Why does the Church of England struggle to
deal with child abuse allegations?
After
decades of controversies and dozens of survivors speaking out, the Church of
England still faces fierce criticism for the way it responds when members of
the clergy are accused of abuse.
A BBC investigation into how it
dealt with allegations about Blackburn priest Andrew Hindley exposed
deep and continuing failings in the Church’s child protection system.
After the news
about Canon Hindley broke earlier this week, the current Dean of Blackburn, the
Very Revd Peter Howell-Jones, acknowledged there had been “a meteoric failure
of structure and systems which should have been addressed years before”.
Asked if - given
the details we now know - he trusts the Church to which he belongs, the Dean
said, “I categorically do not.”
Canon Hindley was
offered a secret six-figure pay-off after being assessed as a potential risk to
children and young people. The priest, who denies any criminal activity or
wrongdoing, was subject to five police investigations, including into
allegations of sexual assault, but has never been charged with any crime.
Unable to rely on
criminal prosecutions, the Church commissioned risk assessments by child
protection experts. Several concluded Canon Hindley posed a potential risk to
children and young people. But he remained in post.
Church leaders say they were bound by
their procedures and, when those failed, they had only one option: a financial
settlement. The Church told the BBC this was to end a legal claim made by the
priest after he was forced to retire early, although we revealed there had been
earlier unsuccessful attempts to pay him off.
So where exactly
did the Church’s procedures fail? Some of the new details that we reveal here
about decisions made during the process are staggering.
But after so many
scandals, reviews and inquiries over the years, the question for many is why
things have not been put right before now. Some within the institution itself
have expressed their exasperation.
“If the Church, of
which I am part, had begun to address some of its structures 10 or 15 years
before, these things may never have happened and I’m deeply sorry for that,”
said the Very Revd Peter Howell-Jones.
Long-time observers
of Church of England practices are starting to put the continued failings down
to more just a lack of understanding of what needs to be done.
“I have serious
concerns about the attitudes and the willingness [of the Church] to get its house
in order. I'm not sure that willingness is there at this time, and I don't
believe that the Church has a comprehensive commitment to learn from
experience,” says child protection expert, Dr Ian Elliott.
Dr Elliott has
carried out safeguarding reviews of religious institutions across the world. He
says that while Canon Hindley’s case is unusual, serious problems with Church
safeguarding have been pointed out many times before.
That includes Dr
Elliott’s own review of the Church of England published in 2016, in which he
was critical of safeguarding practices and urged changes including better ways
to intervene and improved independent oversight.
He considers the
Blackburn Cathedral case involving Canon Hindley further proof that
recommendations have not been implemented.
The controversial
way that the saga ended was as a result of Church officials apparently
believing they did not have legal grounds to remove him from post.
“You have to
intervene, to eliminate and manage the risk that has been identified. And that
has to come first, before legal considerations,” say Dr Elliott
A long timeline of
allegations
Canon Hindley, 65, told the BBC he
was the target of a campaign to drive him from the church that was motivated by
homophobia and personal agendas.
But allegations of
inappropriate behaviour spanned from the 1990s to the most recent formal
complaints made in 2018. He finally left his townhouse on cathedral grounds in
2022.
The case was a test
of the safeguarding regime the Church of England had built in the early 2000s.
In the glare of
uncomfortable headlines about abuse scandals, its aim was to put vulnerable
people at the centre of decisions.
At its heart was a
disciplinary system that, through hearings, was supposed to investigate and
potentially remove members of clergy accused of misconduct.
Some now blame that
very system for the drawn-out handling of the case. And despite concerns within
the Church about the risks Canon Hindley posed, he was never subject to any
hearings.
In 2007, Canon
Hindley was suspended under the system - reportedly the most senior cleric at
the time to face such sanction - after he was accused of an inappropriate
discussion with a 15-year-old boy who was doing work experience at Blackburn
Cathedral.
Image caption,
Blackburn Cathedral was the focal
point of safeguarding concerns
He denied wrongdoing and a complaint
of “conduct unbecoming of a priest” was dropped after the boy’s parents
withdrew permission for their son to be involved in the proceedings.
Over the years,
numerous subsequent opportunities were missed for complaints against Canon
Hindley to be investigated and acted on within the Church.
One was in 2019,
when he was accused of sexually assaulting a young male colleague by touching
his genitals. The alleged incident had happened in 2016, but when the complaint
was made the case was stopped from going to a Church tribunal hearing because
more than 12 months had passed since the alleged incident.
The decision to
allow some types of Church disciplinary case to progress rests with a key
official called the President of Tribunals. The President and their deputy are
roles taken by senior judges and are appointed by the Church.
One of these
gatekeepers played a key part in stopping another disciplinary case against
Canon Hindley going ahead in 2020.
It concerned an
alleged victim of Canon Hindley, referred to in leaked church papers as Boy C.
He had tried for almost 20 years to have his complaint aired.
A later internal
Church report said that Boy C was a credible witness and that his allegations
were that he was “befriended and groomed by Andrew Hindley which led to him
participating in sexual acts with him, acts which he now considers to
constitute a sexual assault. He feels he was taken advantage of as a naive and
vulnerable young person.”
The allegation was
investigated by police in 2001 but discontinued. This was because Boy C
originally told officers he was 18 at the time of the alleged incident, but
later said he was 17, which was then below the age of consent for sex between
men. This change of account was assessed by prosecutors to undermine the
chances of conviction.
