‘Heads I win, tails you lose’. This is a trick children’s game that may or may not still be played today. It certainly is a description of situations that adults find themselves in from time to time. We are faced with a scenario where every single reaction or response has drawbacks. We know we will be in a losing situation whichever avenue we follow. Whatever we decide to do, in whatever way we react, the result will be damaging to us in some way.
At this point I should be able to provide the perfect anecdote to illustrate what we can call the ‘lose lose’ situation. Issues that centre round the care of the elderly or children’s education come to mind. Should the gifted child pursue a talent for music or academic ability? Should the elderly relative go into a home where they are physically safe, or should they remain at risk living on their own but with their own things around them? These sorts of dilemma face us constantly. Every decision we make may involve some form of loss or a less than perfect outcome.
In the safeguarding context there is one classic ‘lose-lose’ situation that has been faced by many survivors over the decades. An individual is abused by a member of the church, their vicar or some other person in authority. If they are a child, they might possibly tell a parent, though it seems that the majority of such cases go unreported for years, even decades. Eventually the abused victim, by now a young adult, becomes aware that the situation was deeply harmful to them and they now need help. A further consideration may be that the perpetrator needs to be stopped from harming others. What should the survivor do? From an adult perspective, this is clearly a lose-lose situation. To tell others will likely involve activating legal processes, insurance assessors and, worst of all, challenging a Church that seems primarily interested in promoting itself as a place of honesty, love and safely. The story that the abused individual is now revealing is bound to disturb that carefully constructed narrative. It will be resisted by the idealising dynamics of the institution and its legal and episcopal guardians. Is the survivor able to stand up to this kind of resistance?
The alternative to reporting or disclosing abuse is, of course, not to say a thing. Because of all the difficulties of disclosing, many, if not most, victims/survivors of abuse do not reveal any of what they had to suffer. Some may disclose privately to a spouse or a therapist, but many more are reluctant to admit to what happened to them as a child or young person. There is not the space here to do more than hint at the damage caused by undisclosed abuse. It may wreak damage both to mental well-being as well as physical. It may damage future relationships. We have explored a little in the past about such issues as dissociative identity disorder. Here past trauma is lodged outside active consciousness. In this cut-off part of the mind, it can adversely affect the general capacity of the mind to know contentment and generally flourish. Therapies of various kinds can alleviate the effects of abuse, but if it is not faced or owned up to at all, the likely legacy is almost certainly serious and life-long.
What this post is attempting to communicate is that the abuse survivor in the Church often faces a bleak outcome. The options or choice to disclose or not to disclose both have ‘lose’ outcomes. In short, the survivor is like a child who listens to those words, ‘heads I win, tails you lose’. In this post I want to tell the story of ‘Survivor 3’, a victim of Granville Gibson, the convicted offender who served in and later became an Archdeacon in the Diocese of Durham. The events surrounding Survivor 3’s abuse took place in the 1980s but the story that is told illustrates attitudes and assumptions that are unlikely to have disappeared completely from sight even today.
Survivor 3 (I shall refer to him as A) was not in the category of a child or a vulnerable adult when the offences against him took place as a curate under the charge of Gibson. His story is recorded both in the Review written by Dr Stephanie Hill of the case and in a privately printed memoir written by A himself. As a curate in his twenties, A first became aware of problems when a parishioner reported seeing Gibson kissing a young male refugee who was seeking support. A spoke to another priest who told him that if he reported the incident, he would be ‘hung out to dry’. A then himself experienced a sexual assault by Gibson which left A confused and uncertain what to do. In a twist to the narrative Gibson then confided in A, confessing that he had a ’homosexual spirit’ which caused him to have numerous affairs across the parish. While not telling A any details, Gibson forced him into the role of an adviser, asking him what he should do. A decided (fatefully as it turned out) to go to the Bishop of the Diocese, John Habgood. It is obviously difficult to tease out all the details of the interview, but clearly it was a difficult situation for A. A major factor was the power issue, first between curate and vicar and also between curate and diocesan bishop. No records of this meeting exist. They were either never taken or subsequently destroyed. Habgood later told A that Gibson had denied the allegations. He, for his part, should stop listening to ‘vexatious gossip and causing problems’. The parishioner who had witnessed the assault on the young refugee was never spoken to.
