by Janet Fife
Originally published in The Church of England Newspaper and reproduced with permission
Trying to get the Church of England to deal with a complaint of sexual abuse is like wrestling with a jellyfish – you can’t get a grip on it, and the tentacles keep whipping round and stinging you when you least expect it.
The labyrinthine complexity of the Church’s safeguarding structures is partly to blame. A couple of years ago I put together a safeguarding glossary in an attempt to help survivors and others in their dealings with the Church. https://survivingchurch.org/2020/12/15/alphabet-soup-a-glossary-of-safeguarding . It ran to 5 1/2 pages. If I were to write it now it would be even longer. The remit of the various church safeguarding bodies is often unclear and they overlap. We may contact our bishop or diocesan safeguarding officer, only to have staff from one of the 5 national safeguarding bodies reply. We may get no response at all. Our case can be picked up, dropped, resumed, then dropped again. This would be unacceptable if we were dealing with the gas company – but our complaints concern the most traumatic, painful, and humiliating events of our lives. Each time we speak to someone about the abuse it takes courage and enormous amounts of psychological energy, and at that time we are very vulnerable. And when our complaint is passed from pillar to post within the Church of England’s ‘safeguarding’ system, we are forced to retell our stories over and over.
Reviews, inquiries, and data access requests have revealed lies told by bishops and other personnel. Survivors are sometimes referred to in internal correspondence in denigrating terms, rather than with compassion. It’s no wonder that the Church’s treatment of survivors has been labelled ‘re-abuse’. This would be terrible if the Church were doing it to people who had come for help after being attacked by an atheist. To treat in this way people who are victims of crimes committed by the Church’s own representatives is unforgiveable.
The damage done is real. Survivors subject to this re-abuse have become depressed and unable to work. Many have lost their faith; some have lost their businesses or homes. A few have taken their own lives. The Church of England is answerable to God for their blood.
The Church’s abusive treatment of survivors has been repeatedly criticised by reviews and inquiries, and by the statutory Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The latter identified the culture of the Church as of serious concern, contributing to both the poor treatment of complainants and to opportunities for abuse to occur.
The Independent Safeguarding Board was set up in 2021 in response to recommendations by IICSA. There were concerns from the beginning: the Board was not independent. It seemed yet another deception practised on vulnerable people by Church authorities. Understandably many survivors, having had such shabby treatment already, didn’t trust the ISB or anyone working for the Church.
Three very highly qualified people were appointed to the ISB. Steve Reeves and Jasvinder Sanghera CBE, the Board’s Survivor Advocate, slowly and painstakingly began to gain the trust of the survivors they were working with. The Chair, Dr. Maggie Atkinson, proved a different story. She ‘stepped back’ and then resigned after three complaints of confidential data breaches were upheld by the Information Commissioner.
The two archbishops imposed Meg Munn on the ISB as temporary Chair, without consulting the two existing members or survivors, and in violation of the Board’s terms of reference. Ms Munn had a serious conflict of interest, since she also chaired the National Safeguarding Panel and was a member of the National Safeguarding Steering Group. As Chair of the ISB she would be required to audit her own work on the NSP and NSSG. And in her NSP role she had gained a bad reputation among survivors for her refusal to engage meaningfully with victims, and what was considered her poor response to people in critical situations.
Around 80 survivors of C of E abuse protested Ms. Munn’s appointment; a number requested that their data not be shared with Ms. Munn. Jasvinder and Steve also objected. It was obvious that Ms Munn could not function as Chair of the ISB under these circumstances. But the Archbishops, instead of backtracking, doubled down. As Jasvinder commented, ‘‘I have to say that in my role I have experienced a disregard for the wishes of the survivor community at every point. I’ve been an advocate for victims/survivors for over three decades and I have never experienced anything like this before.’
Last week the two ISB members who many survivors had begun to trust were sacked, leaving the one survivors didn’t trust to tidy up. Those working with the ISB had their support suddenly withdrawn without notice, and without alternative arrangements being put in place. Everyone who has done C4 safeguarding knows how dangerous that is. There is uncertainty about who has now has access to survivors’ confidential data. What happens to the case reviews that were being conducted by Jasvinder and Steve? The message tweeted by the ISB on Monday, 26 June didn’t reassure survivors:
‘Morning. We’re back from annual leave and what a week to miss! Understandably there is a lot in the inbox and we will be in touch with everyone who has reached out to us over the next couple of days. Please email contact@independent-safeguarding.org if you need anything.’
The anxiety and psychological damage inflicted on survivors is immense – and it was done knowingly and deliberately by the Archbishops and the Archbishops’ Council. They should heed Ezekiel’s words: ‘Should not shepherds take care of the flock? …You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost.…. This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock (Ez. 34:1-10 NIV).’
Any church safeguarding advisors or church personnel who abuse or allow abuse to happen to any vulnerable adults or children should be sacked, banned from working in any capacity for at least 10 years, referred to the Disclosure and Barring Service, publicly named and shamed. It’s zero tolerance. More people need to speak up and out and an urgent independent external safegarding review is required by a judge or Kings Council. Safeguarding in the Church of England is not fit for purpose in 2023, the silent treatment will not cover up abuse, abuse will always come out one way or another.
