When reading the material about the Martyn Percy case, it struck me forcibly that not only were individuals at Christ Church organising attempts to get rid of him; he was also facing institutional attack. I have identified five groups or institutions which are, in different ways, contributing to the assaults on the Dean. They are first, Christ Church College and the Church of England, operating through its quasi-legal structures of the Core Group and Clergy Discipline Measure. In addition to these, we have the reputation management company working with Christ Church and the central Church. This firm has attempted to control the narrative of the story with carefully designed briefings and press releases. Next in line we find the legal firms which act for the Church in several of its many manifestations. One particular powerful and wealthy firm of ecclesiastical lawyers is found in every part of this dispute and seems to be facing a number of conflicts of interest. The Dean’s cause has not been helped by the sheer ubiquity and spread of this firm’s power. As we will see it is hard to face up to sustained attack from lawyers propped up by access to almost unlimited quantities of cash. Christ Church is extremely rich, even by Oxford standards, and has already, according to press estimates spent in excess of three million pounds on its campaign. Most of this money has been spent on legal fees and expenses. Finally, we find another shadowy institution in the form of the dining club known as Nobody’s Friends. Several of the senior church lawyers and churchmen who are working against Martyn are long-term members of this Lambeth dining club. It has become increasingly clear over the last few years how much institutional and patronage power this club possesses. It certainly helped Peter Ball escape justice for two decades.
The most important, and certainly most powerful and wealthy of these institutions, are the Church’s legal agents. One firm at the heart of the Percy case, acts in legal matters for no less than nine CofE dioceses, including the Diocese of Oxford. It also works for the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for the Anglican Consultative Council. That is, by any standards, a hugely enriching portfolio of interests for one law firm to hold. Key to this influence is the firm acting for the Archbishop of Canterbury. The firm thus has power in General Synod affairs and most of the core activities of the Archbishops’ Council, including the NST. This power of this one firm over church affairs is such that, if it were a private company operating in the commercial sphere, there would likely be challenges to it, on the grounds that it has a controlling monopoly. Certainly, this firm wields more power in the Church of England than any other single institution. Those who have access to the centre of this firm, through friendships or professional relationships with its members, are also able to exercise considerable power and influence in the Church of England.
As it was put to me recently, this legal firm is ‘constantly in the background or in the driving seat of all CDMs and the NST processes in the Southern Province.’ A high proportion of the limited cohort of lawyers who specialise in church affairs, work for this one firm. They will usually be involved, directly or indirectly, with every legal case that involves the Church. It was pointed out to me recently that it seems impossible to get a C of E Core-Group without someone with links to this premier law firm being present, and, quite likely, controlling things. In the Dean Percy case, we discover this single firm providing legal advice to both the complainants, Christ Church and the Church of England acting through the NST. It is hardly a scenario that suggests impartial justice and transparency. This is what most look to find in the Church of England. What an outside observer in fact sees in the Percy case, is a somewhat grubby collusion between two institutions, each with their own agendas. A faction of dons at Christ Church clearly has the aim of removing the Dean with the lawyers there to help it achieve its objective. In their first attempt to rid themselves of the Dean, the process was checked by the findings of the retired Judge and independent adjudicator, Andrew Smith. Later, in their second attempt, the NST, also working with the identical law firm to Christ Church, launched its second assault against Dean Percy, using the Core Group process. Later it became clear that the Christ Church faction was controlling or ‘playing’ the Church’s own legal tools for its own purposes. The Church initially failed to spot the trick that was being played. The law firm was, meanwhile, aiding and helping to facilitate all these processes and there was no obvious reference either to fairness or natural justice. Both parties, the College faction and the NST, were pursuing their own purposes, while being apparently aided and abetted by this law firm. The partners of the firm, in their charging rates, were drawing into their coffers considerable sums of charitable wealth from both Church and College.
The setting up of a weaponised Core Group against the Dean earlier this year (the second persecution) can be interpreted as an act of harassment and aggression against Dean Percy. But, whoever in the firm was advising the College at the time, does not seem to have spotted the obvious conflict of interest in the make-up of the Group. It should have been clear even to a non-lawyer that allowing two complainants to join as members of the Core Group was contrary to natural justice. This deployment of this Core Group against Dean Percy eventually collapsed in September 2020, but not before a great deal of money had been spent by the College and the central Church authorities. Simultaneously large sums of money were handed over by Christ Church to their reputation management company.
Meanwhile, fortunately, someone in authority in the C of E eventually saw that this weaponised Core-Group process was an unjust and inequitable action and the case against Martyn was dismissed in September. Some of the Core Group members were, as we noted, sacked along the way. As complainants they could not possibly provide an independent perspective in the current confrontation with the Dean.
Another institution which needs to be mentioned once again is the elite Dining Club that meets on three occasions a year at Lambeth Palace, Nobody’s Friends. Although there is a certain amount of reticence surrounding its activities, the identity of the majority of the members is known to those who take an interest in the Club. The friendships and networks formed there seem likely to act as a kind of social glue, similar to the ‘old school tie’. Several of the people involved in the Dean’s persecution are members, including senior church lawyers and some of the senior ranks of the Church. Membership of this elite group seems to assist its members in maintaining their privileged positions in society and retain influence in the Church and elsewhere. It was friendship with a NF member that helped to keep Peter Ball out of prison for twenty years (attested at the IICSA hearings). It has also apparently allowed Jonathan Fletcher (a senior member) to avoid any scrutiny by the national safeguarding officers of the Church.
The NST, as we know, is a key- player in the Percy affair. With the departure of Melissa Caslake who seems to have provided some firm independent leadership, the premier law firm’s activity within the NST will, no doubt come to more to the fore. A compromised NST (in its increased reliance on church lawyers) will not make things easy for the Dean as he faces the brand new CDM launched in November As the law firm is already contracted to Christ Church, it will have a hand in attacking Dean Percy from two directions.
The lawyers have also attacked the Dean by leaking stories to the press and briefing reporters on behalf of their clients. In these activities they are subtly undermining and even destroying the fabric of the national church. Will justice and honour ever be served in this process? Because of his sometimes outspoken theological views, Dean Percy has made enemies with certain factions within the Church of England. But, how can justice ever be served when he is being hemmed in by the legal arms of both institutions, no doubt working together?
Finally, we come to the current CDM. This is where we started: current affairs. The CDM was filed against the Dean in early November by Graham Ward and processed by the Bishop of Oxford the very same day. Thereafter, it took a mere nine days, for the reports and the summons to come back to the Dean, requesting him to respond. This period of time included two weekends. The extraordinary speed of the process in this case is a cause for concern, as the average time for processing a CDM is estimated to be around sixty days – or something else was going on? Either way, nine Diocesan Synods, and surely General Synod, really ought to be asking some searching and pertinent questions about legal processes in the Church. And about the conflicts of interest and power games that exist in these current affairs.
The Martyn Percy affair, however it ends up, will be dissected and argued over for years to come. There are no winners in the case. A College has been prepared to risk its institutional reputation and that of some of its senior members in a matter that surely could have been sorted in some other way. On the other side we have an individual who has had to stand up to legal and institutional bullying of the most serious kind. It has left him shattered and broken. This blog post has touched on the bare outlines of the saga, one which has created appalling destruction, not only to the Dean and his College. It has caused damage to the long-term reputation of the Bishop and Diocese of Oxford, who have mostly opted to be silent. The ripples of the affair have reached further to undermine confidence in the leadership of the Church at the very highest level.
Thank you Stephen. It is very brave of you to publish the truth. Having been broken by these iniquitous processes, the only remnant of justice left to Dean Percy is for him to be publicly exonerated, and those involved who have acted either unjustly and unprofessionally at best, and those guilty of deliberate dishonourable behaviour and misconduct, must face an independent tribunal. It is really important for the truth to be in the public domain and the scale of Dean Percy’s persecution to be laid bare. I have no words to describe an institution which has dealt so dishonourably with an innocent person, whilst covering up for paedophiles and other guilty members. The fact that this is the third attempt shows not only that there is apparently no desire for justice and fairness but that a group within the church will stop at nothing despite the public opprobrium at their callous dealings. Meanwhile, as you say, the lawyers involved are raking it in.
