Fr Andrew Sloane stole from the collection plate to pay for prostitutes, prosecution charged
The former rector of St Paul’s K Street, the Rev. Andrew Sloane, has been found guilty of theft by a London court.
Raised in Britain, Fr. Sloane was one of the leading figures in the Anglo-Catholic world and served in the Episcopal Church for 35 years and has been an honorary guardian of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham for almost 15 years. In 2013 he retired after 15 years as rector of St Paul’s K Street in Washington, and returned to England to serve as an assistant curate at St Paul’s Church in Knightsbridge.
At his new post, Sloane borrowed large sums of money from three parishioners under false pretenses to fuel an extravagant lifestyle and to pay for the services of male prostitutes. Approximately £4,000 was also discovered to have gone missing from the church’s collection plate, and a review of closed circuit security cameras found Fr. Sloane had been pocketing the money.
On 31 October 2015 the Diocese of London removed Fr. Sloane’s license to officiate, and he moved to Leeds.
On 4 July 2017 the Westminster Magistrates Court accepted Sloane’s guilty plea on three counts of fraud by false representation. Defendant’s counsel, Shaun Murphy, defending, said: ‘These offences reflected a personal crisis in his life and all the money was repaid before the police became involved,” adding: “He made a full confession to the church authorities about what had happened.’ His defense attorney told the court Sloan repaid the money by the time a police investigation was launched in 2016.
Sloane was sentenced to a 12-month jail term suspended for two years, and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £115 victim surcharge.
A spokesman for the Diocese of London said: “Andrew Sloane took advantage of the trust that his parishioners placed in him as their priest. There is no excuse for what he did and we can only apologise to those who fell victim to his crimes. Andrew Sloane was suspended as soon as news of the charges against him was made known by the authorities and we have fully supported the criminal investigation. The Diocese is now focused on helping the parish and its congregation deal with what has happened and move on. Internal church proceedings against Andrew Sloane under the Clergy Discipline Measure are already underway.”
