A retired bishop has disclosed that he took part in the sexual assault of a woman when he was a boy.

Richard Holloway, 74, who as Bishop of Edinburgh was the most senior Anglican cleric in Scotland, describes his role in an attack on a female shop worker in the opening chapter of his book Between the Monster and the Saint: Reflections on the Human Condition, to be published this month by Canongate.

The attack took place 65 years ago when Holloway was nine, but he is still troubled by the incident in his home town of Alexandria, Dunbartonshire.

Holloway, who retired eight years ago, was working as a messenger boy in the Co-op store.

He writes: “One of the women workers came into the room, presumably to pick something up for a customer. As soon as she entered, the door was closed, then locked, and the men surrounded her. . .

“Mr Self-Importance [the ring leader] gave the signal and the men grabbed the woman and lifted her onto the table on her back.

“Though she struggled a bit, it seemed to me to be more of a lark than a lynching, and she didn’t cry out for help.

“I took hold of her ankles and lifted her legs on to the table, provoking the congratulations of Mr Self-Importance for my assistance. He then shoved his hand under her skirt and groped her. It was all over.”

Holloway, now chairman of the Scottish Arts Council and a director of the Centre of Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, is well known for his support for feminist causes and gay rights. He has called for the legalisation of cannabis and brothels and, as Bishop of Edinburgh from 1986 to 2000, was frequently criticised for his liberal views.

“I’ve been wrestling with this one for a number of years,” he said. “That wasn’t a bunch of completely bad men. There was one man and the others went along with it.

“I come back to it because I think most of what goes in human affairs is like that, the way we can be sucked into scenarios that in our heart we don’t actually approve of.”

Nobody was prosecuted for the attack which was regarded in the cultural climate of the day as a “bit of a prank”, he added.