That this has happened to one of their own, a clergyman, and a distinguished and prominent clergyman shows that the parishioner who is treated unjustly by their diocese has probably no realistic hope of fair treatment, let alone justice. I understand better why my diocese believes it can threaten and harass me despite my unimpeachable evidence. The church continues to act like this because it can. I hope your blogs will help to bring such behaviour to an end.
God bless you Stephen. Like many others I can only send Dean Percy my best whishes and pray for him. It may be the Christmas season, but it is Christ’s trial and persecution which come to mind.
There is another victim in this matter to whom we should have regard.
A young woman has brought a grievance to the College. It may or may not be true, it may or may not be capable of being substantiated. It may or may not even be a safeguarding issue. In a different institution untainted by powerful people’s extraneous agenda, it may have been satisfactorily resolved by alternative dispute resolution.
Be that as it may, that young woman has been dragged into a high profile dispute which cannot be a happy position to find herself in.
Through the incompetent and corrupted processes described in this and other blogs, it makes justice for both her and the Dean infinitely less likely. No outcome will command respect, and that serves nobody’s interests at all, save the bullying Christ Church malcontents to whom people and due process seem expendable, just so long as they can railroad the Colleges Governing Body, whether or not due process has actually been completed.
It was to stop this kind of thing, that my General Synod colleague David Lamming and I have spent the past few years determined to secure proper reform of all our processes, not least cleaning up the whole core group mess and the conflicts of interest issues described above.
At present we seem to get outcomes that suit the Church’s current agenda. Sometimes it means victims don’t see justice, sometimes it means an expendable cleric gets thrown under the bus. As in every mafia casino, the bank always wins.
Only when we have a clean system that everyone can believe in will justice be served.
We hoped that by reporting our concerns to the Charity Commission we might have seen
an interim clean up, pending full structural reform.
In fairness, there are, in my view, Church insiders who now “get it”, and we will probably see serious efforts to reform, but I fear that it will take a brave decision to toss this case out and require it be processed afresh untainted by the dodgy process we have witnessed to date.
What does a “victory” look like in this enduring saga?
If we think about it, it becomes increasingly clear that the length and cost of this campaign mean that there are no winners, except perhaps for those amassing fees.
And ironically the more the saga persists the more publicity there is for the Dean and, in my opinion, the more support he gains.
I suspect this is more about not losing. It’s not quite the same as winning. There are those who simply refuse to admit they misjudged this. Stopping means admitting defeat and that is too heavy a cost for their reputation or loss of face. It’s cheaper to continue, particularly when you’re spending someone else’s money.
It also looks a bit like the legal tail is wagging the College dog here. Lawyers will lead you enticingly into all the possibilities they can devise, which are many. They will even take over if that’s your instruction. But is there any leader left in this establishment with the bottle to end this now? I fear not.
Stephen Parsons has skilfully joined up the dots to form the outline of a picture of corporate corruption. It’s up to the rest of us to begin to fill in the colours on this picture to bring awareness to all of what it looks like. Sometimes we can become preoccupied with minutiae and fail to see what’s going on.
There is an interconnected and power-laden bastion at the centre of the picture. Their system of preferment and concealment is being repeatedly undermined.
From the eventual exposure of Peter Ball despite hefty coordinated resistance, to the public questioning of infamous Iwerne network alumni, the bastion’s walls are crumbling.
With Christ Church Oxford, a new picture is emerging. The very nature of safeguarding is being attacked from every angle. Who is a victim, who is a perpetrator? What are the limits? Who decides? Can you appeal?
Ironically, by throwing all its resources at the dean, and they are considerable resources, the College is actually funding a process and hastening the arrival of something very much better.
Because the systems in place are so full of holes as to be unworkable. The bastion’s disingenuous antics are bringing swift and well published clarity to this. Few could be in any doubt about it. They are actually paying good money to show us all.
Obviously we can’t prejudge the case, but the circumstances and history tell a different story.
Meanwhile the survivor community accumulates repeated examples of injustice. They will be fully aware of how flawed the system is and will be watching closely the progress of this high profile campaign.
I’m not fond of the term “train wreck”, but this is what it looks like.
Really we need to start again to determine what constitutes safety and fairness in the Church. For what it’s worth I believe a fundamental principle must be external scrutiny. No one should be allowed to mark their own homework. The final decision must be constitutionally External.
I’m sure as I write this many clever people will already be drafting something much more suitable to safeguard all. God’s speed with that.
Another institution that does not come out of this sorry tale well is Oxford University itself. As there are prima facie grounds for thinking that Martyn Percy is being bullied and harassed and falsely accused in the course of carrying out his duties, then independent investigators should be appointed by the university to investigate those allegations (allegations that would be tied to alleged wrongdoers, either individually or collectively). Universities, like other professional bodies, regularly undertake such investigations, and there are firms that specialise in such work. If the University, probably in the person of the Vice Chancellor, does not intervene in such a way, the ‘battle’ goes on being one-sided. Bullying and harassment are common in universities, and more should be done to investigate and root out such practices. It isn’t that hard – there is a modus operandi for professional bullying, and experienced investigators are very good at sifting the evidence and seeing behind smokescreens (to mix my metaphors).
Oxford and Cambridge colleges are autonomous corporations, and I’m not sure that the University has any role at all in what is the essentially disciplinary matter of bullying. Greater minds than mine have also been taxed by the conundrum that the Crown is the Visitor of both the College and the Cathedral, and not the Bishop of Oxford of the latter. So far as I am aware, the Crown has not intervened or been asked to.
Yes that is true. Still, compliance and governmental issues push towards the centre. I think it is true that the Office for Students pays the university not the colleges. The university disperses it. There is a VC who can and does make pronouncements on behalf of the University – she was rather vocal against Brexit, for example. And there is a collectivity of heads of houses who can similarly make a public stand. However, I am sure you are right that the overall governance situation helps explain why Oxford cannot investigate this swiftly in the way any other university (except Cambridge) could and would.
Steve: Before casting aspersions on the legal profession at large, I think we need to know more clearly what has actually happened in the Percy case. I checked out the details of one ‘PR’ firm, and mentioned here (or on TA), that none of their management was legally qualified.
Changing the subject very slightly, although there are related and significant factors, the disastrous handling by the NST of the case of Bishop Bell was due to the fact that the C of E did not have competent lawyers on board. I have made the point several times that this was inexcusable as there is a body of legal expertise in this field which could have been utilised to ensure that the investigation was undertaken properly. It took Lord Carlile to spell out, almost in words of single syllables, what went disastrously wrong and what should have been done. I believe I am correct in my recollection that the senior Church officer in the core group admitted at the IICSA hearing that he had never previously even known of Bishop Bell.
Incidentally, I and one other regular contributor here, considered that all of the members of the NST core group in the Percy case should have resiled themselves and the group reconstituted afresh. The conflict of interests ought to have been self-evident to all, and the fact that minutes were not taken at their first meeting should have been a further red light to those, shall we say, less conscious of the conflict of interests, that all was not well and that the House of Bishops’ Guidelines were not being followed.
Stephen refers to Sir Andrew Smith’s report but, so far as I am aware, it is not yet in the public domain (or likely to be, I wonder?).
This is a brave piece, but also measured. I agree that there needs to be proper process for the woman, who as I understand it is an adult and an employee. If so, it is hard to see how this can possibly be a safeguarding matter. Unless the employee is actually a vulnerable adult – in which case there would be safeguarding measures in place for her – its is hard to understand why the NST are involved at all.
More serious to my mind (and this is shared by many in Oxford) is how and why any members of Chapter are able to prevent the Dean from seeing staff, minors, students and members of the cathedral congregation one-to-one. It seems that the Dean is being treated as though he posed a danger of sexual harassment or assault to anyone. I can’t understand why the hey NST collude with treating the Dean as such a serious safeguarding risk. The purpose of safeguarding is surely to ensure good practice and the safety of all? Not just allow random perversions of justice to be given a free pass, just to serve as a warning to any other innocents.
