by Susan Hunt

Editor writes: The legal system in Britain has many strands; in particular there are two tasks it tries to perform well in delivering justice for our society.  The first thing is to apprehend and punish malefactors, those who break the law and cause harm to individuals and institutions in our society.  A second fundamental task is to determine when an accused person is in fact innocent. If anyone is declared ‘not guilty’, he/she can continue their life acquitted and free from the accusation made against them.  Justice systems are course not infallible and get things wrong on occasion.  Individuals may spend years in prison accused and sentenced for crimes they have not committed.  The police, courts and officials who work for the cause of justice, however conscientious, sometimes allow things to go awry.  Fortunately, we have in this country a further institution which may, on occasion, protest the guilt or innocence of individuals even after legal processes have apparently been exhausted. Despite its foibles and failures, the free British Press does sometimes act positively to promote the role of delivering justice.  Many miscarriages of justice, like the Post Office accusations, have been exposed because a journalist has been prepared to burrow away to uncover evidence that the professionals, the police, lawyers and judges, have somehow missed.

The administration of justice in Britain is an expensive enterprise.  Courts and prisons represent a huge investment of resources and personnel to provide a system that provides justice most of the time to serve the people of our society. It comes as surprise to many people to discover that the Church of England operates its own justice system. It does not operate prisons, but it has procedures and can make decisions which have force and authority, being backed up by the State. I hesitate in claiming to understand exactly how secular law and church law intersect but we have seen over the past week an illustration of the way that the alleged behaviour of one ordained individual, Canon Andrew Hindley of Blackburn Cathedral, interacted with the legal processes of both church and state.

The damage to the entire Church of England, and especially the cathedral and diocese at Blackburn, because of this Hindley affair has been considerable.  For reasons that are shrouded in mystery the prosecuting authorities of the state refused to involve itself with the case, despite numerous police investigations into Hindley’s behaviour. The church’s internal legal processes have faced an uphill task in taking action. In the end, the departure of Canon Hindley was only secured through the payment to him of a considerable sum of money. It is enormously expensive to force a high-profile church employee to resign and the saga of the former Bishop of Winchester comes to mind. The pay-off for Canon Hindley will also have been prohibitively high.  One questions as to whether these costs of possessing such an in-house legal structure are justified.  A further problem is that, at the local level at least, the skills and expertise to determine the guilt and innocence of accused employees/volunteers are frequently absent.  Would it not be cheaper, as Professor Jay suggested, to hand over the entire safeguarding process to be overseen by a secular body with the skills and authority to deliver reliable justice?  This would be in accordance with the norms and protocols developed for employment law.

While the application of church law is problematic at the national level, it also, not surprisingly, encounters issues of professional competence at the local/ diocesan level.  Surviving Church has for some years championed the cause of ‘Kenneth’, accused of sexual abuse by a church Core-Group appointed by a C/E diocese.  No proper examination of the facts of the case has ever been undertaken and the unqualified opinions of the group have declared him guilty.  The group has refused even to consider the possibility of his innocence. When justice is determined without legally competent methods being applied, the potential damage to an institution is considerable, quite apart from the pain suffered by the accused person.

 Susan Hunt takes up this story of highly damaging and legally incompetent behaviour.

Let us remind ourselves about the treatment of ‘Kenneth’ whose advocate,  I, Susan Hunt, have been, in relentlessly supporting his case for more than four years. This is a saga which is well documented, using objective information including Subject Access Request (SAR) documents.

Kenneth, an elderly ailing man of 79 years, was accused in March 2020 of sexually touching a chorister, an accusation he vehemently denies. He was refused not only an investigation but also the consideration of five pieces of significant evidence and a further one from the cathedral’s own records which might have exonerated him.

Kenneth’s case, is still, four and a half years later, without investigation or any scrutiny of evidence.  Such a serious accusation has led to the gravest of injustices.

For the details see: https://survivingchurch.org/2023/11/02/searching-for-truth-how-kenneth-has-been-failed-by-the-justice-system-of-the-church-of-england/

THE PROBLEM INCLUDES MANY OTHER PEOPLE

One case which bears similarities to that of Kenneth is that of the London priest, Father Alan Griffin.  He committed suicide because of the way he had been treated in a safeguarding case. Of him his close friend, the Revd Peter Mullen, spoke of “the nonchalant cruelty of the officials who destroyed his life.” In Kenneth’s case there are nine parallels to the case of Father Alan Griffin. The  Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser (DSA) in Kenneth’s case did not even bother to acknowledge the chart I made of the similarities; surely another case of ‘nonchalant cruelty’.

Martin Sewell wrote an open letter to the Chair of the Charity Commission, Mr. Orlando Fraser KC: 13 Dec 2022 signed by 51 others. A relevant paragraph reads:

‘We are all witnesses to a highly dysfunctional church culture – one lacking in care, wisdom and responsibility – uniformly poor in responses to allegations of abuse, and subsequent complaints about corrupted, cruel and inhumane processes. These have led to despair, suicides, travesties of justice, all perpetrating much longer term pastoral and personal damage on a colossal scale. Yet nobody in the Church of England takes any responsibility for this. We have no functional leadership in safeguarding.’

