One of my complaints about the Church safeguarding world is the ease with which people in authority in the Church forget things. Some forgetting may be to do with deliberate supressing of inconvenient truth. The burden of remembering shocking information is too uncomfortable. So, it has to be buried. The other part of not remembering unpleasant material from the past is the fact that information overload can take over. I certainly find the task of preserving and sometimes printing out hard copies of numerous safeguarding reports fairly tedious. There are just too many of them. But the effect on our memories is the same. Cases, reports and personalities get forgotten. A new generation of safeguarding officials appear who know little or nothing of what has gone before. This is, of course, a serious matter for a Church that is trying to turn over a new page in safeguarding. It wants to deal professionally with a complex relationship with its record over safeguarding back in the past..
The new book, Sex, Power and Control by Fiona Gardner, goes some way to removing at a stroke any temptation to allow the past record of church safeguarding to disappear from the corporate memory. It has never, of course, gone away for the actual victims. The institution of the Church of England, on the other hand, seems often to do a good job at forgetting. Old mistakes are repeated and ‘lessons learned’ seem not to change things. The present book is a careful analysis and a record of all the main incidents of abuse over the past ten or twenty years. In every case recorded we find not only the wickedness of an evil act against a vulnerable person, but also the often clumsy responses by those in authority in the Church. If we have to summarise these responses, we can say simply that they routinely make a priority of the needs of the institution rather than the welfare of survivors. One vignette, recorded by Fiona, concerns the aftermath of a scandal in her home diocese where she was working as a Safeguarding Adviser. Although she had a senior position, with many responsibilities in safeguarding, no one in the senior staff had thought to tell her of the past abusive activities of a particular priest in the diocese. He was now facing imprisonment. The Bishop and the senior staff were having a meeting to discuss the ‘washing up’. By this they meant the attempts to mitigate the reputational and financial damage to the diocese. The victim in this case was never mentioned. Somehow the embarrassment that the Bishop was experiencing was projected on to Fiona. She was made to feel that the whole incident was in some way her fault. It is small wonder that Fiona only managed to complete six years in the post before moving on.
Of the rest of the stories and cases recorded in Fiona’s book, many are well known. But, as I have already suggested, many of these stories are becoming obscured by the passage of time. An endless succession of new stories seem to crowd in to take their place, grabbing the attention of a watching public. I wondered aloud with Fiona when she asked me to write the foreword. ‘Can you really write about cases of Church abuse when this safeguarding scene is constantly in flux? Will the book not be out of date the moment it is printed?’ I have come to see that the writing of a book recording things as they were at the very end of 2020 is an important thing to do. Sex, Power, Control provides a kind of benchmark against which to evaluate the journey from the past into what we hope will be a better future.
Three things give the book its distinctiveness. One I have already alluded to is that we have here a guide, sympathetically told, of the main church abuse cases and the response to them the mid-90s up till 2020. Thus we read of the cases of the Nine O’clock service, Matt Ineson, ‘Joe’ and Julie McFarlane among many others. The accounts are in accordance with the facts as gleaned from the individuals concerned or from one of the documented accounts that has appeared in the net. Secondly the stories are told within the context of a well-informed perspective. Fiona is an acute observer. She brings to bear her training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. This approach is a refreshing change from the official management methods that are typically on offer in the Church bodies that deal with abuse cases. The Church leaders that have tried to offer empathy or understanding to the survivors have often revealed a curious detachment from their sufferings. The choice of language emerging from Church leaders often reveals the priorities merely of reputation management. The current prevailing atmosphere in the Church of England is one that prioritises better systems of management. Growth and the smooth functioning of the institution is what matters. This is perhaps not the message of healing that survivors need to hear.
The third perspective, which I welcome unreservedly, is that Fiona’s indispensable book is written with a strong bias for the perspective and needs of survivors. She ‘gets’ their pain, their patience, their frustration and their waiting for justice. Her witness for the perspective of survivors is made stronger by her having worked for the ‘other side’ of safeguarding as a diocesan adviser. Her testimony about that six-year experience is telling. She found herself to be an embarrassment in the Diocesan Office, as though the stuff she was dealing with was somehow contaminating the real work of the Church. No one there wanted to admit that shameful things were going on. The issues which one brave person was facing were, in fact, everyone’s business. I wonder how much this experience is today shared by other Advisers/Officers up and down the country. To work where there is any kind of resistance to the work you do is bound to cause stress for the officer concerned. Is it any wonder that many DSOs/DSAs have remarkably short tenures of office?
