LONDON — British police were investigating child abuse allegations Tuesday following complaints by pupils at a Roman Catholic school attended by Prime Minister Tony Blair's teenage sons about a priest who worked there.
The country's Catholic hierarchy, already facing a wide-ranging probe into sexual abuse of children in its care, immediately expressed dismay at the case of David Martin, a priest and chaplain at the Oratory School in London before he died two years ago aged 44.
"Although the abuse has stopped, the damage is still there," said Kieran Conry, a spokesman for the Catholic Church representing 4 million people in England and Wales.
"I can well understand the distress of parents . . . afraid their children may have come into contact with this man," he told Sky News.
Among those parents are Blair and his Catholic wife, Cherie, who send their boys Euan, 16, and Nicholas, who turns 15 on Wednesday, to the school. But there was no indication that either boy was involved in the case.
The complaints against Martin follow admissions earlier this year by the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, that he made a mistake in the 1980s by allowing a pedophile to carry on working as a priest.
A review into the church's child protection procedures led by former judge Lord Nolan was launched in September.
"The church acknowledges with great shame the damage done to itself but first of all to children," Conry said. "This is a matter of grave shame and embarrassment to the Catholic Church."
Catholics are a minority of British Christians.
Local officials said that allegations against Martin were made in October through anonymous letters and did not include specific details of abuse. The social services and police decided not to start a criminal investigation at the time.
But more details of the case later emerged through the children's helpline Childline and from a letter where a pupil at the school was partly identified.
"Allegations have been received by a Hammersmith and Fulham child protection team of potential abuse within a London school," a Scotland Yard police spokeswoman said.
"These allegations are being investigated."
The Oratory School has declined to comment, passing all calls to the local council.