Indifference and callousness towards abuse survivors revealed within the Church of England at the highest level. The truth discovered in SAR (subject access request) material.
A letter from 7 survivors to the Lead Bishops, Director of Safeguarding, and Chair of the National Safeguarding Panel
Dear Bishop Jonathan Gibbs, Bishop Debbie Sellin, Melissa Caslake, Meg Munn
We write to you as survivors, some of whom are members of the Church of England’s Survivors Reference Group – to express considerable concern at the attitudes of Bishop Tim Thornton in an email recently shared with us from SAR material.
The Bishop at Lambeth sits on the National Safeguarding Steering Group (NSSG) and the National Safeguarding Panel (NSP), and is a senior figure inside Lambeth Palace, all of which make him a key player in the church’s pastoral and strategic response to survivors. The attitude displayed here confirms what many survivors have long thought; that the adversarialism towards victims of abuse has not just extended to their litigation and insurance agents, but has its roots in the most senior members of the Church’s structure and indeed, inside the very bodies which make decisions on how survivors are treated.
In our view, Bishop Tim Thornton should be asked to stand down from these boards of governance and undergo further training to help him develop a compassionate understanding of the impact both of abuse and also of re-abuse (by the Church and its agents). It is our understanding that this Bishop is among a number of senior figures on the NSSG with unresolved issues (disclosure denial, dishonesty, silencing of major questions) where serious apologies outstanding to survivors have not yet been made.
We would invite the Bishop at Lambeth, and indeed all members of the NSSG, to reflect on the words of Archbishop Welby from last year.
The Church must learn “to put actions behind the words” when supporting survivors of clerical abuse, “because ‘sorry’ is pretty cheap”, the Archbishop of Canterbury said. “When someone is abused . . . it destroys their lives. It always leaves scars and wounds that are so profoundly deep, and I am so very sorry for every occasion that it has happened, and for our failures to deal well with survivors…..We need a specialised system for anything to do with abuse which is much more survivor-centred, much more careful, much less impeded by other things cluttering up the system.” 1
We are conscious that Ecclesiastical Insurance (EIG) which the Bishop at Lambeth refers to, has done considerable harm to many survivors through ugly and unethical litigation strategies. We invite you as leaders of the Church’s safeguarding boards – to now consider requiring all future settlements by EIG to be monitored by both Church and survivor representatives – so that the Church and its agents can begin to develop a culture of justice, fairness and good ethics in working with survivors of abuse.
We also remind you that at the Safeguarding Summit in York survivors spoke considerable truth to power – and stood as a group to outline just one of the major hindrances to the Church moving forward with survivors. Namely the presence of senior figures in disclosure denial on the NSSG. This has remained unacknowledged and ignored. We ask that you now address this please. And we ask that you address the other main hindrance of lack of redress and an ongoing refusal to rescue lives that have been left broken and wrecked by the systemic re-abuse by this Church.
Best wishes
Tony, Gilo, Paul, Matt, Graham, Janet, Julian
1https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2019/12-july/news/uk/iicsa-i-am-ashamed-and-horrified-says-welby
Email in 2019 from Bishop Tim Thornton to Bishop Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London, and Bishop Peter Hancock, former Lead Bishop.
and accessed as result of a Subject Access Request (SAR)
In a 2017 interview with BBC journalist Donna Birrell about the same case, Bishop Tim Thornton expressed a somewhat different view. In the transcript of that interview also accessed from the Church through SAR, the Bishop at Lambeth seemed to acknowledge the importance of listening to the experience of survivors and that EIG had not always acted in the correct manner.
In his words:
“We have been given evidence that in some cases it wouldn’t appear as if it has been.”
“…it is very impressive and humbling to see the way in which some survivors have continued to ask very hard and difficult questions.”
It would appear that the Bishop at Lambeth’s view has changed since 2017.
We received a reply on 9th July from Bishop Jonathan Gibbs, the Lead Bishop – and are hopeful of a further response.
Two supporting letters have been sent to the Lead Bishops, but we have been requested not to put them into public domain at this time.
This article is offered without much commentary, as we believe none is necessary.
Gilo
Co-Editor, Letters to a Broken Church
Indeed, what people are incapable of understanding is inequality of power. “We have no power” they cry. But anyone can have power. If you’re interviewing for a job, you change the lives of the people you interview. High status people notice if they didn’t get their own way, and interpret that as powerlessness. But the power, and power imbalance, remains, to be used again.
Spot on, Athena
Doesn’t “neither here nor there” mean in this context that the issues raised by the survivor are significant beyond the status of the person raising them? In other words they should be taken seriously whether the person raising them is a survivor or not? I don’t read the email as dismissive of the status of a survivor but that the issues raised are important. The author could be saying that the survivor should be taken seriously by the recipient, especially if communication has been strained in the past? Without context the email could be taken as supportive of the survivor.
My experience of +Tim is of someone fully committed to a better future. One example: he recently challenged me about my attitude to a particular survivor who wrote some unpleasant and unfair things about me. I stood rightly rebuked by Tim for not seeing the reasons why they said what they did: even if the things said remained unfair my attitude needed to change. I think he is entirely committed to doing the right thing. So I’m inclined to a generous view of this out-of-context remark. I’m willing to stand corrected if the wider picture reveals a different perspective.
No, I don’t think it can bear that interpretation at all. And the fact that he has had no redress since confirms the lack of care expressed above. The fact that EIG were recalled to IICSA after giving misleading evidence is additional reinforcement.
That’s how I read it, Janet. I simply don’t see the animus in his remarks. I don’t think you can ask for or seek an apology if a remark is not being read correctly. All you would likely get is a “sorry that you read it that way” non-apology – which would make matters worse. I can’t comment on the reliance on cumulative suspicion: but prima facie there’s always a risk of 2+2=5. I just don’t see what the authors see.
I didn’t say there was ‘animus’ depressed in the email. Nor did I ask for an apology. I merely said I didn’t agree with your interpretation. To my mind, the email does express a lack of compassion and concern for the survivor., and this has been borne out by the treatment meted out to him.
Not wishing to condone the words or actions of Tim Thornton or in any way minimize the distress they caused to the survivor in receipt of the SAR I am uncomfortable with a character assassination of Bishop Thornton on a public site. As the letter acknowledges there are other Bishops who could equally well be called to account but the only one to be named is Tim Thornton. This blog has spent a lot of time discussing how wrong it is not to allow an accused person representation on a core group yet if, in the very unlikely circumstance, Bishop Thornton wishes to represent himself or have a supporter do so on his behalf in this case he will be relegated to the comments section which would not provide him equal status and that is surely an inbalance of power.
The other concern I have about this letter is that the church will take it at face value and not look beyond it to the deep wound that, it would seem to me, the author of it clearly has. A wound that is far reaching and interconnects with other unresolved aches and longings. The line that this survivor walks is most likely very narrow with survival on one side and falling into the abyss on the other and for me that is always the primary concern.
Appreciating that this comment will be most unpopular!
No, it’s a good point.
A comment by a contributor has been removed on the grounds that it was too personal and offensive against a named individual.
Hello everyone! I am briefly back (after 52 days offshore without internet) and trying to catch up with everyone. I hope you are all okay, we’re not back in UK yet and it sounds pretty tough still.
Reading this post, after learning about limited/no progress in my case, I am just, like Trish, in concern and anguish about the raw pain and distress behind the letter and how close to the edge that can take us.
Just sending love and prayers to you all.
Hi Jane. Yes it all still goes on.
Jane, good to have you back.
Yes, it’s disturbing when when clergy who claim to know a little about the love of God can ignore or belittle a cry of pain like this one.