AT first thought it might seem strange for the Church of England at the request of a Blackburn Diocesan clergyman to be publicly apologising for profiting from slavery almost 200 years after the Act was passed to abolish it.

After all, it was campaigning Christians like William Wilberforce who spearheaded the long hard battle to end a vile trade from Africa which brought misery to millions over many generations.

But as the Rev Simon Bessant points out, the church was part of the problem as well as the solution since its missionary arm had a West Indian plantation in which men were painfully branded with red-hot irons and some bishops actually owned slaves.

However, despite the Act, the problem has not gone away.

And the church needs to play a part in the present and the future since forms of slavery little different to that of 200 years ago still operate in some parts of the world today.

In the past few months there has been widespread publicity about women from central and eastern Europe being enslaved in the sex trafficking industry in Britain's major cities.

It would be good to see the church highlighting the these evils and effectively campaigning in the Wilberforce tradition.