NEW priests in East Lancashire could be screened by police for criminal convictions following child abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Lancaster Diocese, which is responsible for some churches in the Ribble Valley, has already approached police about checking the criminal records of candidates for the clergy and is considering a similar move later this year.

But the Salford Diocese, which covers most other Catholic churches in East Lancashire, said they were waiting for the results of Lord Nolan's review on the Roman Catholic Church's child protection procedures before making any decisions on screening.

The East Anglia Diocese recently paid Norwich police to screen existing clergy, choir leaders and volunteers.

Other dioceses across the country could follow East Anglia's lead once Lord Nolan's review on the church's child protection procedures is published.

In 1996 Father Paul Embury, vocations director for the Lancaster Diocese, approached the police about screening candidates because of concern about the matter.

After a national conference of vocational directors he wrote to the Association of Chief Police Officers to ask about the possibility of running checks on candidates for the priesthood -- only to be told that the police did not intend to extend the number of organisations it included in checks.

Fr Embury said: "We were surprised. We were told we had to wait for the launch of the Government Criminal Records Bureau, which is a new agency aimed screening candidates for voluntary organisations such as churches and Scout groups.

"This will enable groups to run checks on the criminal records of candidates and it is due to be launched in July of this year.

"We are waiting for the results of Lord Nolan's review, but running checks is something we have been considering for a while now.

"We would check all candidates' references as we do now, but this would provide us with an extra strand to our procedures."

Fr Embury said checks run by the bureau would only show up criminal convictions, and would not reveal if someone had been investigated by police but not charged.

It is not yet known whether or not churches and voluntary groups would have to pay for this service. Fr Embury said: "The issue of payment is still under discussion. This could be a costly service, but as a church we would see it as money well spent.

"But it could be hard for voluntary groups such as Scouts, who may have a high turnover of volunteers."

Fr Embury said that there were already systems in place to pass information between dioceses on the rare occasion that a priest decides to move from one area to another, to check if that member of the clergy was held in good standing by his previous Bishop.

The issue of child abuse in the church was put in the spotlight locally following a police investigation into allegations of sex abuse at Stonyhurst College near Clitheroe.

The Salford Diocese, which includes churches in Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington, Rossendale and Pendle, is waiting for the recommendations made by Lord Nolan to be published before making any decision on screening new or existing clergy.

Father Michael Walsh, press officer for the diocese, said: "This isn't something that we have considered specifically that I know of, but there is a review of procedure going on at the moment and I think people are waiting to see what the full review is going to say.

"After that, all things will be under consideration."

The Association of Chief Police Officers was unavailable for comment.