The story goes from bad to worse. The relationship between vicar and curate deteriorated as Gibson used his power to belittle A’s personal character and professional reputation. In short, A experienced vividly the Church in full self-preservation mode. As the result of Gibson’s hostility, A soon found himself forced to resign his curacy as well as his home. It was only thanks to family and friends that he was able gradually to put his life back together. In later years A has had a highly creative ministry exploring the relevance of Celtic spirituality to the Church and new explorations of community life.
The fateful decision of A to go and see Bishop Habgood to share his problems about Gibson was a point of no return. He had suffered sexual abuse himself at the hands of Gibson and he knew that his vicar was a danger to others. What realistically did the Church expect A to do? The question has to be asked again and again as this story is shared by new generations of safeguarding professionals. It is sad that this story has publicly, through the Hill Review, placed questions over the posthumous reputation of one who latterly was a greatly admired Archbishop of York. It is clear from A’s testimony that Habgood had little insight into power dynamics in the Church. He also showed no apparent understanding of the vicar-curate relationship, let alone the dynamics involved when a young curate entered into the presence of his bishop, to whom he had sworn canonical obedience. There appears to have been no insight on the part of Habgood over the conflict of emotions for a curate to tell such a dreadful narrative. I do hope that such poor pastoral interaction with very junior clergy is no longer found among the bishops. Speaking from my own memory of that stage in my ministry, I can imagine how much courage it took for A to approach Habgood in the first place. There was nothing vexatious or gossipy about this act.
To return to the impossible dilemma of the abuse survivor. It is a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The very least that the current crop of safeguarding professionals can take from the story, is a readiness to learn from it. To say that we do not do things like this any more is not enough. We have to be able to say: Yes, we have systems in place that allow a survivor to come forward and tell his/her story without ever being accused of gossip or being shamed. They should also not have to risk being re-abused in any way. Where was the pastoral support? Where was the simple pastoral imagination that could make sense of the disclosure? It was not on display then and are we sure that we have yet got things right for the future? Stories like A’s experience must be used in the teaching of safeguarding. The Church must be ready to hang its head in shame and say ‘No, this can never happen again’.
Nothing has changed. Granted I wasn’t sexually abused, but when I disclosed to a Bishop four years ago, he shouted at me and told me off for saying all these unpleasant things. Which he had been carefully writing down. So he had obviously already decided how he was going to deal with it. No change there.
A n extremely sad and distressing story. As English Athena says Bishops and others still, now, do not want to hear what victms/survivors have to say. Stephen has hit the nail on the head. You are damned if you do report and liable to experience further abuse, and damned if you don’t, as you won’t receive help.
Decades ago it hardly seemed credible that priests could be capable of abuse. How different things are today. There can hardly be a household in the country unaware of the hideous catalogue of former abuses.
That said, there is no evidence that the Church is a safe place to report abuse. Quite the opposite. I definitely wouldn’t recommend reporting your own story to a priest of whatever rank, without putting in place an advocate with exceptional resources. For most of us, this hasn’t been possible. Perhaps it will be one day? Certainly a few Survivors have stomachs for relentless online attempts at justice, if not just ranting. But for most of us this doesn’t help and makes us feel worse.
There is definitely a shifting tide in Christian institutions however. For example I note that Oakhill theological college has been explicit about its regret at receiving donations from Jonathan Fletcher.
In this respect the message is hitting home of tainting by association. It’s a start.
Over in America, Willow Creek Church has seen its budget drop from $89million to $35million in three years, since the Bill Hybels sexual abuse scandal. Money talks. Or in this example, money walks.
I personally found the government’s publicly funded “Truth Project” a much better place to tell my own story. At least they looked after me properly before, during and after my interview. Then they reported it to the police. Having that support was essential. I had little expectation of anything actually changing after that, but I knew I’d played my part in reporting clerical misdeeds which could then be input into a wider enquiry, forming part of a mass of evidence.
The Truth Project is sadly winding up now, but was a model of independent outside-the-Church reporting.
Report independently and don’t do it alone.
An interesting observation.
