One of the major changes that has taken place in our lifetime is the free availability of information through the internet. There are very few people who avoid completely traces of their lives appearing somewhere online. It is also possible to research one’s own family tree without ever leaving one’s home. All this information means that it is very hard for negative/positive facts about people’s lives to be completely hidden. In spite of data protection laws and all the other safeguards which try to stop too much private information circulating, there is an enormous of material about the past available at the click of a button.

This new 21st-century era of readily accessible facts means that institutions need to operate in a new way. If any group wishes to hide evidence of wrong-doing in the past they need to take into account that there are countless press records available on the Net. When a public figure makes a statement about some past event, a check can be quickly made to see if what is said is corroborated by contemporary press accounts. I can give a live example of a serious discrepancy between the recent public declaration of The Titus Trustees about the death of John Smyth and what is revealed by a newspaper cutting. One of the comments to my post about John Smyth drew attention to a story written by Anne Atkins, the broadcaster and columnist for the Daily Telegraph. In a column dated October 29th 2012, at the time of the Savile scandal, Anne revealed her discomfort at hearing about the case of abuse against another individual and her unwillingness to do anything about it. She then went on to mention knowing about John Smyth (not mentioned by name in the article but clearly identifiable) and his abusive activities in the garden shed at Winchester. He was apparently a family friend and she had known him since she was a child. Some of Anne’s friends were due to go out to see Smyth in South Africa but Anne kept her mouth shut about his behaviour as she did not want to be accused of ‘malicious gossip’. The whole way the story is told implies that many people in Anne’s social circles also knew the facts about his abusive behaviour in both England and Africa. She does not indicate that it was in any way secret information at the time. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how even a hint of this story would have reached her column if Anne had ever thought it had to be kept under wraps. She tells the story as though she had learnt the details soon after 1982 when the Ruston report was produced. She and others also knew about the cloud that was attached to Smyth over the subsequent Zimbabwe death. We may conclude that among the circles of well-connected evangelicals, of which Anne is one, the Smyth story was well known. It was embarrassment, not secrecy that prevented Anne sharing her knowledge to these other friends who were off to see Smyth in South Africa. How are we to square up this publicly available information from 2012 with the claim that the Titus Trustees were only informed of the facts of Smyth’s crimes in 2014? All the Trustees both of the Iwerne Trust and its successor, the Titus Trust were prominent members of exactly the same social and church circles as Anne Atkins and her family. It stretches credulity to think that the revelations of 2014 could have been fresh news to such a prominent group of supporters of the Iwerne camps.

One person, here a humble blogger, can, by consulting the internet locate awkward facts which call into question the veracity of statements being made by official bodies. I am not going to push this point any further. I just hope that this discrepancy about when different individuals learnt the facts of Smyth’s behaviour will be resolved by some future enquiry. The ease through which this discrepancy was uncovered suggests that anyone making statements to the Press need to take far more care that their claims will not be undermined by an act of checking the internet to see if they are credible. The Titus Trustees statement of the 13 August has already made several survivors extremely distressed and angry as they know it is based on a falsehood. They see it as an attempt to distance the Trust from any responsibility. So how should the Church or a Trust behave when faced with credible information of past abuses?

At the IICSA hearing in March we heard that one way of dealing with the past abuses is to physically destroy files. The bonfire in the Chichester Deanery garden remains a vivid metaphor of the way that some parts of the Church have attempted to deal with awkward past episodes. The Deanery bonfire took place in 1999. Somehow one feels that date symbolises a 20th century approach to the record-keeping of past infamy. In the present century one looks for professional record keeping with the realisation that it is seldom possible to destroy evidence of the past when so much information is stored on the internet and in people’s memories. The truth now has a habit of coming out even when there are determined attempts to eliminate it.

Of the all advantages given by the internet to those who pursue justice and accountability in the church is the gift of networking. In the past many survivors were kept in isolation from one another. This was help to the authorities who were faced with claims. The authorities could see the wider picture, but the enforced isolation of each abused individual deprived them of any real clout. It is not difficult to manipulate or intimidate one person on their own. Now the internet has made this ‘divide and rule’ procedure far more difficult to implement. Survivors are finding each on Facebook, Twitter and through blogs such as this one. Joining together for mutual support gives survivors real power. There is nothing so powerful as a group which comes together with a common cause and a common purpose. I myself am witnessing the extraordinary strength and stamina of some of these survivors, especially when they cooperate and work together. It is a privilege to know some of them.

If the Church is to develop a strategy for the 21st-century in dealing with the legacy of abuse, then it needs to change its tactics. There is no room anymore for secrecy and trying to hold back information through, for example, confidential agreements. It is no longer going to be so easy to intimidate the survivors who have found each other on the internet. Of course, they will be encouraging each other, sharing stories and notes. It is no longer realistic for any group, whether the Titus Trust or the Church of England to expect that future scandals can be hidden. What is the alternative strategy for the Church? The alternative is to acknowledge at an early stage what are the facts and then be prepared to deal with them in an open and transparent way.

Transparency, openness and repentance are all gospel values. The problem for the Churches is that they are also values that are likely to be incredibly expensive in financial terms. It is however hard to see realistically that the church has a future at all if it tries to manage the terrible legacy of past abuses using other dishonest or deceitful methods. As I write this I have in mind the picture of Inspector Murdock interviewing the former Bishop of Chichester in the Ball case. Although daytime, the curtains in the Bishop’s study were pulled shut as part of an attempted ruse which was supposed to trap the Inspector and undermine his case against Ball. The Church has for too long pulled the curtains shut in dealing with abuse cases. It needs to pull them back and deal with them with the full light of day. Light, transparency and loving respect for those who have been harmed are the only way forward. Somehow the 21st century internet age makes it hard to see how there are any realistic alternatives.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2220693/I-havent-handed-sex-offender-police–I-told-confidence-A-leading-agony-aunt-makes-explosive-confession.html