Police enquiries are underway following allegations of sexual assault against a child by a worker at Caldey Island.

Police were informed of the alleged assault by a person who has close connections with the island.

"We can confirm that following a report, officers are now carrying out initial enquiries," commented a Dyfed-Powys Police spokesman.

This investigation follows a lengthy string of historical child sex abuse cases on the island, spanning 50 years.

In 2021 police announced they were re-investigating claims of historical sexual abuse into Father Thaddeus Kotik following new information that was released from an abuse survivor.

Kotik, who was a Cistercian Monk, moved to Caldey Island in 1947 and worked in the dairy.

Six women alleged they had been sexually assaulted by Kotik when they were children in the 1970s and 1980s. In March 2017, Caldey Abbey settled civil claims into all six.

A further five women subsequently came forward and accused Father Kotik of abusing them, however Father Kotik died in 1992 without facing any criminal charges.

The monastery abbot, Daniel Van Santvoort, subsequently issued a public apology for the abbey’s failure to report Kotik to the police despite its knowledge of his offences.

In 2011 a fugitive child sex offender was found on the island after spending seven years there in an attempt to evade justice. Paul Ashton, from Sussex, went on the run in 2004 charged with possessing indecent images of children.

When he was discovered at Caldey Island in 2011, more indecent images were found on his computer in the monastery.

He was arrested and brought to justice after a visitor recognised him from a Crimestoppers "Most Wanted" list.

Ashton was living on the island the same time as Father John Shannon who was jailed for eight months in 2017 after police found 740 indecent images of children on a computer he had downloaded. 

Three of the images were level five, which is of the most serious nature, and 75 were level four.

Shannon’s barrister argued at his client’s sentencing hearing that he had never had a chance to explore his sexuality and viewing the images became a compulsion.

Shannon lived on Caldey during 2008 and 2009.

Another convicted criminal, John Cronin, is suspected to have lived under an assumed name in a cottage owned by the monastery for a month in 2009.

Cronin was jailed in 1992 for sexually assaulting an adult Conservative party volunteer. One of his modi operandi was to pose as a priest.