Faith, I don’t think the usual term in secular life is “vulnerable adult” now. Just as an example , you don’t necessarily have to have Down’s syndrome, or be a recently bereaved and distressed person to be subject to unwanted attention or bullying. Really, any unpleasantness should be jumped on, and people subjected to it supported. End of. Always of course, with due regard to false accusations. So this young woman is entitled to the same safeguarding provisions as anyone else. Like you, or me.
Indeed, safeguarding law now recognises that we can all be vulnerable, depending on circumstances. And the Sexual Offences Act recognises the power dynamics that can reduce our capacity to freely consent, eg positions of trust. A junior employee certainly can be in a safeguarding framework, as the #metoo movement so clearly demonstrated.
I feel very concerned for the woman in this case, who surely cannot feel cared for by this process.
I listened on two separate occasions to a one of the Christ Church dons who was complaining about Martyn Percy. I asked what he had done wrong. There was a lot of ranting, but at the end of it I still couldn’t work out what he had actually done that would count as misconduct or wrongdoing. The initial complaints were that Martyn had asked to be paid in line with other heads of colleges in Oxford, that his meetings with the senior common room were too short and that he hadn’t spent enough time with all the awkward people in college. But how is that actually wrongdoing? The subsequent complaints were that Martyn had run up a legal bill (unavoidable if people are taking action against you) and got someone sacked (I think the person who had downloaded indecent images of children?).
I came away thinking that the whole thing was a vendetta against the Dean of Christ Church.
Replying to EnglishAthena. I do agree the woman in this sorry saga should have the same protections as everyone else. She will have a harassment policy, HR and I might guess a grievance procedure. She is an adult and an employee. But that cannot make this a safeguarding matter, unless the adult has an underlying vulnerability that meant she fell under the cathedral or college safeguarding policies. Students under 18 will be covered by such policies, as are children. My understanding is that the alleged ‘victim’ in this case was not a vulnerable adult (e.g., not requiring help or support, or lacking agency, or had an underlying condition that rendered her potentially exploitable).
The reason this was flagged as safeguarding has nothing to do with the allegation. It is a political move by college malcontents so they can insinuate again and again that the Dean is a “safeguarding risk”. Obligingly, the NST and CDM just swallow the bait every time, and allow the College malcontents to flip the allegation on its head, and say that the CofE, not the college, are investigating the Dean over “safeguarding concerns”. No truth or justice can be served by this lunacy. The CofE might like to look as though they take all allegations seriously. But with no filter or triage process in place, they get played. You can’t seriously take everything seriously! The risk the CofE then runs in so doing is that the NST looks amateur not professional, and weak not wise. And the end result is the trivialising of safeguarding.
Ironically, the Dean is the only employee at Christ Church who has no protection, as the statutes do not give the post holder a grievance procedure, HR, etc. Malcontents at Christ Church are therefore free to attack him on just about any front, and have done so for more than two years.
It is very disturbing that the CDM and NST processes are such easy vehicles for these malcontents drive, using them as extra resources and weaponry in this campaign to destroy the Dean. You’d have thought better of the CofE, that they’d not be so naive. However, Stephen’s blog suggests that the conflicts of interest and vested powers at stake point some way beyond naivety towards something rather darker.
Perhaps I’m not understanding your point. I don’t want to go off on a tangent, and I don’t think we disagree. But I’m not getting why only some people are entitled to safeguarding.
Faith (and Jane), you are right to be concerned for the 28-year-old woman in this story (‘J’) but, I suggest, the principal concern should be for the way that she appears to be being used by Graham Ward (the formal complainant in the current CDM process against the Dean) and the other malcontent dons at Christ Church to further their vendatta against the Dean.
There was a significant sentence in the feature article by Andrew Billen (himself a Christ Church alumnus), “Is the war of Christ Church v the dean at an endgame?” published in The Times on 16 December 2020. That article shows how trivial J’s complaint is even on her version: “She claims that the married 58-year-old father of two paid her a compliment about her hair and stroked it for ten seconds without permission.” Billen then adds, before recording that Percy denies touching her: “This, she later concluded, having talked to other members of the cathedral, amounted to sexual assault.” In other words, the ‘complaint’ was ‘bigged up’ by the Dean’s enemies (and Billen comments that ‘enemies is hardly too strong a word’) to further their war against the Dean.
In that context, it is perhaps no wonder that an ‘update’ notice on the diocesan website on 19 November 2020 stated: “We are disappointed that those seeking to support the Dean are reportedly trying to downplay the severity of the complaint. Such actions belittle the complainant and only add to the distress of anyone else considering a complaint against someone in a senior position. The complaint, which has been brought to the Church under the Clergy Discipline Measure, will be properly and thoroughly investigated.” Hardly a neutral statement, but one for which it appears the Bishop of Oxford must bear some responsibility. The so-called ‘severity’ of the complaint can now be judged by its details having been revealed by Billen (and, earlier, by the Daily Mail on 22 November.) Comments on the Billen article posted online on The Times website are revealing. To date, though, the notice on the diocesan website has not been changed or added to, despite a request to the bishop on 20th November “to secure the posting of a further statement on the website explaining how the 19th November statement came to be posted, its authorship, and condemning it as a wholly inappropriate public comment while the current allegation is under investigation.”
Stephen notes (above) that “The CDM [complaint] was filed against the Dean in early November by Graham Ward and processed by the Bishop of Oxford the very same day.” However, before the Form 1d CDM complaint could be lodged by Professor Ward as the formal complainant (pursuant to the Clergy Discipline Rules), he was required (by section 42(2)(b) of the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003) to (i) obtain the bishop’s determination that he had a ‘proper interest’ in making the complaint and (ii) “attach the bishop’s signed written determination.”
[Continued on next…
[Reply to Faith and Jane – continued]
Ward wrote to Bishop Steven Croft on 4 November, referring to the investigation by Kate Wood, which he and the Sub Dean had “agreed to initiate”, adding that Wood “concludes her report of the investigation by stating her belief that the incident did take place as [J] alleges, and that it is a safeguarding matter.” (Interestingly, Wood records at the beginning of her report that “It was explained to me that the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser for the Diocese of Oxford had advised that this was not a safeguarding issue.”)
Ward requested permission to make the complaint “as Safeguarding Lead for the Cathedral.” However, what he did not disclose in his letter to the bishop was that he was:
• one of the seven members of the Governing Body who made the complaint in September 2018 to the Senior ex-Censor seeking Martyn’s removal from office as Dean – a complaint that led to the setting up of the Smith tribunal which, after an 11-day hearing, rejected all the charges (Decision, 19 August 2019),
• one of the dons who made the ‘safeguarding’ complaint to the National Safeguarding Team in March 2020, a complaint which, after investigation was roundly dismissed, with the Bishop of Huddersfield, Dr Jonathan Gibbs (the C of E ‘lead’ bishop on safeguarding) declaring on 8 September 2020 that “the Dean had acted entirely appropriately in each case” (see Church Times, 11 September 2020, page 2), and
• one of the 41 dons who wrote to the Charity Commission on 20 May 2020 (i.e. while the complaint to the NST was, effectively, sub judice) stating their opinion that the Dean had “breached his legal and fiduciary obligations and shown both unsound judgement and a consistent lack of moral compass, and that he is not fit to remain a trustee”?
The Bishop replied the next day, stating “I am content that your role within the Cathedral and acquaintance with the matter is sufficient for me to determine that you do have a proper interest to bring the complaint in question.” However, Bishop Steven has recused himself from further involvement in the CDM process, which is now proceeding in accordance with the provisions of the Clergy Discipline Rules under the oversight of the Bishop of Birmingham, to whom its conduct has been delegated. Meanwhile, there ought to be a moratorium on any further action by anyone (especially the Governing Body of the college) until the CDM complaint has been disposed of. (Thames Valley Police have already stated that, “after a thorough investigation” they are taking no further action.)
