by Janet Fife
It’s a year since Brandon died. That was the first time in 36 years I hadn’t felt afraid of him.
The Very Rev. Brandon Jackson was Provost of Bradford Cathedral when I first met him. He was visiting the theological college where I was in my final year and he was a trustee. He was charming, and I warmed to his vision of a cathedral for working people. I was ordained there on 5 July 1987, to serve a curacy as congregational chaplain. The first warning that something darker lay behind the charm came early, when Brandon said to me, ‘People here will go for the jugular, and you’ve got to get in first.’
I told an anonymised version of my curacy at Bradford Cathedral in Letters to a Broken Church; the chapter titled ‘The Deacon’s Tale’. That was an account of the sexual harassment and indecent assaults I endured. I didn’t then feel safe to identify myself, the offender, or the place. Nor was I alone in my fear of retribution from Brandon. I have spoken to people who were experienced clergy when they knew Brandon, hadn’t seen him for 30 years, and were still terrified of him. ‘He is a dangerous man,’ one told me. Well, I knew that. In my two years at Bradford I watched Brandon set out to destroy one person after another, with no scruple as to the methods he employed. Some were pursued on false criminal charges. Some never recovered, either professionally or psychologically.
Nor was I the only woman to receive unwelcome sexual advances from him. He was blatant about it and his reputation well known. A young woman, a recent convert, had a wardrobe malfunction at a cathedral meeting. She said Brandon peered down her cleavage and said, ‘you look a million dollars’. Another told me Brandon had asked her intimate questions about her sex life. The wives of civic dignitaries seated next to Brandon at functions would find his hand on their thigh. Speaking to the cathedral youth group, Brandon referred to an elderly man with Parkinson’s as having ‘w*****’s hands’.
When I went to the bishop to ask him to move me, therefore, I didn’t expect any difficulty. But Bishop Roy heard me out, then said, ‘I’m not going to move you. And I’ll tell Brandon you’ve been to see me.’ After that an already intolerable situation became impossible. Brandon instructed the Cathedral treasurer not to refund my expenses, and the bullying grew worse. If York Diocese hadn’t stepped in to offer me a post, I think I might have had a complete breakdown, and would probably have left Anglican ministry permanently. Bishop Roy strongly objected to my move: ‘If you leave now, the scent of failure will follow you throughout your career.’ He told me he had written to the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Selby, and my new incumbent to complain. Already badly damaged by two years of extreme bullying and sexual harassment, that didn’t make it easier to start in a new ministry.
Brandon moved too, to become Dean of Lincoln, and immediately became embroiled in what became known as the Lincoln Wars. The conflict between him, the subdean, and the cathedral chapter was headline news; an internet search will find some of the coverage. It was tragic for all concerned, and for the reputation of the Church, but I no longer had to worry that people would think I had failed in not being able to work for Brandon.
In 1995 a young female verger, Verity Freestone, claimed to have had an affair with Brandon. He was tried in a consistory (church) court on a charge of ‘conduct unbecoming a clerk in holy orders’. It was a cumbersome but sensational procedure which dominated headlines not only in the UK but also abroad. (It was this case, and the whole Lincoln Wars saga, which prompted a review of clergy disciplinary procedures and eventually resulted in the Clergy Discipline Measure being passed by General Synod.) Brandon was found ‘not guilty’ – a verdict which surprised most of those who had followed the case. Verity had been traduced, made out to be a fantasist and a liar.
I was immediately stricken with guilt. I had felt I ought to come forward to give evidence of Brandon’s highly sexualised behaviour, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was still very much afraid of Brandon, and the thought of describing his indecent assaults in that adversarial public forum appalled me. It was only a year after I and other women had been priested, in a blaze of publicity and after a bitter conflict in the Church. In Manchester Diocese, where I was then working, the battle had been particularly fierce. The DDO admitted giving us women a hard time ‘in order to placate your opponents’. To cap it all, my married parish colleague had been outed by the News of the World after advertising for sex. I had seen what the tabloids could do, and didn’t want it happening to me.
