The reader of my blog posts has probably been exposed to more detail of the Martyn Percy affair than they may wish to have. Gilo made some very perceptive comments in his piece last week but there is still, even at the cost of some repetition more to be said. What we know and have been told in the public domain tells us a lot about the topic of bullying, harassment and outright unpleasantness that sometimes takes place, not only in an Oxford college, but within the Church itself.
What can I say by way of comment over this conflict? It is quite clear that Martyn has in the past upset the equilibrium and status quo in two powerful institutions. In the first case, at Christ Church Oxford, a group of senior members have complained about him in his role of Head of House or Dean on two separate occasions. We, as outsiders observers, have no detailed understanding of the first allegations made against him. All we do know with some certainty is that a Tribunal was convened under the chairmanship of a retired judge, Sir Andrew Smith. This found him innocent of the accusations made against him – all twenty-seven charges were dismissed. Our sympathy for Martyn’s cause is aroused by the fact that he had to endure two years of pressure and stress. We feel for anyone who, in the course of allegations against them, is suspended from his work and made the object of a campaign of vilification and slander. Moreover, who was denied the opportunity of even having a preliminary investigation before the Tribunal against him was convened.
This Tribunal involved the spending of huge resources of charitable money, thought to be over £2 million. Martyn’s own legal costs have been huge. When the Tribunal verdict was announced, we hoped that the problem would go away. We might also have hoped that the original accusers might express a little remorse for having spent so much charitable money to further their cause. But no, the current situation is that the same accusers among the governing body have re-emerged to continue the campaign against the Dean. This time they are using a quite different set of accusations and a different method of harassing and undermining Martyn. Having exhausted the procedures afforded to them by the college statutes, the complainants have moved on to attack him using the tools of the quasi-legal structures of the Church of England.
Those of us who support Martyn and his principled stand over a variety of topics in current church debates, are aware that he has made enemies. As an avowed progressive, he is not easily going to fit in with the prevailing opinions of a largely conservative bench of bishops. The one particular issue over the past five years that has rattled many cages is the George Bell affair. Martyn has prominently identified himself with those who regard the posthumous trashing of Bishop Bell’s reputation as contrary to the laws of justice and historical truth. Many of us, with Martyn, regarded the alacrity with which Church leaders assigned guilt to Bell as being an attempt to show a decisiveness while many other more recent safeguarding allegations were being mishandled.
The method of assessing and evaluating the Bell evidence was the infamous core group, the same tool that is now being deployed against Martyn himself. It would not be hard to suggest, to use Gilo’s expression, that, in both case, the core group has been ‘weaponised’ against the subject of the investigation. This is especially true when the person at the heart of the enquiry has no representation to speak on their behalf. Again, in both Bell’s case and Martyn’s, similar church establishment mechanisms can be seen at work. The NST have put Martyn “on trial” without conducting even the most minimal inquiry or interview with him. The core group contained people who were prosecuting him for their own ends, and were heavily invested in pre-judging the outcome of any investigation. This is identical to what the Dean had to endure at Christ Church from 2018.
As with Christ Church, so with the NST. The Dean is forced to pay for his own defence to protect his reputation and integrity. It was noticeable that the Anglican hierarchy were largely mute when the original Christ Church accusations were aired. There was a sense that, while support was being expressed by hundreds of individuals across the country and £100,000 raised for legal costs, official support from the Anglican hierarchy was largely absent.
The appeal to the Church of England and its National Safeguarding Team by complaining Christ Church dons to examine accusations against the Dean of Christ Church, has already been explored in Gilo’s piece. The mention by Gilo of the ‘right part’ of the NST hints at private conversations and plotting at the highest levels of the Church of England taking place with the complainants at Christ Church. I understand that as far as the lawyers acting for Martyn are concerned, the NST has absolutely no jurisdiction in Martyn’s case. Martyn is not an employee of the Church of England; he is not being accused of being a danger to children or vulnerable adults. We also note the “vulnerable adult” terminology used by the NST. The correct term is “adults-at-risk”, which is defined and deployed in higher education, local government and the NHS. The NST are out of touch. The safeguarding issues that are the focus of the enquiry had already been dealt with properly by Martyn, according to University and college protocols.
Once again, a core group is being used to achieve a particular end. What we see in the process seems to run counter to natural justice and fairness. It also seems to take no notice of Lord Carlile’s remarks and the recommendations that were made by him in 2017. We refer particularly to those that laid out how all interested parties should be represented. These were accepted in total by the Church of England and now they are ignored in what has become a notorious case, ensuring that the whole world is watching (and judging!) the Church of England as it stumbles ahead with a faulty grasp of proper procedures in this complex case.
If Martyn can stand up to the pressure currently being put on him, it could help expose the evident power abuses and appalling misuses of procedure which seem to be operating in the NST. If the NST were to see sense and pull out of its involvement in the Christ Church debacle, this would have a desirable outcome. it would allow the NST to be regarded as a properly accountable organisation. No longer would the considerable power of this body be used against individuals without clear and consistent protocols in the way that it operates. Someone made the decision to allow the NST to enter the treacherous waters of internal Oxford collegiate politics.