What I have written here about Sex, Power, Control is not meant to be a review. I am disqualified, in any event, from writing a review by the fact my name appears on the cover as having written a short foreword. But even with this admission of bias, I still want to speak positively about the book and urge all my readers to buy it. If like me, you are interested in the phenomenon of abuse and power and want to understand things better, this book is for you. If you are a safeguarding professional who needs to know what has gone on the Church of England over the last 20+ years, this book is an essential resource. It is never going to be helpful, if a new generation of professionals come into this safeguarding world and do not know at the outset the stories of Peter Ball, Garth Moore, Trevor Devamanikkan, John Smyth and the Titus Trust. All these stories are told complete with references from the internet and elsewhere. In short, everyone who makes a living in the safeguarding should be required to buy this book or have it bought for them.
The final group who should read the book are the survivors. They will know much of the factual material, but they will receive encouragement from the fact that this is written by someone who really understands their plight. As I have often said, the ordeal of the survivor is often made far worse in the encounter that he/she has with church officials who may be emotionally or pastorally illiterate. While I have not met Fiona Gardner, her book reveals her to be someone who seems to resonate expertly with the needs of abuse survivors, both at the time of their abuse and also with those who may have been further wounded by later toxic interventions of the institution. The Church as a whole needs her expertise and wisdom.
Although I am disqualified from writing a review, I can still hope that many of my readers will acquire it as it seems an excellent path to understanding the joint issues of abuse and power in the Church. It will, I hope, be one more tool in the task of educating a Church that needs to understand both these issues far better. I recommend it and hope it will be greeted with success.
Sex Power, Control Responding to Abuse in the Institutional Church by Fiona Gardner, Lutterworth Press 2021. The book publication date is next Thursday February 25th.
I ordered a copy when I first heard of the book. It’s a welcome idea to catalogue a record in print of the terrible history of abuse at the hands of the churches.
I can envisage an expanding library as this volume gains acceptance and look forward to reading this edition when it rolls off the printing press.
Stephen thanks for your foreword and now endorsement – it has to be said that survivingchurch.org is in itself an extraordinary testament to what has gone on and an invaluable research source – (as the many refs in Sex Power Control will testify) also your own earlier publication Ungodly Fear led the way…
Yes, Stephen’s prophetic ministry has been an important factor in changing attitude to abuses of power in churches.
I’ve ordered your book today, Fiona, and look forward to reading what you have to say.
May I also take this opportunity to thank you for the work you did on the Peter Ball case.
When I went around the Chichester diocese in 2008-13 there was quite a bit of bewilderment about Ball’s fate. In some places his stock was still relatively high, though not nearly as high as it would have been prior to his dramatic fall from grace in 1993. However, in a couple of places there was a feeling that (to use a phrase mentioned to me) ‘chickens were coming home to roost’, although there may have been an element of ‘tall poppy’ schadenfreude about that.
In Litlington, where Ball had lived in the parsonage and had often acted as de facto incumbent, the locals to whom I spoke had absolutely no idea about his proclivities whilst he lived there, and regarded his then ‘legal difficulties’ as ‘very, very sad’. In another parish near Battle I encountered the mother of Ball’s chauffeur (who had been a teenager when acting as such): there had been no hint of misconduct, although there would have been ample opportunity for it. Then, when going around the Bath & Wells diocese about five years ago, I attended a service at Aller (neither Ball was in evidence) and other churches in the Langport area, and I asked about it on a couple of occasions, with no one wishing to be drawn on the subject.
What I do think still needs to be addressed is the extent to which Ball promoted or concealed the possible coterie of malefactors in East Sussex during the 1980s, and the extent to which they concealed each other and might have acted as a ring or compared notes. I do not just mean Vickery House, at nearby Berwick, but Roy Cotton and Colin Pritchard in contiguous benefices (Brede with Udimore, and Sedlescombe with Whatlington), the NSM Christopher Howarth (at Uckfield) or Jonathan Graves at Stone Cross (though he arrived there in 1995, several years after Ball’s departure). Of course, there were others, such as Robert Coles or Wilkie Denford who were not in Ball’s jurisdiction, whilst I suspect that Gordon Rideout’s preferences (and churchmanship) were quite different from those of, say, Cotton and Pritchard.
Although the IICSA hearings (about which you will be as well informed as anyone) did touch, albeit relatively briefly, upon Eric Kemp’s contempt for victims and distance from activities in East Sussex, I have never quite understood whether he was wilfully blind and/or negligent and *if* he was, why he was so. From my – admittedly uncertain and ill-informed – perspective, it is Kemp and his apparent and perhaps complacent maladministration of his diocese over 27 years, which is the key to the whole mystery.
Gordon Rideout was (and probably still is) a conservative evangelical, and was a trustee of Church Society until his arrest in 2012/13. I have often wondered whether he linked with other paedophiles in the area. Since he was not in sympathy with Anglo-Catholicism and does not seem to have assaulted any more children following his court-martial in Hampshire, before moving to Sussex, perhaps he didn’t link up w with other Chichester offenders. His appointment to Nutley in 1973 occurred during the vacancy in see before Kemp became bishop in 1974, so can’t be laid at his door. Gordon’s godfather was an archdeacon and may have helped him to the appointment, but I don’t know which diocese he was.
