Cardinal O'Brien stopped probe of Scottish abuse files.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien blocked an independent examination of clerical sex abuse files held by Scottish dioceses, a senior bishop has claimed.

The Archbishop Emeritus of Glasgow, Mario Conti, said in a letter to The Tabletthat all but one member of the Bishops' Conference of Scotland had agreed in recent years for diocesan case files to be reviewed but this did not go ahead due to the cardinal's objection.

The Catholic Church in Scotland confirmed today that O'Brien's withdrawal from the audit of historical sex abuse allegations ended the project.

In a statement the Church said that a decision was taken in 2011 to commission an independent academic analysis of statistics relating to historic abuse from 1952 to 2012. It said that the project ran until 2012, when then President of the Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, withdrew.

"Without the participation of all the dioceses a 'National Audit' was not possible so the analysis was stopped," it said.

In his letter to The Tablet's editor Archbishop Conti said that Cardinal O'Brien's objection had delayed an audit of abuse allegations, because his withdrawal from the project meant that some dioceses would not participate and the research would have been faulty.

"It was the intention of all but one member of the bishops' conference to commission an independent examination of the historical cases we had on file in all of our respective dioceses and publish the results but this was delayed by the objection of the then-president of the conference; without full participation of all the dioceses the exercise would have been faulty," the archbishop said.

The Church in Scotland is coming under pressure to commission an inquiry into its handling of sexual abuse allegations. The bishops' conference has confirmed that it is willing to consider an outside body to examine its files.