Thank you so much Stephen for your diligent and careful work on these matters. It is quite hard to understand how such a flawed and expensive process has been allowed to continue for so long. There is a lack of accountability here which is very concerning. What role does the University have in scrutinising the College?
Another area that concerns me is confidentiality. It is striking that I am told that GDPR prevents me from being told what if anything is happening to the Bishop in my case; yet Martin is virtually ‘tried in public’. How is this not a breach of his privacy?
If it’s ok to tell the world all about his core group, perhaps I can name the bishops…
Jane: See my reply to Linda Woodhead above. ‘Oxbridge’ colleges are self-governing and independent of the University in disciplinary matters. Christ Church is unique among the Oxford Colleges in having the Crown as its Visitor.
Contrary to what some have said, the Christ Church Statutes do include a right of appeal by the Dean (and others) to the Crown in certain circumstances, but that right has not been invoked as yet.
As to the controversial use of the term “vulnerable adults”, at present those words appear as part of one of the definitions of ‘misconduct’ in the CDM (which is itself currently under revision), but to quote the exact words:
“failing to comply with the duty under section 5 of the Safeguarding and Clergy Discipline Measure 2016 (duty to have due regard to House of Bishops’ guidance on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults);”
It’s also worth noting most universities are governed by a small group of trustees (a council) as well as a senate, and also have an audit committee (which is where whistleblowers can go as a last resort). This means that there is a smallish group of accountable persons with significant independence who are responsible and to whom appeal can be made when abuses occur.
In the case of Oxford and Cambridge colleges, the trustees are the governing body. In other words, larger groups of people who are not independent. That is pretty exceptional within charity law, where trustees are not meant to be beneficiaries of the charity – it seems like a conflict of interest.
I think this explains why this can happen at Oxford at not elsewhere — because there is no independent oversight. There is no obvious body to which appeal can be made – except the Charity Commissioners (already involved, they sent a mediator), an employment tribunal (underway), or the Queen (having tea).
Agreed. The point I was making, distinguishing Oxford (and Cambridge) from the newer universities which are essentially single corporate bodies. London and Durham have constituent colleges, and I haven’t investigated their status, but suspect that they are wholly integrated within their respective University.
Replying to EnglishAthena – safeguarding policies and legislation protects all children (ie under18) and any “adult at risk” as defined under the 2014 Care Act. An adult at risk is someone who lacks agency, which can render them vulnerable or exploitable. This is usually taken to mean Mental or physical disability, such that the person with the disability, even though they are an adult, can be exploited (eg sexually, financially ) as a result of their condition.
Safeguarding is not a general term for hurtful actions that are perpetrated by others. My purse was stolen before Christmas, and my credit cards used: it’s not safeguarding. But if I had a mental health condition and my carer did this, that is safeguarding. The point being here that for it to be safeguarding the perpetrator has to know what the vulnerability is, and exploit it. The point of safeguarding is to have policies in place that manage the risks. The Dean’s alleged victim is at worst a harassment-employee matter, or HR. It’s not safeguarding.
Surely we wish misconduct of any kind to be dealt with appropriately by the church? My disability means that I do have the protection accorded in theory to what the church designates as vulnerable adults, if not in actual practice in my case. However I find it appalling and unchristian that assaults, bullying etc perpetrated on adults not currently covered by the rules are not dealt with. Are we not all of equal value and worth? Apparently not as far as the church is concerned.
I would like to add that when I wrote my piece I was unaware there was a genuine complainant in the case who must of course be accorded fair treatment and justice. I myself do not like being physically touched, unasked and would complain to the person doing so. However if the complaint is of substance, and occurred once only, surely it could have been dealt with appropriately without a full blown cdm process. The circus surrounding Dean Percy cannot be explained by one such accusation. In contrast actual paedophiles have been protected by the church for decades. Clearly there is something amiss in the situation which is so totally out of proportion to the actual complaint at a time when some readers of this blog have been trying to secure action for more serious offences, and in my case, proved them to the satisfaction of a Bishop.
Faith, I wasn’t talking about having a purse stolen! I was talking about inappropriate approaches and bullying. Anyone can suddenly find themselves in a vulnerable position. The compulsory training we all have to have is pretty general. It becomes a safeguarding issue if your boss is bullying you, whoever you are.
I have made the point elsewhere that safeguarding needs to be a protected area for people at special risk.
In a nutshell, if everything is ‘safeguarding’ then ( functionally) nothing is.
In a similar vein the bishop referred to this allegation of a brief touching of hair as a serious incident. That needs contextualising and an adjudication; think for example, of a soccer player ruffling a goal scorer’s hair. That may not be consensual but neither is it necessarily sexual or an assault. Context is everything.
If you use that language for such an incident, whatvocabulary do you have left to describe some of the seriously horrific and distressing behaviour that I ( as a former Chid Protection lawyer ) use to handle ? I shall spare you the details.
I agree Martin, context is critical. Which is why I feel we can’t judge this case as we don’t know what we don’t know. It’s the process, not whether it was safeguarding or not, that matters.
I agree that language should be proportionate too. And needs unpicking, as I always got people to do in safeguarding training, when they said things like ‘my Dad used to discipline me and it didn’t do me any harm’. I’m comfortable with the word ‘serious’ in this case, because it is serious to the person who experienced the unwanted touch, whatever the level of horror or acceptance others might feel about it. It’s like our legal definition of harassment (Equality Act 2010) which says its actions that are ‘unwanted’, & make us feel ‘intimidated or humiliated’. It’s about our reactions, whatever the other person intended. It’s personal.
That is why in Survivors Voices we avoid implying there is any hierarchy of abuse. I am saying that as someone who has experienced the kind of horrible things Martin sensitively refrains from describing, including organised sexual exploitation & torture as well as familial child abuse. But I don’t want to minimise anyone else’s experience.
We need to see adult safeguarding in the context of power relationships, and keeping all of us safe, whether or not we have a recognised ‘vulnerability’ at any given time. Power dynamics can make us all vulnerable. ‘Unwanted acts that cause harm, when our capacity to consent is constrained’ might be one way to define safeguarding issues. My capacity to consent might be constrained because I was previously abused, or I am disabled, or have mental health issues. Or it might be because I am a junior colleague, or a young adult or a woman or a person of colour or LGBTQI in a context where white old straight men have long dominated.
It’s like domestic abuse/intimate partner violence. Legally in a marriage I am equal to my husband. So I am not necessarily ‘at special risk’. But we now recognise that behaviours of grooming and coercive control as well as violence create unequal power dynamics and therefore safeguarding issues. We recognise witnessing domestic abuse is in itself a safeguarding issue for children. The law now recognises that a married person can rape their partner, again even if there is no violence.
Let us not create a category of ‘vulnerable victims’ in adult safeguarding, as it risks sliding into victim-blaming & pathologising the victim (not implying that any of us here are doing that). We can all be vulnerable, if the circumstances create it. We recognise that in the Fletcher case, it was all about the context of power, not about who his victims were.
It’s so important that we stand up against the kind of institutional harassment that Martyn Percy has faced and the hijacking of safeguarding processes to other ends. But let’s not do that by drawing our definition of safeguarding too tightly. I for one don’t want to be seen as a vulnerable…
…victim. They misused their power over me and caused significant harm. It was entirely their responsibility.
If the risk assessment found Martyn Percy to be of moderate to high risk that in my opinion needs serious questioning. Who was the risk assessor? What methodology did they use, was it the most commonly used Marie Fortune model (Pastors who Prey 2013) or another one? In any risk assessment the risk assessor has to give advice on how the situation is managed and what happens moving forward.
If the reporting of the safeguarding incident is correct it would seem completely ludicrous that the findings of a risk assessment resulted in moderate to high risk level and that Wood has seen fit to rubber stamp it.
Given that in my abusers case, who was proven to have committed serious sexual acts on me while I was a psychiatric patient, was regarded in risk assessment as a low level risk and not predatory this would make Martyn Percy’s findings seem to be out of all proportion with the reported incident and Wood may not really know Pollard, as she states, but she certainly knew of my case and the DSA that rubber stamped the risk assessment. Double standards or what!!