I phoned the Bishop of Lincoln, Bob Hardy, speaking first to his chaplain. They were kind and I felt I had been taken seriously; both told me they had been contacted by other women with similar stories. A few months later the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, announced an Archbishop’s Inquiry into the situation at Lincoln Cathedral. Bishop Bob rang to ask if I would put my complaint against Brandon into writing, to be submitted to the Inquiry. I did so, at considerable psychological cost – but only after arranging with a Prioress that any of her order’s houses would take me in without notice in the event my letter leaked and I was doorstepped by the press. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
When the Inquiry concluded Archbishop Carey found both Brandon and the subdean to be at fault, and asked them both to resign. That was the limit of his powers. The subdean stayed in post; Brandon hung on for two more years, and retired early only after negotiating a large payout. I felt that my evidence had made a small contribution to the Inquiry’s findings and some of my guilt for not having spoken out earlier was assuaged. I also had considerable respect for Bob Hardy and George Carey, the only two in authority who had the guts to stand up to Brandon. However, Verity’s reputation had not been restored and she had not been vindicated. I felt partly responsible for that.
In November 2017 Gilo and Jayne Ozanne wrote to Archbishops Welby and Sentamu regarding sexual abuse in the Church of England and poor treatment of complainants. I wrote to support them, mentioning my own experience. Neither of the archbishops replied. Instead, I was phoned by a member of the National Safeguarding Team (NST) at Lambeth Palace. Thus began a saga familiar to survivors, and justly termed ‘re-abuse’. I actually find it more difficult to write about this than the two years of sexual harassment, indecent assault, and bullying I endured from Brandon – excruciating though that was.
In a series of phone calls with the NST in late 2017 and early 2018, I was:
– Asked to describe the indecent assaults (always a harrowing experience)
– informed that my written complaint of 1995 was not in the files of the Archbishop’s Inquiry, nor in any other files at Lambeth Palace
– Told that I was right in saying ‘everyone knew Brandon couldn’t keep his hands off women’
There was no more contact after that. It seemed my case had been dropped. But I was now in touch with other survivors and with survivor advocates. That was a great help.
When it became clear I was going to get no further with the NST, I sent data subject access requests (SARs) to every C of E body that should hold data on me and my case against Brandon: Bradford Cathedral, the office of the Bishop of Bradford, York Diocese, Lincoln Diocese, Lincoln Cathedral, and the office of the Bishop of Lincoln. Bradford Cathedral charged me a search fee, but then said they had no information on me in their records. That was odd, since I had worked there for two years, and had attended or chaired numerous meetings of which there must have been minutes. I had also, of course, signed the service register a number of times. The Bishop of Bradford’s office said they had nothing in their files either. York Diocese sent me my entire clergy file. That turned up a few surprises, both good and bad (the lies that are told!) – but nothing on my complaint re Brandon. I had no reply from Lincoln.
Eventually I followed up on the Lincoln SAR, and finally began to get somewhere. But it was not easy. The Lincoln DSA (Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser) was good – empathic and conscientious. She left. I was referred back to the NST, while continuing to be in contact with Lincoln. I was advised to make my complaint to the police, and did so. A bobby in a marked police car came round to interview me, prompting questions from my neighbours. I was having to deal simultaneously with two officials from Lincoln, several from the NST, and the police – and having to recount the story of my abuse with each of them.
The police dropped my case because too much time had passed. Lincoln could find no trace of my written complaint from 1995, nor of any other complaints against Brandon. The NST told me they couldn’t progress my case. Then they took it up again, setting up a core group. I was not represented on the core group, but was asked to submit all my evidence over again. A staff member assigned to support me phoned with what I thought was a pastoral conversation – only to tell me after half an hour that she was gathering information for the core group.
I was told that it was not their role to investigate cases, then that they were investigating. When after some months I hadn’t heard the result of the core group, I chased it up – only to be told they had dropped it again, without letting me know. Safeguarding staff would set up a telephone appointment, then fail to ring, leaving me waiting by the phone in distress. None of these people were bad, but they were too often incompetent and seemingly unaware of the trauma they were causing me.
Despairing of making progress with the C of E, I decided to pursue a civil case. I was lucky to get Richard Scorer, a highly competent abuse lawyer, to act for me. Richard is Vice-President of the National Secular Society, but I found in him a compassion, integrity, and passion for justice I had sought in vain from the Church. Going to law is a gruelling procedure, but after several years I at last obtained a result. The case was settled out of court.
Now at last, I thought, I might obtain from the Church of England an admission that I had been mistreated by Brandon, and an apology. I had proved my case was credible, providing evidence to back up my account, and since the case had been settled the Church was at no risk of incurring further liabilities. Accordingly I wrote to Bradford Cathedral asking for an apology. There was a delay, partly due to there being no Dean in post at the time, but eventually I did receive a reasonably satisfactory apology.