I was reluctant to comment here, but in the last two decades of my working life I dealt with many claims for sexual (and sometimes physical) abuse, none of them in a church context, and many of them cases of ‘historic’ abuse. I have reflected, reading so many posts here and on ‘Thinking Anglicans’ by people saying that they have been fobbed off, and worse, when reporting abuse through the Church’s own channels, how were the equivalent non-church cases that came my way dealt with? Certainly never by a report to the ‘employer’ or other authority responsible for the abuser. There was no consistent pattern in earlier years, but gradually the answer became the police and social services departments. The latter, of course, involved the police as soon as any possible criminality was apparent. Some of the cases I refer to resulted in criminal convictions and prison sentences; compensation followed automatically if there was an employer or other responsible body. Far more difficult, for obvious reasons, were the cases where the abuser had died before any allegation had been made (comparable to the Bishop Bell situation) or died after complaints but before any criminal investigation was completed (as with John Smyth).
The point has also previously been made here that the potential agony of compensation procedures can be mitigated by an alternative claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. That avoids all the trauma that people describe here, and on TA, but does not provide personal closure against the individual abuser or others who may be complicit, or ‘the system’ if that has also come into play.
With reporting systems and the CDM both under review, we must see what the Church comes up with, but Steve Lewis is right to say that any sexual abuse should be reported independently.
“…the potential agony of compensation procedures can be mitigated by an alternative claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. This avoids all the trauma people describe here,….” My God, you are joking. You clearly have no idea. I have had a case ongoing since 2011 with the CICA – despite reams of evidence which was complied over two years with the help of a Victim Support advisor it was turned down twice, correspondence was sent, instead of to me, to the home of one of my abusers from over 30 years ago; police have lied, in writing, concerning my original complaint, stating I had never even reported it – they had lost the evidence – so I got a no-win-no-fee lawyer to take over my case – that was over 7 years ago and it is still ongoing with repeated delay tactics by the CICA and last-minute switches of decisions about their stated various forthcoming actions. I was bullied and shouted at at two tribunals, humiliated and undermined and called a liar. It is unbelievable, outrageous and unspeakable. I am currently awaiting another appeal tribunal after the lawyer applied for compensation for loss of earnings and long-term psychological effects of the one historical rape case I won (out of four) – this was applied for in 2017. It is almost impossible to describe the agony of it which has decimated my life for the last ten years on top of the original abuse. To be disbelieved after a life of hospitalisations resulting from all this which has been confirmed by doctors and my medical records has been in some ways more traumatising than the original abuse. The public need to know about this shambolic organisation.
I’m very sorry to hear what happened to you. I too can show police colluded wIth the diocese. It is incredibly difficult for anon and others to fight the establishment. The establishment will treat you worse than the perpetrator ever would be by the courts. You cannot automatically rely on police and cos despite fanning evidence. Even if you belong to a very large cohort such as the postmasters justice will be delayed and in the meantime you go through unbearable suffering. There are cases where strings are pulled and people act together to ensure the complainant suffers and ordinary justice doesn’t get a look in. You simply cannot automatically rely on systems working as they should. When they do not matters get very complicated.
I’m so sorry you’ve been through all this. I hope that you’ll get some sort of resolution, and soon.
“I do hope that such poor pastoral interaction with very junior clergy is no longer found among the bishops”. So did we, albeit my husband had been in the discernment process rather than junior clergy. Last year, he reported a disturbing interview with an ADDO and was made out to be a trouble maker, his reputation trashed.
I was at the meeting with the bishop, a well-known champion of survivors. He was nasty and emotionally manipulative, and went on about how this had put such a strain on said ADDO, even though my husband had never tried to accuse the ADDO of anything except poor questioning/training (which was very generous, given the circumstances). The implication was that we should somehow be sorry for having caused a problem, that the ADDO was the victim. My husband was in need of pastoral support and he got anything but.
We recently watched a TV show in which there was a scene when an older man was leading an uncomfortable conversation with a younger and more junior male employee, with the intention of making a move on him. My husband was visibly disturbed by the scene and admitted it had reminded him of his own experience.
The Church is very unwilling to acknowledge power dynamics and the impact they have for reporting a problem or even of calling it out in the moment (as my husband did). The diocese hid behind the fact that they ‘have to explore these questions’ (with the very questionable Traffic Light Document) but surely they should not be done in such a way that the situation allows the line between legitimate and abusive questioning to become, at best, blurred?
A clumsy interview. Sure. Nothing to see here.