An excellent point. There is nobody involved in this case to date who would be considered as suitably qualified in the eyes of the civil courts to offer any meaningful risk assessment.
If I found a broken tile on the church path which might have come from the church roof you might take seriously my opinion that we should rope off the area until an experienced roofer had had a look .
You would not take me seriously if I asserted that the Church tower had to be demolished because of the risk that I extrapolated from my amateur speculations, certainly not until you had commissioned a structural engineer to look at the overall situation, with suitable qualification and experience.
Thank you David for your informed and robust perspective on the Percy affair. Having received a couple of emails implying that my comments on Christ Church were actionable in some way, I went to bed last night feeling decidedly a ‘vulnerable adult’. Now that I know that David’s letter would have to be appended on the bottom of any legal submission in order to put my comments into a perspective, I feel stronger. Thank you to the others, especially Faith for suggesting that this issue is of one supreme importance. Each expression of support for Martyn is is a blow for justice and a blow to stop the Church digging itself any deeper in the most appallingly deep hole. btw blocking emails from individuals who don’t like what you say does wonders for the quality of sleep!
David I am so sorry you have been under attack over speaking out for truth and justice, and glad you have stalwart and expert defenders here who have your back.
It is absolutely an issue of prime importance that a safeguarding process can be hijacked and abused by powerful men with some vendetta. Especially when we see the same process spectacularly failing genuine victims.
I think we need to be careful here about getting distracted into trying to say this was not a safeguarding issue, or arguing about what is adult safeguarding. The Care Act does indeed replace the term ‘vulnerable adult’ with the term ‘adults at risk of harm’ and ‘with care and support needs.’ We don’t know if that applies in this case.
Furthermore, we might consider the specific allegation as an indicator of grooming behaviour. I would certainly find it very creepy, triggering & oppressive for a senior male colleague to touch me without my consent. I would certainly report it as harassment. Given my history, I would also question whether such inappropriate boundaries with a junior colleague might indicate a lack of boundaries in other relationships. We can’t know this either, but it is right that it should be properly looked into.
The point is that this should have been at least a confidential internal disciplinary process and then if that revealed safeguarding concerns, a confidential safeguarding investigation.
The issue is not was it safeguarding. It’s how the process has been hijacked. Especially when, as Mary, Trish & I have all referred to in our cases, genuine serious safeguarding concerns are ignored. E.g the retired priest who raped me, who still has PTO, has not even been risk assessed.
I have been told that the core group process is being reviewed, and I have asked to have some input. I hope others here have too. Have you signed up for the CDM review consultation this month? That’s the battle we need to keep fighting here.
Quite right, Jane. Those of us who have experienced abuse are all on the same side. And obviously, we need to support Stephen when he walks out on a wobbly plank to try to highlight issues of fairness and justice. Or injustice.
Thank you, Jane, though I think you meant to express your commiserations to Stephen (not to me – I being one of Stephen’s ‘defenders’) for the adverse e-mails he has received in response to his post “speaking truth (and justice) to power.” As you say, whatever happened between the Dean and ‘J’ in the sacristy on 4 October 2020, it has been hijacked by the malcontent dons at Christ Church to further their vendatta against the Dean.
Further, whatever motivates the dons opposed to the Dean (and I would be the first to acknowledge that Martyn has ‘ruffled feathers’ in the C of E with some of his controversial statements on, for example, women’s ministry and the nomination in 2016 of Philip North to the see of Sheffield), specifically at Christ Church by Martyn raising concerns at the college’s safeguarding policies in the wake of the Lavinia Woodward case (see Andrew Billen’s report in The Times Magazine on Saturday 29 February 2020), as I pointed out in my comment (at 11.14 pm on 1 January), now that the details of the latest allegation have been published by the Daily Mail and The Times, readers can assess for themselves whether this is truly a safeguarding matter that should attract so much attention by the dons at the college. The real victim in all this is Martyn Percy – victim, in effect, of a bullying and gaslighting campaign by those determined that he should be ousted as Dean, whatever the means. That needs to be loudly called out and widely condemned.
thank you David, you are right I meant Stephen.
It’s all just so rubbish, isn’t it?
Feeling exhausted, but we take a deep breath and carry on …
It is desperately sad standing on the outside and looking in.
No-one involved in this – irrespective of guilt or innocence – will come out of it unscathed.
In seeking, Stephen, to speak truth to power, you have taken on some powerful and well connected individuals and structures. Legal firms, Oxford Colleges and NST’s are one thing but you are also speaking out against your own church and calling it to order. The voice of the prophet is hard to receive.
The CofE comes out of all this, tarnished and tattered. To those of us who are fellow travellers as Christians but not Anglicans it is, at best, a sorry sight to behold. At worst, it’s crippling the work of the churches as we are all being tarred with the same brush.
To
thank you David, you are right I meant Stephen.
It’s all just so rubbish, isn’t it?
Feeling exhausted, but we take a deep breath and carry on …
Since this two-parter went up, I have been told that the Sub-Dean has issued a really nasty instruction that nobody is allowed to see the Dean one-to-one, as he is alleged to pose such a “risk” to everyone. Apparently, even when the Dean saw his own son (late 20’s) during a break, he was clobbered for this, and told that meeting anyone alone amounted to a “safeguarding breach”. So staff, students, congregations have all been told not to approach or visit the Dean or his home unless they are sure h they are accompanied, or that he is not there.
Can any readers help here? This all just seems extremely sick and twisted to me. Is it normal practice for the NST to use other clergy to impose a regime like this? It seems utterly disproportionate to me. I also gather the Dean is not allowed in his Cathedral or any other place of worship unless “supervised” or is “granted permission”. Does the Diocese and the Sub-Dean have the power to restrict people like this? I think a court order might do it, but I cannot understand what kind of risk assessment has been put together by Ms. Wood and the Sub-Dean, with Canon Ward, to make this acceptable. It surely nastily impugns the good name of a scholar and priest, and must surely amount to defamatory and intimidatory behaviour.
Having read this back I imagine that the lawyers acting for the College/Cathedral/Diocese/Conspirators have signed off on this. That is why we need an inquiry into the legal firm acting here. Any lawyer that backs this kind of behaviour and says it is OK to do this to anyone really should be summarily fired, and certainly be let nowhere near the church again.
Risk management to this level might be part of an agreed MAPPA plan for a convicted offender, but I have never heard of anything like this for someone that the police have NFA’d.
Nor of such a public statement. Interested to hear if the lawyers among us think this is challengeable?
Agreed Jayne, but when your abusers have forced you to spend somewhere in the region of £500,000 to defend your reputation, and after you have comprehensively defeated them, they have not reimbursed you for it , whilst spending £2m+ of Charity money without having any personal financial “ skin in the game” how can any redress be afforded?
This failure to put right the wrongs that have already been done is part of the reason many regard the malcontent dons as unprincipled bullies.
I’m horrified that such draconian restrictions should be applied to someone the police could find no evidence against, and who has not been tried, let alone convicted, of any offence whatever. Surely the Sub-Dean and other college officers involved must have exceeded their powers, and ought themselves to be disciplined. If the restrictions are not swiftly overturned, with full apology to Martyn, questions ought to be asked in Parliament. It would be a matter of national concern if any person’s freedoms could be curtailed in this way without sufficient cause.
And to those of us who actually have suffered criminal sexual assault, and have tried in vain to get the Church to act justly, it’s a sick, perverted joke.
Hi Faith, this is the document that guides the church in risk assessment practice:
https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/responding-to-assessing-and-managing-concerns-or-allegations-against-church-officers.pdf
If the Bishop agreed to the risk assessment then I would have thought it should have guided the process. The behaviour you describe towards the Dean should only occur after a safeguarding agreement has been put in place. In normal circumstances discussing this agreement whould afford the Dean an opportunity to discuss the situation with the Bishop. The risk assessment should be sent to the NST for a quality assurance check once it has been completed.
