by Anon
Readers of this blogsite won’t be at all surprised that the Charity Commission are once again breathing down the neck of the Church of England on safeguarding. The Charity Commission press release issued on 14th November 2025 stated that ‘the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England must rapidly accelerate the delivery of safeguarding improvements and close gaps in its approach to handling complaints’. The Charity Commission, as the regulator, has therefore issued the following (extremely severe) warning: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/church-of-england-charity-must-rapidly-accelerate-safeguarding-reforms
That warning is long overdue. But why is the Archbishops’ Council dragging its feet? Why do the bishops resist independent oversight and scrutiny in this sphere? The answer lies in three main areas of concern, each of which comprises a triplet of issues. In highlighting each triplet, these matters must now be passed on to the Charity Commission as matters that need their proper regulatory action
The first of triplet concerns the deliberate weaponization of safeguarding by bishops in order to persecute their own clergy. We are aware of multiple instances where bishops wishing to bully, discipline, silence or subdue their clergy deliberately subject those same clergy to unspecified, vague or false allegations of ‘safeguarding concerns’. There are numerous examples of bishops doing so, and here we pick three.
First, clergy complaining about bishops failing in their safeguarding duties will have the allegations turned against them. We have found many examples of clergy being threatened with allegations of ‘safeguarding concerns’ for simply whistleblowing on poor safeguarding practice. This is pure bullying and malevolence, with Archbishops and Bishops all engaged in this misconduct.
Second, we are well aware of deliberately false evidence, forged risk assessments and other malfeasance in several cases where diocesan bishops have sought, intentionally, to discredit, destroy or humiliate their own clergy. None of these cases ever gets to a CDM proceeding, as the church courts are regarded as creatures of the episcopacy, and justice to ordinary clergy will invariably and frequently be denied.
Third, it has become commonplace for bishops to threaten their clergy with the potential for ‘safeguarding concerns’ in order to secure their compliance or exit. When this fails, bishops have resorted to issuing public statements airing their concerns, only later withdrawing the defamatory statement after the clergy have suffered much personal damage and subsequent reputational harm.
The second triplet of issues concerns the Church of England’s repeated dishonesty using the term ‘independent’. The Bishops and Archbishops deliberately mislead the public in deploying the term at all, and the Charity Commission needs to intervene to prevent further ongoing abusive misconduct. Here, we cite three examples.
First, the Northern Irish safeguarding consultants, Ineqe, are paid for by the Church of England to benchmark its safeguarding work. Ineqe are not ‘independent’ of their client. Ineqe are not subject to any professional regulatory body, and there is prima facie evidence of this firm scheming to cover up shameful malpractice in the Church of England’s safeguarding work.
Second, despite public protestations that the Church of England cannot be seen continuing to ‘mark its own homework’ in safeguarding, it has taken no steps whatsoever to change this culture of self-serving conceit. The suspicion is that this sick culture will continue to mislead and abuse until the Charity Commission strips the Church of England of its self-validating deceptions.
Third, the standard of jurisprudence at work in Church of England safeguarding has all the safety and robustness of medieval witch trials. Unaccountable officers subject to zero external professional regulatory scrutiny remain free and at large to accuse and abuse at will, or, decide not to act if that protects those in power. The potential to be dangerously corrupt is baked into this structure, and we are aware of bishops who use this unfettered power with malicious intent.
The third triplet of issues concerns the vested interests of the parties who stand to lose the most if safeguarding compliance and regulation is posited with a genuinely independent third party.
First, the unregulated, largely unprofessional and certainly unaccountable Church of England safeguarding staff will be exposed as inconsistent, with shockingly variable standards of compliance, definitions, practices and policies. Their incompetence will also be exposed, and there is a colossal caseload of examples. The officers in the dioceses and at NST level have much to fear and a huge amount to lose from proper independent regulation.