The Church is not a safe place. It is men protecting other men. Smoke and mirrors. Procrastination where answers should be forthcoming. A shameful institution. Quite frankly, I don’t think it will ever be safe.
Hello, Rachel. I’m so sorry you both had this experience. Sometimes it helps to know you are not alone. I don’t like the thought of this Bishop’s being known for being supportive….
Hello. It does help to know we’re not alone, thank you. But it is frustrating knowing we aren’t an anomaly, as it means there are so many more who are being put into awful positions and trying to make their voices heard.
No, it is incredibly worrying about the bishop. Who’s going to believe us when he has that reputation? How many more are there like us, trying to raise legitimate concerns and being brushed aside by him, and others with power?
Short answer, loads. It’s been more than twenty years for me, but I am making some progress now. But terribly slowly! I am also on a committee which might help… Stephen’s blog is all about abuse of power. I think the caste system is THE big issue, really. Stay strong.
Rachel, I can understand why you did not name the bishop concerned, but for the sake of the Church and its professed wish to see a change of culture and be transparent, may I encourage you to rethink this and, at least, report the matter (naming the bishop) to the National Safeguarding Team and the lead bishop on safeguarding, Dr Jonathan Gibbs
What if she’s sued for defamation or the like? That has always been my fear.
My husband worked with Safe Spaces and they were concerned about the behaviour of this bishop and, to my knowledge, did report it to the NST.
We are now waiting on a Lessons Learned Review (apparently commissioned by the diocese) but that appears to keep stalling. The diocese haven’t replied to my husband’s emails for nearly 2 months.
We have thought about contacting Jonathan Gibbs, and even the AB York – and we will if they keep stalling over this review.
The whole thing is exhausting, which is why we didn’t pursue CDM when the diocesan insinuated that he wouldn’t find in our favour. The wheels turn willfully slowly, I presume in the hope that you just give up or that the fight has gone from you by the time anything does happen.
Im not sure what the National Safeguarding Team is– it does not sound like law enforcement– If something happens in a church why reported in the Church in which it happened? Same thing if sexual abuse happens outside the Churches folks are trained to run to the Church to tell the Church and not report it to Law enforcement. Some parents are taught if thier kids have a complaint about abuse from someone in the Church to bring thier kids to the church to be alone with the same person who they were complaining about– that is how brainwashed churches can get to folks leading them by emotion and blind faith in not God but in them without thinking – a church telling members to run to them to report is covering and should be a red flag
The National Safeguarding Team is part of the Church of England’s disciplinary system and is quite distinct from law enforcement. Where an alleged offence meets a criminal standard they will often encourage the complainant to report also to the police. They did in my case.
However, some of the cases they handle – ‘investigate’ would be too strong a word – are assessments of a cleric’s understanding of safeguarding processes and requirements, rather than incidents of abuse. If they judge that a minister has mishandled a safeguarding complaint, disciplinary action may follow. The minister may also be suspended while the investigation is taking place.
Not all survivors want to pursue an allegation with the police, because the criminal justice system is pretty intimidating. Some merely want their abuser to be removed from ministry, or to face some kind of reckoning.
To me this raises a serious moral question. Would it be right for a bishop to remove a priest from ministry without involvement of the civil authorities? (I tend to think it would not be right.) It would have to be a very grave offence to justify such a penalty, and I’m not sure that the (understandable) reluctance of the survivor can override the consideration that the offender might represent a safeguarding risk to other people, and that the bishop (or DSO?) ought in any event to report a serious crime. I’m uncertain whether the updating of the Church’s safeguarding procedures will make this mandatory.
If there are proper reasons for doing so, the courts can make an order that the survivor remains anonymous.
Not an exact analogy, but the John Smyth case is the strongest pointer to what can happen when crimes are not reported.
I agree, Rowland, and I’m in favour of mandatory reporting. But not all survivors agree – and anonymity does not protect a complainant from all the trauma and stress of a police investigation and court case.
Re removing a priest from ministry: it isn’t currently possible to revoke a priest’s holy orders, and pretty difficult to dismiss priests from parish posts. Sector ministry often comes with fixed-term contacts so that can be easier. But retired or worker priests can have their PTO withdrawn, as Lord Carey’s was. Other disciplinary measures are available too, such as the rebuke which was administered to the Bishop Lincoln recently.