Stephen Parsons kindly wrote to Archbishop Cottrell, asking him to apologise on the Church’s behalf for the original abuse and the Church’s mishandling of my case over more than 30 years. I didn’t get a response from Archbishop Stephen, who is my diocesan and in whose province the original abuse occurred. Instead I had a phone call from a member of the NST in a different city. The Archbishop’s reaction had not been a pastoral one, nor had he kept the request confidential. It had been discussed by a number of safeguarding personnel, and presumably also by diocesan lawyers and communications advisers. After some months, and a number of further contacts, I received a letter from Archbishop Cottrell which was not a real apology at all. I stopped considering myself a member of the Church of England.
In one respect at least I had some limited success: Private Eye and the Church Times ran short items reporting that an unnamed female cleric had received a settlement for sexual assault and harassment by Brandon Jackson while serving as his curate. It was on the record that he had indecently assaulted a woman; that was some vindication of Verity, whose reputation I had been belatedly trying to restore. However, press coverage was limited. Brandon had been out of the news for too long for the media to be interested. (As an aside, I have noted that the cases of women sexually abused in the C of E seem to gain less attention than those of the men. Is that a reflection of the Church’s deeply ingrained misogyny, I wonder? Or do some people feel, as my father did, that abuse ‘is worse for boys than it is for girls’?)
The coda to my story came in the aftermath of Brandon’s death on 29 January 2023. A journalist researching for Brandon’s obituary was told that Bp. Hardy, on retiring in 2001, had committed his entire file on Brandon Jackson to the Lincoln County Archive and placed a 25-year embargo on it. I duly passed this information to the Lincoln safeguarding team, who worked on recovering the file. It took several months of legal manoeuvres and bureaucracy, but eventually they succeeded. And there, sequestered out of sight and out of knowledge, was the complaint it had cost me so much to write 28 years before. It had never been submitted to the Archbishop’s Inquiry.
How do I feel now? I’m thankful for the real fellowship among survivors, many of whom no longer call themselves Christians. I am deeply grateful for those survivor advocates who, at considerable cost to themselves, continue to fight our cause. I thank God for a good lawyer. But I regret giving 27 of my best years to the ministry of a church which I now recognise to be institutionally corrupt, and whose leaders are without compassion or even a mild concern for justice.
If you know anyone considering ordination in the Church of England, send them a copy of this article as to how they treat their own. Women in particular.
Senior Church leaders presiding over this travesty, are still in position.
Strength to you Janet for sharing your painful story and for your great courage in serving other Survivors.
Dear Janet I am shaking with anger. I worked as a safeguarding Social Worker and am currently a church warden. I have a friend who is a priest and know that pastoral support even now is appalling and a friend who was involved in a recent review by the Independent Safeguarding Board who is not at all impressed.
I love my parish church but I actually loathe the establishment of the church as calling it managerially incompetent would be a compliment. I have huge respect and admiration for people like you who have the persistence to challenge this and only wish that I could do more to support radical change in this institution. I fear that we are on the verge of extinction as I see a church that is fearful, absorbed by hierarchy and and lacking in humility and love. Please know just how much support you have by so many more people than you will realise.
Thank you, Janet, for writing this (and your earlier piece in Letters to a Broken Church), for your persistence, and for your care for Verity. How many other women are there who have been scarred by this man?
Thank you also for making the point about how sexual abuse of women seems to have an even lower priority than sexual abuse of children or men.
Thank you so much, Janet.
Your story was made that little bit worse for me by being horribly unsurprising.
I sincerely hope you find enough strength from whoever and whatever surrounds you of charity, integrity and value to sustain positivity and more than a little happiness in future.
Much love from a mildly fuming supporter.
Janet, sadly you and I both know that this appalling story is the experience of other male and female priests and also of laity. Certain people seem to come with made-to-measure Teflon cassocks. Maybe it depends which Lodge you belong to.
Into my Inbox this evening has dropped a copy of an email from a Bishop in which he tells a retired woman and her invalid husband that when a senior member of the Church threatened in a late night online conversation to come to her home (and sort her out),SHE should have realised he wasn’t serious. Apology ? Don’t make me laugh.
Only when Safeguarding is totally independent of the Church and is subject to a legally prescribed Code of Conduct can we hope to see these kinds of corrupt and evil practice begin to diminish.
Professor Jay are you reading Janet’s article or this ?
That is utterly appalling. Am I surprised? No, of course not. I hope both the bishop and the person who threatened the woman are CDMd – but in truth the media would probably be more effective.
Thank you for telling your story with such clarity – and for doing so when it must still be painful to recount. It illustrates so many aspects of the mess and appalling way the institution of the church and senior clergy and staff treat those who have suffered abuse. I believe your whole story .