Ironically, Gordon Rideout was the only person I knew in Sussex who saw through Ball at the time. He commented that in his experience, people who really prayed a lot talked about it less.
Your comments are very interesting.
There is the whole business of the ‘normalisation’ of certain values linked to abusive practices shown in Chichester – which was covered in the Shemmings Report. They use the phrase ‘social network’.
And it was Eric Kemp who supported Roy Cotton and allowed him back to take church services.
In my book I also look at conscious bias in making appointments as exemplified by Robert Waddington dean of Manchester Cathedral, when following allegations he went to teach in Australia – and not only is said to have further abused there but also appointed 2 others who were later convicted of csa.
There’s also an interesting aspect about how group think/ or collective grooming can take place in situations where parishes seem to become inured to what is going on …
Fiona Someone who follows the blog has ordered the book from Amazon but recently received this message. “Yesterday I received an apologetic ‘order update’ e-mail from Amazon to say that “Unfortunately, the release date for the item(s) listed below was changed by the supplier” and giving a “new estimated delivery date based on the new release date” of 19 March to 3 April. ” Perhaps Fiona you could chase up the publisher. If it is held up, then that fact needs to be publicised and we need a new date out there.
I will do but people I know have received their copies last week
I can’t get it either. I get the message from Amazon:
“Gardner, Fiona “Sex, Power, Control: Responding to Abuse in the Institutional Church”
Estimated arrival date: March 19 2021 – April 06 2021″
Can you help, please?
I’ve ordered mine from AbeBooks. You can also get it from Blackwell’s or Lutterworth.
Just been told they can’t supply it and are refunding my money.
Fiona, I was the ‘follower of the blog’ mentioned in Stephen’s message/comment. I’ve since had an e-mail from Amazon giving a revised delivery date of 5 March and, earlier today, one saying that the book will be delivered by 10.00 pm tomorrow.
Oh good – it sounds as if the publisher has sorted out the distribution problem- I hope you find it interesting.
The publication date is still this Thursday 25th February so the sales department is chasing up why Amazon would send that message.
Yes, I thought the Shemmings’ material on social networks was especially interesting.
One factor in Chichester and elsewhere, as brought out at IICSA, was the Church’s attitude to homosexuality. It was officially disapproved of but tacitly tolerated and, in Chichester, possibly even encouraged. Certainly rumours about Kemp were rife among Chichester ordinands. When turning a blind eye to sex between adults becomes the norm, it’s quite easy for that to extend to ‘not noticing’ abusive sexual behaviour. Which is one reason the Church needs to be much more open and accepting of consensual adult relationships. It then becomes harder for abuse to hide.
Re. Waddington, several years after his departure I planned a service at Manchester Cathedral for survivors of sexual abuse, but eventually had to cancel it because I couldn’t find anyone willing to work with me on it. When I suggested to the then Dean that we should put up a notice re. the cancellation, he replied, ‘Oh, that kind of person doesn’t come to the cathedral’! The history of abuse in the Church is full of ironies.
Blackwells tell me that it is “not available for sale”. So not sure at all what is happening.
Oh dear, Janet. Your story says it all. It would best interesting to find out what the current staff in Manchester would do in this situation. Hopefully there has been a change, preferably a huge sea change.
‘Not available for sale’ sound like deliberate obstruction on the part of someone. I suggest that if it is considered a subversive publication by a mysterious censor, that is a very good reason for going direct to the publisher. I will let the blog followers know what Fiona finds out from Lutterworth about availability. Remember the publication date is tomorrow. I will be expecting the tangled lines of communication to sort themselves out today.
There is a discount count if you order from Lutterworth, but I’ve been unable to find it. Maybe Fiona could point us to it?
https://www.lutterworth.com/title-info.php/title/sex-power-control/category/forthcoming-titles
This link should work and allow for 10% discount
You need a promotional code and the link doesn’t give it. I know I’ve seen it somewhere but can’t remember where.
It’s GARDNER21
Hope you can get a copy then …
Thank you
Fiona heard from the publishers as follows
I have been investigating the issue, and the common factor appears to be with your namesake’s book wholesaler Gardners. Both Amazon and Blackwell’s take their stock availability status from Gardners, who seem to have rapidly sold out of the first lot we sent them and to whom we are sending more copies tomorrow. Today I will also send stock directly to Amazon through our own merchant account with them, so Amazon availability should not be a problem from tomorrow. Early sales have been stronger than we anticipated – a nice problem to have in one way, but a frustrating problem nonetheless.
In the next couple of weeks, we are moving to a different method of supplying Gardners and the general availability of your book will be much improved (we hope) once that takes effect.
