safeguarding issues and are expected to pass on intelligence about suspected criminal activity to the police.

Options at the outcome of the CDM range from dismissing the complaint or taking no further action to imposing a rebuke or prohibition for life.

Campaigners and abuse survivors have been critical of the procedure, claiming there can be no objectivity from an in-house investigation. Some have also said the measures would have little practical effect on a member of the clergy who is now retired.

Bishop Forster led the Diocese of Chester from 1997.

Giving evidence at the Independent Inquiry in July, he accepted he had made a “misjudgement” in allowing Dickenson to continue working as a vicar despite having read the letter.

“I took a view,” he said. “I’m perfectly prepared to accept that that was a misjudgement. I accept that it wasn’t handled properly at the time.”

He also accepted that there was nothing to prevent him from passing the information to the police in 2009.

“That could have been done, yes,” he told the inquiry.

Things had changed in the past 10 years and now a referral to the police on such matters would happen “automatically”, he said.