Who was it and what are the systems in place to query and even put a block on such a risky, even impetuous, decision? If, as is likely, the NST comes out of this disastrous intervention with egg on its face, who is going to take responsibility for this financial and ethical car-crash? In many ways this whole episode goes far beyond what Martyn may or may not have done to upset members of his college. The issue has become one of the church using its legal structures in ways that deny compassion, natural justice and the basic qualities of care. Once again the Church of England seems incapable of handling its power without hurting and damaging people. Legalism, the power of money and privilege seem to be prominent. If the general public sees some of this behaviour and is unimpressed, can we really blame them?
Another question that is being asked by many of us is this. If Martyn Percy deserved investigation over safeguarding issues with apparently such flimsy evidence being offered, then why not are other more pressing cases given attention? There are several outstanding CDM claims against serving bishops which lie on file. Presumably these can now be activated by victims and complainants? There is the case of Jonathan Fletcher which seems to be ignored by central church authorities, even though it reached front-page headlines of the Daily Telegraph. If the allegations against Fletcher are even half-true, he still poses a safeguarding threat which should be a priority for the NST. To focus on Martyn, who poses no such threat, and ignore Fletcher can only be described as a deeply political choice.
Unless someone explains the real basis for NST involvement in the Christ Church factional disputes, Martyn’s supporters will conclude that the NST has become a political tool at the service of certain unaccountable factions within the Church of England. If that surmise is correct, one would hope that the General Synod would wake up to this fact and vote the NST out of existence. We cannot afford to have a rogue structure within the Church which operates with so much secrecy, factionalism and sometimes overt bullying. Whoever authorised the unleashing of the NST on Martyn Percy has been responsible for taking an enormous gamble with the Church’s assets and reputation. They have gambled on an outcome which, even if successful at one level, does no credit to the Church. If the anonymous power brokers are, however, unsuccessful in what they are doing in Oxford, this may have the effect of destroying the NST structure altogether and their future ability to exercise power through it.
Martyn Percy’s intervention re. the appointment of Philip North as Bishop of Sheffield, in the same year his views on the Bishop Bell case were expressed, was another example of his getting up the noses of the powers that be. His blog https://theore0.wordpress.com/2017/03/06/abstaining-a-lenten-reflection-on-sheffield-by-martyn-percy/ was widely influential and many saw it as the turning point in the North/Sheffield affair. I have a feeling his card was marked then.
Though, to be honest, I think almost anyone with real principles in the C of E gets their card marked pretty promptly.
I know both men. And consider both to be people in the hierarchy of the Church who speak with integrity in relation to the abuse crisis. And I know that church-context abuse survivors have strong support from each. Martyn was approached by us to write a chapter in Letters to a Broken Church – and wrote an excellent chapter following the Chichester hearings at the Inquiry. Philip would have been one of very few bishops we could have approached for a chapter. His interview on BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme was unlike anything we’d heard from any other bishop (with the exception of Alan Wilson). A remarkable interview and one that all Synod members should listen to if they haven’t already. Sadly, our book was already by that stage at print process – so we couldn’t include Philip.
https://www.thinkinganglica…
Their political or tribal differences aside – both Martyn Percy and Philip North have given their voices courageously as allies to the plight of survivors. I salute them both.
“I understand that as far as the lawyers acting for Martyn are concerned, the NST has absolutely no jurisdiction in Martyn’s case. Martyn is not an employee of the Church of England;”
I am not an employment lawyer and do not wish to dip into the vexed question of whether office holders are employees, but I am concerned that this line of argument being advanced by Dr Percy’s lawyers will probably consume more costs than most of the other issues in contention.
The dean of Christ Church is, unusually, paid by Christ Church rather than the Commissioners. Although I don’t have copies of Doe, Hill, Cripps, etc., to hand, he is an ecclesiastical office holder and there are a plethora of statutes and measures which make specific reference to Christ Church as an ecclesiastical corporation, even if there are usually specific provisions in each measure to differentiate Christ Church from other capitular bodies.
What I suspect has happened is that the students have tried to refer the Woodward case to the NST as a lever to eject Percy. They are gaming the system, and as Stephen notes it is opportunistic and unedifying. The students are probably past caring about that, however, and have reasoned that the ends justify the means.
Since there is no clear distinction between the position of dean as head of the cathedral and as head of the college they probably approached the NST telling the latter that they have to do something. The NST, no doubt panicked, will have referred the question to the Legal Office. The Legal Office (currently led by a clergyman who was at Christ Church) will probably have advised the NST that they do have standing insofar as Percy is an ’employee’ or ‘office-holder’ qua his position as head of the cathedral, and the want of any distinction between the two aspects of his office means that his safeguarding responsibilities might therefore apply to the entirety of his office.