Personally Faith, if someone tells me not to meet with someone that I believe in and care about I tell them to bugger off.
Trish: No NST involvement in a CDM, which is what this was all about. Whether proper procedures were followed is not for me to say, nor, indeed, am I competent to say. I’m happy to be corrected, but as I understand, the ‘risk assessment’ was used, essentially, to establish to the satisfaction of the Bishop of Oxford that (a) there was potentially a case to answer and, more importantly, (b) to meet the requirements of the rule that the person applying for the CDM had a ‘proper interest’ in making the complaint. David Lamming set this out for you in rather more detail in his lengthy post above: January 1st 11.14 – 11.17
Thanks Rowland it is all very confusing but all risk assessments need to go to the NST, according to that document, not for disciplinary decision purposes but for quality assurance so that the NST can check that the risk assessor, who has to be selected from their accredited list, has done a proper job and deserves to stay on the list.
This whole thing has been grossly disproportionate from the beginning.
When I was seventeen I was the victim of a violent sexual assault, aspects of which still affect me decades later, so you can perhaps forgive me when I find it difficult to summon up much sympathy for someone who has had their hair touched.
Has our current society encouraged women to hate men so much that a career must be ruined and a man driven to mental anguish for such as this. Of course we don’t always want uninvited touch, but surely stepping away, or saying ‘please don’t do that’ would have been sufficient.
I don’t entirely blame the girl though. I suspect this whole circus has mushroomed for reasons that have nothing to do with her and she might even be frightened by what has been set in motion. It appears she is being used and shame on those who are using her.
Hi hare, and Happy New Year. I don’t like to disagree with an old friend, especially when your experiences are so much more severe than my own. But I found viewing twenty years of bullying as abuse, liberating. It may be over-egging the pudding a bit. And I wouldn’t be suggesting trotting my abusers off to the tower. But when someone told me it was abuse, I found I could understand better why I felt so bruised and battered. I know others have had it so much worse, but it still hurts and causes harm. I could bore for England on how it changed my life. I’ve also had an unwelcome caress, and in my case it was, in public, and I can tell you it’s hideously difficult to deal with. Although it hasn’t left permanent scars.
And for another it might leave scars. Context is all.
In one of my cases, unwelcome caresses were part of the grooming behaviour that made the eventual rape easier to effect. It can be insidious. In another case it began with youth leaders giving young people shoulder massages.
I know some people here know and support Martyn. Let’s do that without minimising the issue raised by this young woman. It takes a lot of bravery to make a complaint like this. Let’s not make it worse for her by being dismissive of her experience, or judging in public something we really know nothing about.
I know how painful it is to have your experience minimised. It happened to me as part of my core group this year & nearly drove me over the edge. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be to have it all debated in public.
Let’s have some compassion and keep our attention focused on the malpractice in process, which some here do know enough about to enable informed comment.
Hi Jane, I absolutely agree that hierarchies of abuse are unhelpful and that none of us can comment on this situation but what deeply concerns me about this case is that the complainant did not bring the complaint herself. As you rightly say survivors are often warned away from CDM, with some good reason, but I know from my own experience that someone making the complaint on your behalf when you are not a minor and have capacity is equally ill advised by church and advocates. This is because it can set in place a course of action that the complainant quickly loses control of, like here, and then experiences as reabuse. The document Responding Well states how important in the healing process maintaining control is. The complainant would have been better served, in my opinion, if the Bishop was in less of a rush to rubber stamp the process and explored other ways with her of gaining a resolution. Authorised listener, Safespaces, independent mediation, none of these seemed to feature in the decision making process and from the diocese where To Heal and Not To Hurt generated from!
Totally agree Trish.
I hope to try to ensure the complainant is supported to explore those options, if she agrees.
As it’s also one of the dioceses I have a personal interest in, the Bishop’s actions don’t fill me with confidence.
I meant, if she wishes.
Beyond the personal issues, I admire Stephen for highlighting the nexus of legal and PR bodies at work in the shadows. I find it deplorable when universities and colleges depend on lawyers, NDAs and PR to go about their business, as they too often do these days. It seems to undermine the very basis of an institution of learning to deploy such tactics. If a university or college stands for anything, it should be truth freely sought and openly shared. By deploying lawyers to threaten and silence and PR firms to seduce, these values are traduced. There are many offenders, but I would have hoped that an ancient institution like Christ Church would have set a better example by being resistant to the worst tactics of modern corporatism. I work in the sector.
I suspect we all largely agree. I think a small transgression is still a transgression. And it would be very difficult to deal with it it’s your boss. The “not seeing anyone alone” should apply to everyone anyway. An actual order, issued by in this case a sub dean, let us say, I am astonished that this should be done when there has been no criminal conviction. As for not seeing your own grown up children in the circumstances described….. words fail me.
It’s probably common to all Universities but Oxford and Cambridge seem to seek (and to be able) to move the levers of power to an extraordinary degree.
They can clearly call on contacts at high level in a way totally unavailable to others. It’s concerning when it happens in planning disputes (Oxbridge Colleges vs Local Authorities can only even go one way on appeal) but verging on the criminal when it seeks to impugn and traduce individuals.
Perhaps we need a far reaching and deeply probing investigations into the Charities masquerading as Oxbridge Colleges.
Can we call a halt to condemning members of the legal profession until all the facts are known? I have pointed out, more than once, that the main ‘PR’ firm which has been employed, and must account for some, possibly a sizeable proportion, of the ‘legal’ costs, does not in fact have qualified lawyers.
For the benefit of other readers here, solicitors are Officers of the Court, and that duty overrides their duty to their client, although the two duties ought not to be incompatible.
I hope that David Lamming and Martin Sewell might support this comment.
Not entirely.
The legal affairs of the Church have been shaped by non specialist lawyers hence scant regard for the ordinary protocols. You do not have to be very experienced to appreciate that the ordinary rues of natural justice, still less the principles of the Human Rights Act are more observed in the breach than in practical application.
I offer a simple contrast. Very few safeguarding cases pass through the CofE. There are about 37 core groups handling one or two allegations apiece – many about administrative defaults. Approximately 100 cases make it to the Tribunal each year, most to do with unrelated issues.
Between June and September 2020 9410 children’s cases were handled by lawyers of my former safeguarding specialism. Now ask yourself this, who are the Church currently engaged with to advice on reform, and which cohort of lawyers would you turn to to bring about meaningful root and branch reform?
The conflicts of interests which do not seem to trouble Winkworth Sherwood do trouble me. In my area of former practice that kind of practice would have been called out years ago.
Point taken, but the blanket criticisms of the legal profession on this and other threads have been far wider than of one single firm of solicitors. I accept, of course, that you dealt with this point by saying “Not entirely”. I am also on record as having strongly, and repeatedly, criticised the absence of competent lawyers for the Church in the Bishop Bell ‘investigation’.
It’s probably also worth noting that one reason so few safeguarding complaints go to CDM is because complainants like me are warned against using that route because it’s so unfit for purpose and horrendous for all concerned.
Totally support Martin’s call for lawyers with proper expertise
The extent of WSLaw’s involvment in all of this (both past and present) should be concerning. As has been stated – John Rees, their senior consultant is provincial registrar to the Archbishop of Canterbury and registrar of the Diocese of Oxford. It is his firm being paid by Christ Church to help them oust the dean. And it was this firm which seemed to have many links with members of the core group abandoned earlier in the year. It is also my understanding that Alison Talbot the WSLaw lawyer handling ChCh litigation was somehow able to bounce between members of the core group and the Governing Body – to share information. If this is accurate it suggests the extent to which the NST was being ‘gamed’.
John Rees himself has previously shown a highly unique understanding of conflict of interest issues in the Devamanikkam case. And a year ago I found myself in the curious position of reporting this very senior church legal figure to Melissa Caslake for really quite serious breach of PCR2 protocols issued from the NST. It is time the Church sorted out its lawyers and their practices.
