Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are planning to have the Pope arrested in the UK

It's a buddy-cop movie plot for the new millennium: Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are teaming up to arrest the Pope when he comes to Britain in September.

Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said: "This is a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence."

Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, said: "This man is not above or outside the law. The institutionalised concealment of child rape is a crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment."

Richard Dawkins calls for arrest of Pope Benedict XVI