Rachel welcome also. You have got me thinking further about the importance of power dynamics in church and how we need to understand simple basic things like deference, fear, idealisation etc. If we don’t understand the likely effect we have on people then we will not know the sort of things that have been communicated in a simple interview. Every interview situation involves unequal power dynamics. If they are not teased out and understood at least by the one with the power in the conversation, then the potential for non-communication is enormous. This failure is not the fault of the weaker of the two. We have to look to the senior one in the encounter to find out what is truly going on. That is what training and experience are supposed to be about!
Not only at interview. I have letters telling me to go back to the people guilty of misconduct! But to do that to a child …
Because our church is about to embark on a teaching series on the life of Joseph, I have been reflecting on Genesis 38 – the sordid story of Judah’s love life. One view is that this chapter spoils the fine story of Genesis 37 to 50: better avoided in sermons, especially if there are children present. Another view is to note that the resulting child of Judah’s bad behaviour was an ancestor of David and ultimately Jesus, part of the royal line. God can turn even the blackest human actions into a means of good – witness the cross. (For more on this, see https://www.pennantpublishing.co.uk/Genesis_38_Considered.pdf ) .
I offer this thought as a potential tool to victims of abuse: how can such a grim experience be used in the kingdom of God? How can survivingchurch become victoriouschurch (Romans 8)? I hope it is helpful.
Hi Stephen. Yes, power dynamics are so important. It should not be considered good practice to conduct interviews one-to-one anyway, let alone at night when they cover personal issues such a person’s sex life. There’s no accountability then, on either side.
The more I’ve thought about what happened, the more I’ve come to think that this all centres on power, who has it, and who doesn’t. It’s worrying that my husband’s incumbent felt uncomfortable about reporting it because of the power dynamics he’s subject to (in terms of oaths of allegiance, and the ADDO is holds higher office than him too). It’s also concerning that, because of this, people in discernment can be left with nothing, quite literally outside any structure of support. The DDO (a piece of work – a manipulative bully) also worked against him, which we suspected at the time but couldn’t prove until an SAR. My husband went from being a ‘sure thing’ to a ‘nettle’ that must be removed. He could only say so much without knowing it would harm his chances – indeed, I was a couple of meetings and still felt that I couldn’t speak freely because of the damage it could do while he was still discerning. So, every avenue of support that should have been available to us was compromised because of power. Even when my husband put together evidence for a CDM (an imperfect mechanism, but the only one left), the diocesan’s response made it clear he wouldn’t find in his favour if he pursued it.
The Church’s main problem is power and the abuse of it. Unfortunately, safeguarding gets caught up in these structures too.
Dead hands (too long oppressed Jebusites) like figureheads (Ahabs) who can boost their image by proxy.
One thing we might like to consider, although probably not in this thread, is the quality of churches’ management abilities.
A related issue is the setting of an objective minimum standard of robustness or resilience in staffing.
Whilst the idea of “my truth” is popular right now, how do we manage a congregation when one person takes things very personally, and another finds the same manager to be very fair? It’s a challenging question and intersects with how we engage with a sufferer and somehow manage not to take sides prematurely.
It can simply mean that the manager bullies A but doesn’t bully B. People fall out over whether he is or isn’t, there are seldom witnesses.
I agree. There are plenty of men (and some women) who will bully women while being fair and aboveboard with men. There are people who will bully anyone they perceive to be weak, vulnerable, or in a junior position. The bishop and archdeacon will see none of this, since the offender is deferential to them.
There is a former archbishop who bullied clergy and staff but was idolised by lay people, to whom he was friendly and approachable. And there are those, including bishops, who give preferential treatment to those of one churchmanship over another.
Bullying and all kinds of poor or unfair treatment are often complex situations, and need wise and careful assessment.
I think this is very difficult. I know of situations (not church) where I know A has bullied B. I get on well with A, B is a close friend. Nothing would be gained by my getting involved unless B actually asked me to (the bullying wasn’t in a context that I was part of, but I see A in other situations.) In the past with my own experience of being bullied by C in a church context, I have been careful who I have shared with because I didn’t want to be the person who shattered the illusions of their close friends, even those who were also my friends!! (Also they would have supported C unreservedly.) But C also bullied other people and continued to do so… It’s very complex.
It is, I agree.