My experience is that church lawyers can be the very devil in dealing with abuse cases and responding to survivors. We have seen senior church legal advice from Stephen Slack in 2007 that all bishops should use “careful drafting” to “effectively apologise” without enabling victims to get compensation. We have also seen much more recently the corruption of a review by Archbishops Council legal department and others from inside Church House.
I think it is crucial that the lawyers the Church uses, both internally in Church House, and those such as WSLaw which provide so many diocesan registrars, are held to scrutiny. It may be nothing more than a curious coincidence but senior legal figures propose each other for membership of Nobody’s Friends, the dining club which has over 40 bishops and at least 30 legal figures (lawyers and high court judges). But I think not. I suspect the hidden wiring in the establishment is laid bare when one sees the senior echelons of this club.
Silly question perhaps. Martin Sewell, I presume you guys worked full time on these cases? I’m wondering if the church’s lawyers are doing loads of other things, not necessarily for the church. So the low rate might, to a degree at least, reflect the amount of time put into it. How many cases are circling waiting to land? This is all very depressing.
English Athena, happy to clarify. I am a retired solicitor with long experience in these matters. My years of practice go back to before there was a body of specific “safeguarding jurisprudence”. My experience grew with the discipline. When the specialist Children Panel was created by the Law Society, my existing experience in the field saw me passported onto the panel to get it started. I used to joke that people like me gave the panel credibility not vice versa.
You do not need much experience in the field to have discrepancies leaping off the page as outrageous. A five year call solicitor would do a better job than what we see on display here – it really is that bad. I can comment systemically from an informed perspective but I deliberately avoid trespassing on the role of the solicitors handling the case itself. I have only commented by interpreting what others have put into the public domain.
As I pointed out to General Synod, the really heavy matters are resolved in the criminal courts. The trivia can be easily discounted. What we are then left with is the “grey middle” – cases that are unclear, complex, with evidence that needs to be carefully and proportionately evaluated, yet these are handed over to core groups of the least competent people, without training, expertise, or expert guidance.
I personally would have handled up to 30 safeguarding cases at any one time for 30 years, some very heavy; I worked with Children’s Guardians to help the Court assess risks both on a provisional and long term basis. These would have involved all forms of abuse and neglect.
Not only has the Church never employed anyone of similar experience, they resist doing so. There are many junior lawyers available to help us; they would give competent service at a third of the cost which we pay to other lawyers to consistently mishandle our cases. Just having one on the zoom call to offer perspective would make so much of a difference.
Many thanks indeed for this, Mr Sewell.
However, your illuminating note begs the question: why do they not hire younger, cheaper and more competent litigators when it would allow them to save money?
I mean, ultimately, all of the defensiveness on the part of the Church is about money, isn’t it?
Or is it also about face? Is it that they are worried about additional reputational damage if their secrets are shared with lawyers from outside the tiny coterie of ‘old friends’ from the handful of select law firms who specialise in ecclesiastical law who have done all their work for them (even if ineptly) for aeons and who know where all the bodies are buried?
Is that right? Is that the sole justification for such heavy expense and such poor outcomes?
These are slightly rhetorical questions!
Hi, Froghole. Happy New Year. My very jaundiced view is that many of not most church appointments are made by the Holy Spirit! No one looks at experience or training. It’s just who the Bishop of whoever thinks is right. You know that line from “Yes Prime Minister” about the Holy Ghost not knowing what would make a good Bishop? It’s all done on a whim, your face fits , you’re in, even if you’re useless. And vice versa. Sorry, many sour grapes!
Many thanks, English Athena! Happy 2021 to you!
It seems to me that two or three law firms have a vice-like grip over practically all of the legal business of the Church (one firm in particular), with a few bits a pieces going elsewhere.
Unfortunately, I suspect the Church will be unwilling to put things out to tender, partly because the tender process can be disruptive and costly, but also because the market is so tiny and self-absorbed that it is simply not worth the while of other law firms to invest in ecclesiastical law and the training of ecclesiastical lawyers. I suspect that the few law firms who do ecclesiastical law in a serious way are not altogether unaware of this difficult fact.
Hopefully, if the Church is disestablished much of this residual market will be swept away, at least in the sense that ecclesiastical law would no longer be part of the ‘laws of England’. Of course, the Church in Wales still has diocesan ‘chancellors’ and registrars who are trained lawyers, but they are either ruling or advising on matters of general law or are administering the private rules of the club, so to speak, which is what ecclesiastical law became in Wales (save in respect of some minor issues to do with marriages or churchyards) following disestablishment in 1920.
However, the question is whether the Church has entrusted safeguarding issues to ecclesiastical lawyers within these few practices or to other lawyers in other departments who just happen to work at law firms with an ecclesiastical bent. As is well known, EI uses a lawyer who has worked at firms which have no ecclesiastical law practice, although they do much personal injury work and, in the case of DAC Beachcroft, have a substantial ‘public law’ practice (the legacy of Lord Hunt of Wirral).
Happy New Year Froghole,
I did this bit of research a while back – so it will be a little out of date here and there. But it gives the impression of the law firms involved across the CofE. The registrars may come and go – but the law firms tend to stay the same.
WSLaw are Winckworth Sherwood
1 The Sanctuary is also the office of the Faculty Registrar of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Howard Dellar is also treasurer/ secretary of Nobody’s Friends Club.
Hope the formatting works out…
DIOCESE REGISTRAR LAW FIRM
Bath & Wells Roland Callaby Harris Harris
Birmingham Vicki Simpson shma
Blackburn Kirsty Duxbury Napthens
Bristol Roland Callaby Harris Harris
Canterbury Owen Carew-Jones wslaw
Carlisle Jane Lowdon Sintons
Chelmsford Aiden Hargreaves-Smith wslaw
Chester Lisa Moncur
Chichester Matthew Chinery wslaw
Coventry Mary Allanson Rotherham Solic
Derby Nadine Waldron ewlaw
Durham Philip Wills Smith Roddam
Ely Howard Dellar 1 The Sanctuary
Europe Aiden Hargreaves-Smith wslaw
Exeter Alison Stock Stephens Scown
Gloucester Jos Moule vww
Guildford Howard Dellar (&Blaney) 1 The Sanctuary
Hereford Howard Dellar (&Blaney) 1TheSanctuary
Leeds Peter Foskett luptonfawcett
Leicester Trevor Kirkman latham lawyers
Lichfield Niall Blackie/Andrew Wynne fbcmb
Lincoln Ian Blaney (&Dellar) 1 The Sanctuary
Liverpool Howard Dellar 1 The Sanctuary
London Paul Morris wslaw
Manchester Jane Monks
Newcastle Jane Lowdon sintons
Norwich Stuart Jones birketts
Oxford John Rees/Darren Oliver wslaw
Peterborough Anna Spriggs hcs solicitors
Portsmouth Hilary Tyler brutton
Rochester Owen Carew-Jones wslaw
St Albans Matthew Chinery wslaw
St Edmo & Ipswich James Hall birketts
Salisbury Sue de Candole
Sheffield Andrew Vidler wake smith
Sodor & Man Louise Connacher luptonfawcett
Southwark Paul Morris wslaw
Southwell & Notts Amanda Redgate
Truro Jos Moule Veale Wasbrough Vizards
Winchester Sue de Candole battbroadbent
Worcester Stuart Ness sme solicitors
York Louise Connacher luptonfawcett
Of these, only a very few are members of Nobody’s.
Howard Dellar, the secretary. John Rees also. Aiden Hargreaves-Smith was on the Ordinary Lay Waiting List some years back, and might by now be a member. Alexander McGregor, the church’s chief legal advisor and successor to Stephen Slack (member), was on the Ordinary Clerical Waiting List, but it is not known whether he has reached member status yet.
High Court Judges seem to have had an easier route to the table. It was reported back in 2003 that former PM Tony Blair had been keen to join. He might be piqued by the fact that his brother, retired judge Sir William Blair, sits at the tables of the Guards Room.
Lord Mance and Lady Arden, husband and wife, are members alongside many senior ranking judges. Lord Mance was High Steward of the University of Oxford from 2012 to 2018. Henry Mance, the FT journalist and Christ Church alumnus, who has written occasionally about Martyn Percy is their son.