Thanks so much for this Janet it needs saying repeatedly until it can be heard as the truth. Having placed a good deal of faith, and shared much sensitive personal data with the ISB I am completely devastated by what has happened and the answers to questions raised at Synod have been a form of reabuse for many I suspect. I even found myself saying to my social worker last week, “maybe I’m just not worth it, I’ve always brought trouble”.
What has happened has played into the deepest parts of my trauma flinging me right back to self blame, self harm and zero self esteem and I am sure I am not alone.
When I was a very young nurse a matron told me there are 4 phrases I needed to be safe for me and my patients,
I am sorry
I was wrong
I dont understand
I need help
We are yet to hear anything like that from Synod.
Patricia, I am so sorry you have experienced this serious re-abuse. I have had no dealings with the ISB, because before it was formed I had given up on the C of E and decided to have no more dealings with it. Sadly that has proved to be a wise decision, but I really feel for those who, like you, really felt they were getting somewhere – only to have their hopes cruelly dashed yet again.
But be assured, it’s not you who always brings trouble, it’s them; that is, the C of E. And you are definitely worth it. If only our bishops and Archbishops’ Council would learn your 4 phrases!
The whole problem in safeguarding is that they have no clear idea of truth. For an “independent investigator” to say, “I found this credible”, is utter nonsense, especially if the “investigator” has a conflict of interest. Truth has been investigated by philosophers, and there are several theories. I can give an example of an “investigator” using the weak coherence theory, and making it useless by not including all the witnesses against the “investigator”‘s conclusion!! The correspondence theory is far stronger, and should be the rule for safeguarding. Otherwise, innocent people will be cruelly HARMED!! What a morass these ignorant bishops have got us into.
It’s not you, it’s them. Horrifying as it is, the dismissal of the only 2 effective members of the ISB was a clumsy ill-thought-through decision. They simply didn’t even think of the survivors.
The C of E is locked in a time warp where the vicar was the only educated person in the village. Nobody was ever really questioned, and certainly not their eminences the bishops. Even now they and their covert masters are hidden away behind layers of archaic procedures, protected by a shield of (diminishing but substantial) wealth. Until this runs out, things will carry on just like this for the foreseeable future.
Like Janet I have been outside the C of E for years now (having been heavily involved all my life) and noted a strong improvement in my mental health. I don’t think it’s possible for it to be a safe place. Thanks to Janet for an excellent article and I’m praying for Patricia and others like her in this appalling situation.
The confusions and contradictions in the recent public pronouncements by members of the Archbishops’ Council can best be explained by an exchange in a Father Brown story, “The Crime of the Communist”. A scientist has described the formula he is working on, and Father Brown’s friend, a doctor, comments:
“It’s simply nonsense. The Professor is quite a famous chemist. Why is a famous chemist deliberately talking nonsense?”
“Well, I think I know that one,” answered Father Brown mildly. “He is talking nonsense, because he is telling lies. He is concealing something; and he wanted specially to conceal it from these two men and their representatives.”
Could this possibly be the explanation?
Nice to see I’m not the only person who quotes Father Brown from time to time.
As a layman, thank you too to Janet Fife for clarifying why Ms Munn has proved so unpopular on ‘Thinking Anglicans’; not knowing the background made it harder to follow the threads.
Sadly, after a career in the civil service, and an active Christian of many years standing, both experiences have left me profoundly cynical about organised authority. Indeed, I have sometimes referred to the CofE as ‘the civil service at prayer’. The same basic rule applies – the unwritten commandments, “Thou shalt not rock the boat” and, above all, “Thou shalt not do anything which embarrasses your senior leader, particularly if this entails teling the truth.”
For part of my career I dealt with bus drivers licensing and very soon learned that conviction for child abuse cases inspired a very selective form of amnesia, as it was up to the driver (or operator) to inform the licensing authorities of any such convictions, and quite quickly talk themselves out of a job.
Living in Birmingham dioscese, we have just had a lovely example of just how easily the entire CofE safeguarding system is to circumvent if you are in the right place to do so – I’ll say no more, but in the particular case it collapsed at the first hurdle, and the failure was very high in the system.
The Catholic priest on whom Father Brown was modelled was attached to a parish in Bradford, which overlapped with the one where I was a curate. This priest was invited to preach at a civic service attended by a good many dignitaries and wealthy locals. His bishop, knowing his reputation for outspokenness, urged him not to upset anybody. ‘Fr Brown’ ascended into the pulpit, caught sight of all the rich and influential people sitting at the front, and said, ‘We know what the Lord thinks of money, when we see the people he’s given it to.’
In the C of E we might well comment, ‘We know what the Lord thinks of power and preferment, when we see the people he’s given it to.’
The revolt against the Archbishops’ Council and the party line, at this weekend’s General Synod, is heartening to see. Maybe there is hope after all.
Would Jesus, if he were ushered into Synod, admire the fine building, the pomp, the flowing robes, and abundance of senior clerics? Of course not, if his remarks in the New Testament are anything to go by.
Obviously some of us are drawn to this sort of thing, and some repelled by it. Personally I find it somewhat triggering and struggle to watch. The worst thing for me is the sense of incompetence portrayed and the resistance to almost every attempt to call it out.
Janet! An excellent article which describes very well the reabuse of the abused and their suffering at the hands of Church of England safeguarding officers. Recent events simply and clearly explained. Thank you.
We should name and shame bad safeguarding advisors more until they leave the Church of England.
No, sorry. You can’t bully someone out. That makes you as bad as them. Who is going to decide who’s bad enough to be got rid of?