A VICTIM of child abuse told today why he sprayed graffiti on York Minster and the nearby statue of Constantine The Great.

Mohan Paul said he was protesting against a Church failure to tackle abuse by both clergy and congregation. "The Church of England is doing absolutely nothing," he claimed.

But the 44-year-old Anglo-Indian said his actions were also a protest against racism and discrimination in a city which he viewed as deeply bigoted and racist.

"Just the other day, I was called a Paki in the middle of the street," he told the Evening Press.

"And I have attended churches here where there were people in the congregation that avoided shaking hands with me."

Paul, who is homeless and lives at the Peasholme Centre in Peasholme Green, was speaking after pleading guilty at York Magistrates Court to causing criminal damage to the Minster on August 26.

The graffiti included the words "child abusers" and "perverts" painted on three sections of wall on the south side of the Minster Nave, while "vanity" was sprayed on the nearby statue of Constantine.

Paul revealed that he had written to the Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, after the protest to confess what he had done and why. Magistrates were told that he resorted to the graffiti attack because he was so incensed by the way he was abused by Sunday School teachers and a young member of a Christian household when he was a child, none of which occurred in York. Paul told the paper that he decided to launch his protest after reading of another case of a clergyman being jailed for abusing children.

"That was the straw that broke the camel's back."

He said that the Pope had recently branded racism a sin that degraded humanity, but he had not heard similar pronouncements from Anglican Archbishops. "The Church must have a new beginning," he said.

He added that he attacked the statue because Constantine symbolised torture, crucifixion, child abuse and racism, which were all brought to Britain by the Romans. He stressed he was not implying wrongdoing by anyone connected with the Minster.

Magistrates decided the case was so serious that they adjourned it for a pre-sentence report, asking for probation officers to consider all possible sentences. The maximum punishment is six months imprisonment.

Jane Chadwick, prosecuting, revealed that repairs to the cathedral have so far cost £500 and are not complete.

His solicitor, Jackie Knights, told the court that he had not realised just how many people would be distressed by his actions in damaging the historic building.

But he felt such an overwhelming anger against the Church, she told the court. He was receiving medical treatment, and help from a community psychiatric nurse, but he had an overwhelming anger against the people who abused him and what he saw as the church's "hypocrisy" in covering up sexual abuse rather than let it come out into the open.

Paul told the Evening Press the protest was a "one-off" which he did not intend repeating.

A spokesman for the Archbishop spoke today of Dr Hope's sadness at the attack on the Minster. "He was very upset when it happened." The Archbishop hoped other people would be deterred from similar actions.

Updated: 11:33 Thursday, September 06, 2001