There are about 35 legal figures – judges or senior legal officers of the Church – all told.
Four archbishops are members.
Rt Rev & Rt Hon Lord Carey
Rt Rev & Rt Hon Lord Williams
Most Rev and Rt Hon John Sentamu
Most Rev and Rt Hon Justin Welby
The new archbishop of York might presumably be proposed. I know that he believes in the principle of openness about membership of clubs and societies for those in public life. Some other senior bishops have also expressed that they have no objection to their membership being registerd on a list of interests. One bishop agreed to be introduced as a member shortly after her appointment but did not attend since and recently resigned her membership, not least because of non-attendance. And I am told that another bishop on a waiting list also declined membership.
The titles of the various waiting lists suggest an impression of masonic heritage. I suspect this is historical. The club flourished at time when masonic societies were popular amongst men, and like many other societies at the time – used for a while the dining facilities of a masonic hall. The Masons may have realised that secrecy was not in their best interest. One wonders whether they have modernised faster than Nobody’s Friends.
Very many thanks for this information, Gilo, and very best wishes for you and your endeavours in 2021! It does seem that a relatively small number of firms provide the position of registrar (and, I would assume, the same firms may also furnish people for the office of deputy registrar, if there is one). 1 The Sanctuary is, I guess, the old Lee Bolton & Lee (which I think merged with Monier-Williams). You mention the Mance family; their daughter was at school with me (a delightful person).
Many thanks also to Mr Wateridge for his customarily valuable observations. I apologise for my very maladroit remarks above. A number of the firms referred to by Gilo will have rendered considerable service to local communities, often for two or more centuries: for example, a firm like Vizards has been in existence for more than three hundred years, and not long ago it merged with the Bristol firm of Veale Wasborough which has been extant for more than two centuries (although what with recent controversies in Bristol, you have to ask yourself exactly what sort of merchants that firm would have acted for prior to 1807/1833…).
I suspect that the firms mentioned provide an excellent service as ecclesiastical lawyers. However, I also note Mr Sewell’s remarks (and take him to be very well-informed), so I would query why he would make such remarks if it were not for the possibility that ecclesiastical lawyers have been given work that might not be strictly ecclesiastical and/or if they have been asked to intervene in safeguarding matters (where Mr Sewell evidently has great experience). Perhaps I have misunderstood things, yet again.
Froghole: As a final, not totally relevant but, I hope, interesting contribution, the Chapter Clerk solicitor I mentioned was the last of a long line in a family firm which had acted in the famous case of the ‘Tichborne claimant’. He possessed a silver salver presented to his forebear by the Tichborne family. I’m sure you know that they were/ are Roman Catholics and an aisle in the Parish Church at Tichborne with their family memorials and monuments continues to have RC consecration, rare in an Anglican Church, the only similar case that I know being the Norfolk chapel at Arundel (where, however, there is a solid separation), although there may be other instances as well.
I think David Lamming makes a valid point in reminding people here that that lawyers serve the C of E as Chancellors as well as Diocesan Registrars.
Without wishing to stir up any further controversy, I think there is much misunderstanding about the role of ‘Church’ lawyers. My final word on this thread!
Misunderstanding there may be but the conflicts of interest look pretty obvious from the outside. I do wonder what gymnastics the CofE has to go through to avoid seeing them in the same way from the inside
Gilo, I’ve not checked your list, but I note you say that it is a little out of date. One change I am aware of is that Stuart Jones of Birketts has succeeded Philip Morris of WSLaw as registrar of London diocese, so in that case the law firm did also change. For anyone interested, the names and contact details of all diocesan chancellors, registrars, and (where applicable, their deputies) can be found on via this webpage (click on the name the diocese):
http://www.diocesanregistry.co.uk/index.html
Thank you David, that is a very useful weblink.
Many of us have had to learn as we go along – I remember when I started out researching the innards of the institution (particularly the complicity between the Church and Ecclesiastical Insurance) I’d never heard of Companies House! Someone suggested I explored the annual reports in CH and I asked “What’s that?”
I remember the halcyon days when a local solicitor, in private practice, simultaneously held the offices of Coroner, Chapter Clerk, Under-Sheriff for the County and Clerk to a charity founded in 1180! I encountered him once at an Inquest, my late aunt (a jury-bailiff) used to see him escorting HM Judges at the opening of Assizes, and in his family solicitor capacity he acted for my sister-in-law dealing with her husband’s estate both efficiently and at reasonable cost. I say halcyon days as in all of this, there was never any conflict of interest (if it had arisen, e.g., at an inquest, he would have recused himself and a deputy stood in) and the highest professional standards maintained. One of my closest friends, a ‘country’ solicitor, was a person of the highest integrity and a greatly-respected member of the community. I make these points in the context of what I sometimes see as unwarranted, and even ignorant, attacks on the legal profession. But I’m willing, of course, to concede that times have changed and such standards aren’t necessarily universal now.
Is there any particular reason why Winckworth Sherwood and Luther Pendragon must not be named?
I’m sure that there were and are many such people with integrity. However, there were – and may perhaps still be – others who were not so transparent and who’s standards were a trifle (or more) murkier.
In such cases “County” Solicitors acted for “County” families.
Over many years working in Financial Services and Banking in County Towns and larger cities, membership of certain societies was pretty universal. In a well known national organisation, the largest of its kind, I was the only Senior Exec. who wasn’t a member. I made it clear that I would never do favours, nor expect help in return for any I might give. I never, but never, handled anything for friends and families nor did I ever promise secrecy at the expense of the truth.
All sorts of deals went through on the nod – the kind of thing that the ordinary man on the street could only dream about. The Police were also culpable as members of the same groups. Independence was seen as dangerous and I know of people whose livelihoods were destroyed and who were hounded out by such cabals.
Finally – and not before time – light is beginning to shine on some very deep darkness that has been endemic through much of professional, middle class Britain.
I don’t want to trespass too far on Stephen’s hospitality, but I am quite certain that none of those things was true of the two solicitors whom I mentioned. They were honourable professional people. Incidentally, neither I nor my family are remotely ‘County’ in the sense that you mean.
I have no knowledge at all of the solicitors involved in the Percy case and would not dream of commenting about them. It is now a matter of waiting for the Bishop of Birmingham’s decision in the CDM.
Unfortunately, the Bishop of Birmingham does not himself have a very good record when it comes to managing safeguarding cases. It’s a pity they couldn’t have chosen someone with an unblemished reputation in this regard.
One of the problems with ‘professional relationships’ is that although they start off on a good footing, in time cosiness, complacency and familarity take over, so the relationship ceases to have professional distance. I have experenced this in several charities especially in respect of auditors. When we changed the auditor, all sorts of previous sloppy practice came to light. I would hope that the Charity Commission might implement a requirement for the re-tendering of professional services every, say. 5 years. Even if you reappoint the same company, they will have had to review and sharpen up their practices and actions in order to make a proper bid. Even if there are few companies around, the next round of musical chairs might be a breath of fresh air and provide a different perspective. I understand that the bread and butter of registrar work is approving a new set of candlesticks for St. Agatha’s via the DAC, but without this mundane work and the fees involved, many would not be in this market. Safeguarding work and CDM should be the ‘cream’ (this is not intended to denigrate victims in any way, but is a useful metaphor) and therefore they should ensure that their lawyers have the appropriate understanding and expertise. If they haven’t, they shoud buy it in. Rowland is right in defending the legal profession (I am not a member of it, although when I went up to Cambridge in 1963, I was tempted, but my parents coud not afford the ‘extras’ and neither could my 100% grant, so just a poor Classics graduate.) Thanks to everyone who has tried to shine light into the darkness of Christ Church.
Local authorities have specialist lawyers who work in child / adult protection. Surely, if the C of E takes safeguarding of all kinds seriously, it should have an expert panel of such lawyers to draw from and not rely on cmpanies whose very valuable expertise lies elsewhere.