Get your news delivered straight to you by 7am - sign up to our new Morning Mail newsletter for FREE See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy WILL HALLOWELL, NEWS REPORTER Published: 09:51 BST, 14 August 2026 | Updated: 10:59 BST, 14 August 2026
The Bishop of Northampton has appeared in court accused of raping a teenage girl while on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. David Oakley, 70, is accused of twice having sex with the girl, who was 15 at the time, in the early 2000s.Oakley, then in his mid-40s and working as a Catholic priest, was charged in June with two counts of rape of a girl under the age of 16, following an investigation by Staffordshire Police's rape and serious sexual offences team.He appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday via videolink from his lawyer's office to face the charges for the first time.Prosecutor Sarah Madden told the court Oakley and the girl 'started dating… after going on a pilgrimage to Lourdes'.'She recalls sex with the defendant on at least two occasions,' Ms Madden said.Lourdes, in south-west France, attracts throngs of pilgrims every year to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes – one of the most visited Catholic shrines in the world.Oakley, born in Stourbridge in the West Midlands and ordained in 1980, became Bishop of Northampton in 2020. David Oakley, 70, the Bishop of Northampton, allegedly raped a 15-year-old girl following a pilgrimage to France in the early 2000sHe is currently withdrawn from public ministry having been first arrested by police in September last year.Oakley was not asked to enter pleas to the two charges as chief magistrate Paul Goldspring sent the case to The Old Bailey.The judge said: 'Given the profile of the case and the former employment of the defendant, this ought to go to the Central Criminal Court.'He released Oakley on bail with conditions not to contact the alleged victim or her family ahead of a plea hearing on September 10.After news broke of the criminal charges, the Catholic Diocese of Northampton said Oakley had been charged after an investigation into 'non-recent safeguarding allegations'.It added: 'We understand that this will be very distressing for all concerned but cannot comment further on an active legal process.'In June, Pope Leo XIV temporarily appointed the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, Richard Moth, to oversee the Diocese of Northampton after Oakley was charged. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales said in a statement: 'This is a temporary role, by which the Holy See ensures that the pastoral governance of a diocese will continue when it is not possible for a diocesan bishop to exercise his office.'Therefore, the governance of the Diocese of Northampton is now canonically entrusted to Archbishop Moth.'Archbishop Moth said: 'I am humbled by the trust which His Holiness Pope Leo XIV has placed in me by assigning me this mission as apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Northampton, in addition to my ministry as the Archbishop of Westminster.'I ask those whom I am called to serve to pray for me, that the Lord will continue to give me his spiritual guidance and wisdom needed to fulfil these duties.'