I have, over the years, been responsible for recommending many women and men for ordination in the Church of England. In every case, their vocations are moving, costly and profoundly inspiring. But I would be reluctant to recommend any person ever again for ministry in the CofE. The CofE and it’s structures are dangerous, dishonest, unsafe, lack transparency, accountability, truth and justice. Janet’s experience could be repeated on any new ordinand in 2024. So I’ve concluded that the lack of safety makes the CofE and its ministry too risky to recommend to anyone. If you join the Fire Service or RNLI, you accept the risks of the role. But in CofE ministry, your biggest threats and risks come from those in authority over you, and the structures (or lack of them) that collude with a culture which is worse than the victimisation we read of in ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’. In other words, you’re safest course is to avoid CofE ordination. Too many risks, no proper protection, and the abuse and torment you suffer will never be dealt with.
Janet, your story is told with clarity and courage. There are so many more victims like you, and thank you for speaking up for us all.
Janet, thank you for telling your story with such honesty. As someone who has been on the receiving end of the worst which the Church of England can offer (in my case, for reporting a safeguarding concern about a clergyperson), I greatly admire you for your persistence in ensuring that the world knows something of what the CofE can be like if you have the temerity to cross it.
Janet, thank you for giving a personal, first-hand account, you are an inspiration to all. May you find continuous courage to tell your story, we need to hear brave voices. I will not be satisfied, in any way, until safeguarding matters are removed totally from CofE personnel. Frankly, no one within the leadership of this organisation, particularly the AC, is competent nor capable of understanding such matters, never mind being able to deal with it.
Thank you so much for your courage, Janet.
I want everyone to know that I am posting the below with Janet’s permission: I didn’t want to piggyback on her story if she was not content for me to do so, but we agreed that we wanted to maximise the opportunity to get church survivor stories (particularly female ones) out there.
Next week, my play inspired by my CofE experiences and experiences of others from several and no faiths, is being performed in London and livestreamed.
We have a professional and survivor cast; a parallel children’s show offered on two of the evenings, celebrating faith diversity and agency through arts-based activities and storytelling, to make it easier for parents to see the show without worrying about childcare; and held space after each show for discussion and support (only in person unfortunately).
You can find out more about the whole project at https://www.responseabilitytheatre.com/i-lord
DETAILS
I, Lord
7pm, 13-17th February
The Space, 269 Westferry Road, London E14 3RS
https://space.org.uk/event/i-lord/
Parallel children’s show available on 15th and 16th February
To book your children’s FREE spaces, e-mail info@responseabilitytheatre.com saying how many children you are bringing and their ages, and your contact number.
Livestreamed at 7pm on 15th February – then available to bookers for about a week afterwards
https://space.org.uk/event/i-lord-livestream/
—
“Atheists like you are everything that’s wrong with religion.”
Evie can’t pray. Ayeza can’t stop praying. Priya doesn’t want to pray – or at least, that’s what she tells everyone. Will you take this time to pray, or will you let your mind wander?
Response Ability Theatre brings its uncompromisingly compassionate lyricism into I, Lord, inviting you to attend mass through the mind of a survivor of spiritual abuse.
Inspired by writer Nell Hardy’s experiences within the Church of England, and informed by survivors from other and no faiths, the show explores what makes us put up with mistreatment within faith settings, what prevents those outside of faith settings from creating safety for survivors, and how we can follow our own callings in a world that needs us to take sides.
—
If you have been touched by Janet’s story, you will certainly find a lot of resonance in this play and this project. I would love for you to see it and add your voice to the discussions we are creating around the piece.
A few diocesan safeguarding staff saw our premiere at the Bloomsbury Theatre in October, out of which a few dioceses have now booked me for training in trauma-conscious communication for their staff including some clergy: this, to our knowledge, is the first time any part of the CofE has agreed to survivor-led training.
There are still spaces for interfaith spiritual leaders and faith-based safeguarding workers on one of those workshops, and on both of our upcoming workshops for survivors of spiritual and/or faith-based…
Thank you Janet for your courage in sharing your story here and for the tenacity and courage you have shown throughout the ghastly events you recount at what must be considerable cost to yourself. I feel angry on your behalf and angry for all of us (I am a retired Anglican priest) because I do not want to leave the church I was baptised into and have served in for 31 years to these people but how can any of us stay stay in such an institution.
Since publishing this, several people have been in touch to say they can corroborate elements of my story.
Thank you all for your support.