With the police
investigation ended, and Canon Hindley always denying wrongdoing in the case,
Boy C turned to the Church to do something about the allegations.
But on five
separate occasions, the case was stopped from going to internal hearings. The
final time - in April 2020 - Sir Mark Hedley, Deputy President of Tribunals,
made what appears to be a startling ruling.
He documented that
while he thought that it could be proved the case involved non-consensual sex,
he could not be sure if the alleged victim was 17 or 18 at the time, so the
case could not go forward to a tribunal.
Sir Mark, who no
longer serves in this position, told the BBC that his only legal consideration
was the age of Boy C, because at that time, adults only had 12 months to make a
complaint.
In fact, the rules had been changed
in 2016 to allow adults considered vulnerable to have cases progressed.
Safeguarding expert
Dr Ian Elliott says that the decision to not proceed with the case points to a
system in disarray.
“You’re not trying
to apply a criteria of ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ within safeguarding.
You're not going to reach that level of proof. But from a safeguarding point of
view, you can't lose sight of the fact that you must act.”
‘The Archbishops
had no power to act’
One more instance in this case drew
an astonishing response from the Church’s top leadership.
It followed
allegations Canon Hindley had indecently assaulted a woman, “improperly kissed”
a teenage girl and “improperly touched two other men” at a party in the
cathedral gardens in May 2018.
The police
investigated but again no criminal charges were brought. Canon Hindley, who was
suspended, denied sexual assault, but in papers we have seen he conceded, “I
did not cover myself in glory.”
In April 2020 the
same official, Sir Mark Hedley, ruled: “Whilst alcohol provides no defence to
assault, for an assault to be constituted, there does have to be some degree of
deliberation.” He dismissed the case.
When the BBC asked
why the alleged assaults were not brought to hearings, Sir Mark said his
“decision was made after careful consideration of all the material available“
including an internal Church investigation into the incident.
Nevertheless, the
ruling was greeted with “profound unease” by senior people at Blackburn
Cathedral, who wrote to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York asking them to
intervene. But that intervention in the disciplinary process, even just to
allow cases to proceed to gathering more evidence and conducting hearings, did
not happen.
The Church of
England told the BBC: “The Archbishops had no power to affect the outcome and
there is no way in which they could lawfully have intervened.”
From documents, we
do know that some Church leaders were trying to do what they thought was the
right thing, but felt they had to bypass their own disciplinary system and
resort to extreme measures.
The options
included a drastic proposal to close Blackburn Cathedral completely “to keep
people safe”, and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby also suggested leaking
details of the situation to the press. We put the latter point to Lambeth
Palace but did not receive a response on this specific question.
Justin Welby suggested leaking
details to the press
It ultimately ended a different way,
with Canon Hindley being forced to retire, but only finally leaving after being
offered a financial settlement of about a quarter of a million pounds.
It points to a dysfunctional
state of affairs, albeit with some Church leaders feeling they had little
choice in their efforts to protect children and vulnerable young people.
Good child
protection practices are expected of all organisations, but perhaps it is even
more incumbent on religious institutions to get things right because of the
moral leadership many expect of them.
Survivors’ trauma
Speak to survivors of Church of
England abuse and many will report feeling they have been, and in some cases
still are, treated with contempt. Many are also still waiting for their own
financial settlements, for compensation for what they endured.
Safeguarding
professional Dr Ian Elliott is concerned the pay-off to Canon Hindley will
“hurt and shock” survivors.
“It really turns
the knife for them. I haven't talked to any survivors within the Church of
England who feel any compensation they received has been generous, and they
would say it has been very hard-won,” Dr Elliott said.
In fact, a
compensation scheme for survivors promised by the Church has yet to be
established. Last year, the BBC discovered that
the Church’s Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) found that an interim scheme
set up to help survivors while they waited for compensation actually risked
re-traumatising victims.
This is because
people who have suffered abuse at the hands of an institution may experience
further trauma when that institution fails to handle their complaints.
In a report, the
ISB said the support scheme appeared to have been “set up in haste,
underthought and under-resourced”. Soon after, the board was disbanded with the
Church saying relations between the independent experts on the board and
bishops had “broken down”.
Two of the
three-member board, both experienced safeguarding professionals, had previously
said the Church had been obstructive, and had interfered in their work.
These are issues
playing out now. But dare to look a little further and there is more cause for
concern. A review in 2022 found there
were at least 383 Church abuse cases that either have never been dealt with or
were left unresolved.
This is not to say
there are not good people within the Church of England striving to do things
better.
Dr Elliott hopes
this case may help empower them to reform child protection, leading to “change
for the sake of everyone within the Church, but particularly for those who are
vulnerable, and those who have suffered harm”.
"After decades of controversies and dozens of survivors speaking out, the Church of England still faces fierce criticism for the way it responds when members of the clergy are accused of abuse."
ReplyDeleteAnd Detterling had the cheek to condemn the Catholic Church over the very same thing!
Detterling! My word! Wasn't the lily-livered bottlejob kicked into touch in spectacular fashion by Swashbuckling Mulligan!
ReplyDeleteTony of the Big Saloon
"These are issues playing out now. But dare to look a little further and there is more cause for concern. A review in 2022 found there were at least 383 Church abuse cases that either have never been dealt with or were left unresolved."
ReplyDeleteDisgraceful!
Sugarboy Nando