Meanwhile, the only supply we can absolutely vouch for and guarantee is through our website.
Sorry for the problems, we are trying to resolve the issue as fast as we can
My best
Liam Etheridge
Sales & Publicity Manager
The Lutterworth Press |
I’ve just received “Sex. Power. Control – Responding to Abuse in the Institutional Church” by Fiona Gardner [Lutterworth 2021]. It has four pages – 95, 96,97 & 98 – relating to Bishop Bell and I was looking forward to reading a new, up-to-date, accurate insight into this injustice. How wrong I was!
Here [below] are excerpts from the three pages of the book – the contents most of which seem an insightful analysis of abuses of Church power – but I was particularly incensed by this:
“Following the work with the independent safeguarding advisor, the Church reached a settlement in 2015 in a civil claim [with ‘Carol’ – Ed], an announcement which caused much indignation and outrage from many of the powerful and privileged supporters of Bishop Bell, who said that the Church had been too quick to condemn a highly revered man who, because he had died decades earlier, could not defend himself”
The Bell Society was not established in 2016 by, or for, the “powerful and privileged”.
Gardner selectively quotes Lord Carlile QC, but only to serve her arguments – not to serve justice in the Bishop Bell injustice. Garner also fails to acknowledge that Lord Carlile himself confirmed “that the Church had been too quick to condemn a highly revered man who…could not defend himself”
In an otherwise valuable book, Gardner lets herself down badly in her analysis of the Bishop Bell case – and thus also lets the reader down.
Richard W. Symonds – The Bell Society
Excerpts…
I do not wish to be over-critical of Fiona Gardner’s book – our emphasis should always be on ‘rebuilding bridges’, healing and reconciliation.
Gardner’s book is, in fact, very good – well worth reading – but she seems to have ‘fallen into the same trap’ as so many victims and survivors of abuse have done.
It has been regrettable that the narrative of survivors and victims – abused by the Church in more ways than sexual – often preclude clergy survivors and victims of false accusations of abuse.
Survivors/victims [and their advocates] – seem to have a ‘blind spot’ for the sufferings and injustice of those survivors/victims falsely accused [and their advocates] – such as Bishop Bell, George Carey, Martyn Percy et al.
This ‘blind spot’ is understandable in many ways, but it is important to make clear that survivors/victims of abuse are both those who have been abused and those who have been falsely accused of abuse. Both suffer and are in pain from the abuse by the Church – especially the abuse of power – and both voices need to be heard together [not one voice heard at the expense of the other]. Both need healing.
Gardner’s book is titled “Sex, Power, Control – Responding to Abuse in the Institutional Church”, and we need to focus on that and not be distracted and diverted by divisively arguing between ourselves.
Richard Scorer put it well in 2018 at the IICSA [March 5][Page 129 -Paras. 2-19 – Richard Scorer – Counsel for the complainants, victims and survivors represented by Slater & Gordon]: “…this is not simply an issue of attitude but of competence too. This is a point which has been made powerfully by Martin Sewell, who is both a lay member of the General Synod and a retired child protection lawyer. He points out that diocesan staff are typically trained in theology and Canon law, not in safeguarding or child protection law. As a result, he says, many of those making a decision about safeguarding in the Church of England have no credible claim to expertise in this increasingly complex situation. Interestingly, Mr Sewell makes that point both in relation to the treatment of complainants of abuse, but also in regard to the mishandling, in his view, of the George Bell case. He sees the failings on both of those aspects as two sides of the same coin, a fundamental problem, in his view, being a lack of competence and specialist knowledge, particularly legal knowledge and experience gained in a practical safeguarding context”
Thanks for your interesting response – my purpose in looking (admittedly briefly and in no way setting up to offer ‘a new, up-to-date, accurate insight’) at this case was to illustrate the powerful aspect of class.
Class is one of the more insidious forces that seems to have influenced the poor way abuse allegations by clergy – especially by important clergy have been handled. The quotes I selectively took from the Carlile report were actually selected to illustrate that point – i.e. on class.
My understanding of the case is summed up by my statement on top of p. 98. re ‘the George Bell compensation settlement (whatever its rights or wrongs)’. In my opinion I don’t know …
I will defend myself though in the sense that I did, as in fact you quote me, include the statement that the ‘Church had been too quick to condemn a highly revered man who, because he had died decades earlier, could not defend
himself’.
I’m pleased that otherwise you see the book as a valuable contribution to the discussion, and hope that what you see as my ‘blind spot’ won’t overly affect your reading of it.
Richard Symonds has always, and very fairly, said that he does not dispute that ‘Carol’ was abused by a cleric during her childhood, but the cleric’s identity was never established by a proper – or even remotely competent – legal process. Lord Carlile unequivocally summed up the Church’s treatment of Bishop Bell in a single word: it was “wrong”.