Thank you, Janet, for your clarity and honesty – it is so clear how let down you have been and this makes me so sad. I cannot imagine how you kept going but I am so glad you did. It’s inexplicable how people can be such liars and hide truth. Denying you like they did … I actually cannot find words. I still believe we live in a misogynistic society and it makes every day a struggle.
*Thank you* for your bravery and candour, and I am very sorry to read of what you had to endure in Bradford. You have alluded/described in the past prior experiences in the US and in Sussex (Maresfield). What is remarkable is that these wretched experiences did not impair your faith, including your faith in ‘organised’ religion. What perhaps seems to have disillusioned you more than the misfortunes you endured was the pattern of institutional re-abuse as successive clergy and officials either ignored you, evaded accountability, lied, dissembled or treated you with what can only be described as callous, gross and wilful negligence. If anything positive can come from the cycles of suffering which you have endured at the hands of the Church in several different places it will be to give many of the rest of us an acute sense of scepticism about the deluded claims which the Church makes for itself and a degree of contempt for its absurd pretensions to authority – in both cases long overdue. The Church is a morality business: it has just the one thing which it needs to get right, and it often can’t even be relied upon do that; indeed, all to frequently, it can be relied upon not to get it right. In which case, what is the point of it?
Jackson was obviously a creep, a liar, a bully, a chancer and a fraud. This grotesque man should *never* have been admitted to orders. That he was, and that he obtained preferment at Lincoln even after his bullying had become common knowledge after 12 years at Bradford, reflects very badly indeed upon the Church. Catford (whose fingerprints were also over Ball’s appointment to Gloucester) and Thatcher (who wanted Lincoln to be ‘set straight’ after the ineffectual ineptitude of the Fiennes regime) bear a large portion of the blame for what happened. When Jackson died last year I cannot have been alone in thinking ‘good riddance to very bad rubbish’.
Please may we have clarification re the name “Catford” as Wikipedia has not afforded me starting points so far.
Robin Catford was Margaret Thatcher’s Appointments Secretary, and was responsible for some very controversial appointments, such as Jackson’s.
Thank you!
I’m so sorry, Janet. Peace to you.
Dear Janet,
As with all the other commentators on your story, I too am shocked and appalled and very sorry indeed for all the years of suffering you have endured. Thank you for your courage in alerting us.
Perhaps now your story, in conjunction with those of other suffering survivors, will be the one to make the AC and their leaders realise that their hypocrisy of a pretence of Christianity cannot continue. Hopefully they will realise that the rest of us do not accept their struggle to make us believe their hollow platitudes.
Thank goodness you have such a blog as this to tell your story.
I hope Synod members are reading all this and take heed.
In the meantime much love and prayers. x
Janet thank you so much for your courage in telling your full story. After reading part of it in your and Gilos book, none of it is surprising but that doesn’t make it any less shocking or distressing. I am so sorry for all you have endured and the cost to your happiness and ministry.
So glad that your truth is now fully told, heard and undeniable. Thank you for your strong voice.
I totally relate to the recent reporting being reabusive rather than bringing any justice or healing. I hope Prof Jay’s work will change that.
I do agree that in my experience women victims are the bottom of the pile. Indeed with sexual abuse, often blamed for what happened (the scarlet woman) and framed as an “affair” when the coercive control is not recognised.
I don’t know what else we can do to change that, other than tell our stories, so thank you so much for yours.
It will have cost a lot to write this so I hope you are taking gentle care of yourself too.
Janet, I’m so sorry that you have been treated so badly but thank you for sharing. I wish that I could have been more supportive when we worked together but I had no idea of what you had been through. I suppose for me there is a deep sadness about what happened but also a reminder that we often have no idea of what is going on for people around us.
You have nothing to be sorry for, Andy, I remember you as being very supportive.
I hope you and your family are all well?
Dear Janet
i echo all the above comments and want to say that I believe everything you say, and that I am SO sorry for all that you suffered. I too, with a great deal of idealism and enthusiasm, was ordained deacon in the C of E in 1987 and was lucky enough to have a very fulfilling 30 years in ministry (always in various kind of chaplaincy, never in a parish), only encountering very minor difficulties, which were misogenistic, not abusive. I want to apologise that you suffered such significant abuse at the hands of an institution I am part of . I too have become increasingly disillusioned with the leadership and management style of the C of E, for a range of reasons (though not with some wonderful people I know in it.) I am now a Quaker and have found my place there (not least because they have a very healthy tradition of having no “professional”, ordained ministry!) I wish you 1,000 blessings and hope so much that you have a supportive group of trustworthy friends, with whom you can live a positive life in community.
Love Margery