THE DIOCESAN SAFEGUARDING ADVISER

The blame for the bungling fiasco of Kenneth’s case seem to lie with the DSA.  Although she claimed she was following procedures in the House of Bishops Guidance, she failed to follow fifteen procedures relating to respondents in that document. Neither would she ever give a reference to any of the claims she stated even though asked many times. These were:

1.“Our role is to believe the complainant whatever he says and any evidence to the contrary is inadmissible”:

2. “Our role is to weigh the balance of probabilities. This essentially means that we are weighing up whether, ‘more likely than not’ there is a risk based on the allegation that has been made”:

3.“Our role is not to seek the truth”:

4.“Our role is not to investigate the allegation”:

5.”Our role is not to assign guilt but to manage risk for the safety of the church  and in so doing it is victim/survivor led”. 

There are many contradictions in the above statements, as the DSA seems to have pursued her own version of the truth. This ‘Alice in Wonderland’ situation of ‘verdict first, judgement afterwards” that has been arrived at after four years cannot easily be resolved. Neither can the mantra ‘the child must be believed’ . The Diocesan Safeguarding Core Group (DSCG) members were persuaded that they could trust the DSA on this and they have now found themselves in a corner from which there is no obvious way out.  In the same way that they trusted her judgement formed on a false assessment that Kenneth is High Risk. Now in that too there is no way back – the result of amateurs making professional decisions.

A piece of evidence from the choral registers which might well have exonerated Kenneth has been deliberately suppressed by the DSA. Although she knew it was legal to give Kenneth the information we learn that her most recent excuse for not giving it was that she said she looks at the case “through a safeguarding lens” (from SAR).  It is strongly suspected that not giving it for more than four years  is a cover-up to avoid divulging information which might exonerate Kenneth and incriminate one of their own.

The DSCG boast they instigated an ‘Independent Review’. Independent it was not: the reviewer had already worked alongside the DSA and he was only allowed to work within parameters laid down by the DSCG, which did not include any independent investigation of the allegation. Even so he strongly criticised the approach of the DSCG to the case.

Lord Carlile said of Safeguarding DSCGs that they are ‘undertaking legal work for which they are not trained’. Leaving the administration of justice to a group of legally unqualified amateurs taking the law into their own hands needs to be countered by a system of proper challenge and appeal. Professor Jay also found this a weakness in the system.

An example of illegal practice by amateurs is Kenneth’s Risk Assessment when he had been designated ‘High Risk’. This had been based on incomplete and false information including the DSA admitting they had confused Kenneth’s information with that of another person; even so it was still included in his assessment. The result was that he was ‘HIGH RISK’ – the same level as a convicted paedophile.

On July 22nd 2024 I asked the Diocesan Secretary ‘Could you tell me please what professional body, if any, regulates the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser?’ There has been no answer to this simple yes/no question. So presumably she is not accountable to anyone. Even three bishops and a dean claim they ‘cannot intervene in the processes of a DSCG’.

INFORMATION FROM SAR

From SAR there is strong evidence that the conversations in DSCG were inappropriate and unprofessional. They made cruel and disparaging remarks about Kenneth personally, his life, friends and interests. They speculated about important issues regarding Kenneth which they should have known as part of the case. The speculation often led to downright lies which Kenneth could not challenge or dispute because he did not know they were being said.

From SAR In the privacy of their meetings they even try to blame Kenneth for the impasse for ‘not engaging with the process‘. By this, they mean he would not sign a document admitting his guilt. Although Kenneth insists he wants me and my husband to be present at meetings, that was refused because I am frequently criticised for my ‘interference’ which has ‘obstructed process’. We even find advice given to the Dean to hold meetings with Kenneth in his office as that is his territory with him in control of the space. Thus he can refuse us the right to be present to support Kenneth. In an attempt to resolve this problem from their point of view there have been DSCG discussions as to what to tell Kenneth so he refuses further help from me.

In an email found in SAR to an outside person written by the Dean, he claims that the DSCG had ‘made considerable efforts at justice, honesty and compassion for the victim’.  In the context in which it was written, ‘victim’ refers to Kenneth. So, it would seem that the Dean now realises that it is Kenneth who is the victim, but he can do nothing about it without the DSA’s agreement.

PROBLEMS FOR THE CATHEDRAL

The frustration for the cathedral in Kenneth’s case is that he has never signed any agreement plan admitting guilt. Without that final jigsaw piece, the case can never arrive at any complete resolution. So, although he can now attend the cathedral under certain conditions, he has been treated as though he accepts the DSCG’s judgement. Kenneth, however, does not believe that there is any intention to move towards his full and final rehabilitation.

I continue the task of supporting Kenneth with the encouragement of those who have followed this saga on Surviving Church.  Recently, Stephen and his wife watched an online service from St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh where there was a public adult baptism.  This included a promise by the candidate to ‘work for justice and peace, honouring God in all creation’.  This promise is stated more strongly than in the words of Common Worship where the baptismal pledge is to ‘seek peace and justice’.  For me, working for justice and peace through my efforts to obtain the complete rehabilitation of Kenneth, is part of my attempt to live out my Christian identity and vocation.

This story of Kenneth casts a shadow over the safeguarding processes, not just of one diocese, but through it, the entire C/E. By resisting the official institutional version of the truth, I, as an independent advocate, am challenging the competence and professionalism of many important church people,  They come to be seen as unsafe.  The only conclusion I can draw is that currently worshippers need to be warned that the C/E is a basically an unsafe organisation.  It is unsafe because because its much-vaunted safeguarding procedures are not themselves safe.