Curiously, it is not so long ago that the then second commissioner disclaimed any involvement of the Church of England in the resolution of the dispute:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-11-29/debates/6DA9CB26-1373-470D-AAD3-CE9BEDE88743/DeanOfChristChurchOxford
This question will no doubt consume a great deal of the ET’s time. I strongly suspect that it will result in the office being split in twain, which is probably what a majority of the students now want. Legislation severing the provostship of Oriel from a stall at Rochester was passed in 1875; similar legislation was passed severing the mastership of Pembroke (Oxford) from a stall at Gloucester in 1937, and the mastership of St Catharine’s (Cambridge) from a stall at Norwich in 1927. Many other headships at both universities had been tied to college livings and the headships of all the old colleges bar Merton, Downing and Trinity Hall (plus Keble, St Peter’s and Selwyn) had been reserved to clerics. Splitting the deanery would be the last act in that process.
Sorry, I should have added that the head of the Legal Office was also chancellor of the Oxford diocese until last year (when he became head of the Legal Office), although he is based in London and assists at Holy Redeemer Clerkenwell.
And, of course, it is perfectly possible that the head of the Legal Office had nothing to do with the decision that the NST assume responsibility for this matter, or indeed that the NST sought advice from the Legal Office at all. My statements above were mere conjecture.
The Diocese of Oxford has issued a statement that Lord Carey’s PTO has been revoked in the context of a further SMT Core Group Inquiry relating to the case of John Smyth. Thinking Anglicans’ website carries the full statement together with this response from Lord Carey:
“I am bewildered and dismayed to receive the news a short time ago that due to ‘concerns’ being raised during the review of John Smyth QC I have had my PTO revoked. I have been given no information on the nature of these ‘concerns’ and have no memory of meeting Mr Smyth. In 2018 the National Safeguarding Team and the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury invited me to meet with them to arrange safeguarding training and facilitate a meeting with survivors of Peter Ball’s abuse. They have failed to deliver action on either of these matters which were the subject of mutually agreed action. As a result, I have little confidence in their ability to pursue a proper investigation.”
Curious that the PTO has been revoked by the bishop of Oxford – who has not come out of the Ineson affair smelling of roses.
In 1966 the historian Peter Hinchliff (then at Rhodes University, Grahamstown) wrote a book on establishment called ‘One-Sided Reciprocity’.
That is the phrase which comes to mind with respect to Lord Carey’s PTO. Although the manner in which Carey is alleged to have handled the Ball matter speaks for itself.
I have posted this comment on Thinking Anglicans:
It’s unbelievable that Lord Carey could have his PTO withdrawn again, while Bishop Stephen Croft and Archbishop Welby continue free to minister. Croft has been interviewed by police over his failure to act on Matt Ineson’s disclosure of abuse; there is evidence that Archbishop Sentamu also was lax in his handling of that case. There are serious questions regarding Welby’s knowledge of and handling of the Smyth case, and evidence of inaccuracy in statements he has given regarding it.
This looks like yet another case of reviews and core groups being weaponised against those the powers that be find inconvenient, while those in power or in favour are untouchable.
Scapegoating? I had hoped it was a sign of movement. Or maybe something is about to blow.
Scapegoating I understand, but “a sign of movement” (what and in which direction?) and “something is about to blow” are shorthand for a range of different possibilities. Can you tell us what you had in mind?
Does anyone here share my concern, whatever the facts or merits of the case might be, that an elderly man of 84 will be experiencing personal distress from the way in which this has been handled? He states that he has not been given details, and is not represented on the Core Group. Have Lord Carlile’s recommendations been thrown out of the window and conveniently forgotten, yet again? As Stephen points out, they were accepted by the Church at the time.
Sorry. Either the powers that be were starting to take action on the matters outstanding in re supporting survivors of abuse, and this was the first sign. Or they were trying to look as if they were. Or they were jumping in quick because there is something about to hit the papers, (or Facebook), and they wanted to show they are on it.
I want to stay neutral on this until we have more information – if, indeed, it will be forthcoming. But just a word of caution about people (not referring to anyone here) who rush into print. Lord Carey was not in post as Archbishop either during the period when John Smyth was perpetrating abuse in England, nor at the time of the Ruston report in 1982. His period in office was from 1992 to 2001. Before that, he was Bishop of Bath and Wells.
He was appointed in 1990 and stayed in office till 2002.
He was Bishop of Bath and Wells for only 3 years (1987-90).
However, the issue is not that he was ABC at the time of the Smyth abuses and was therefore (rather distantly) responsible (he was neither), but rather that he may have been one of those who at the time in the early 1980s may have been alleged or expected to know something of the Smyth situation. People do often forget even those things that they actually did once know, and I hope GC is not being scapegoated. There is, in this matter, an awful lot of potentially distressing treatment of not-altogether-guilty people in their latter 80s.