Second, the self-interest and financial gains of the ecclesiastical lawyers will be severely impacted by proper professional independent regulation of Church of England safeguarding. The present arrangements are a proverbial gravy train for ecclesiastical law firms, and they will be first in the queue to advise General Synod that ‘independent regulation and delivery of safeguarding will not work…’ and then provide multiple reasons for maintaining the status quo. Bluntly, the church lawyers make a great deal of money out the malfeasance and incompetence at work in the present arrangements. Naturally, they will advise Synod to maintain the status quo.
Third, there is a substantial corpus of prima facie evidence for seriously corrupt practices in Church of England safeguarding. False allegations weaponised, forged evidence, falsified documents, bishops deliberately contriving to use safeguarding as leverage to abuse or remove clergy all adds up to a very unsavoury and unhealthy culture. The Archbishops’ Council are fully aware of much of this evidence, yet will (of course), deny such evidence exists. But there is a substantial body of such evidence, and it is now high time that the Charity Commission acted to strip the Church of England of its roles and responsibilities in this domain.
So, we call on the Charity Commission to engage with the evidence it already has in its possession. The Charity Commission well knows that the Archbishops’ Council is not to be trusted, and that the word of any Bishop or Archbishop on safeguarding these days has absolutely no value whatsoever. Indeed, the Church of England’s bank balance on morality and integrity is in a frightful state of crippling negative equity. It is literally bankrupt. And it is high time that the Charity Commission accepted that the word of the Archbishops’ Council carries no weight with victims of abuse, or the wider church.
The Archbishops’ Council has become a byword for moral indolence and serpentine dishonesty. They bring the Church of England into disrepute. The Archbishops’ Council is a charity that has failed, and it will continue to fail the Church of England if left to its own devices.
For all the reasons stated above, and for the sake of all the victims who continue to suffer under the lamentable, incompetent and corrupt Church of England safeguarding practices and culture, we request the Charity Commission, to intervene and prevent further harm. The Church of England cannot and will not reform itself. It has too much to lose. So, the Charity Commission must step in to end this farcical and harmful situation. Enough is enough.
Why the Church of England is still permitted to use legal or quasi legal processes which are in direct contravention of the principles of our country’s justice system in that they are not transparent, not public and are unaccountable, should be an urgent question for our government to resolve. At least some of the police corruption has been investigated and many police officers have been brought to justice after the sad death of Sarah Everard at the hands of a police officer. Yet, we are still waiting for the corruption in the Church to be dealt with in a similar manner. It begs the question of what forces actually rule the country behind the scenes enabling the Church to continue to publicly remain corrupt and to police itself to its own satisfaction and to the detriment of both abuse victims and clergy. The scale of the safeguarding scandals which are known publicly are surely enough for the government to take urgent action. It seems that for the time being at least we are still dependent on journalists, bloggers and the media in general in order to generate any action at all. I am minded of the maternity scandals which the government are finally addressing and of which the regulators were seemingly unaware until the scandals were exposed in the media. What I want to know is what powers ensure that corruption and severe harm are allowed to continue unchecked until force of public opinion finally forces some level of appropriate action? The Church of England, maternity units, the Post Office have all been shown to have seriously harmed many. Action has been taken against the first two, very belatedly it is true, but at last the harm done by them will now be limited. It is time the government took action against the Church instead of standing by and allowing the Church to continue to harm the innocent and then use it abuse it’s systems to cover up. Both the parliamentary ecclesiastical committee and the Charity Commission seem finally to be waking up to their responsibilities, but it is not enough. No organisation in this country should be permitted to hold private legal processes with no right of appeal except to themselves. It is an invitation to corruption and abuse. With so much evidence available to prove this to be true, why is the Church allowed to continue its abusive conduct. It seems that even a Prince can be brought down but not the Church. So I ask again, what powers are protecting this particular institution?
Correction. I mean of course that action has been taken against the Post Office and now also maternity units.
Yesterday we had to sit through a ten minute harangue about safeguarding by someone who clearly believes it to be the greatest thing since Brian Clough, and everything is wonderful.
All I will say, summing it up in six words, is Smythe, Ball, Brain, Pallivachi, Tudor and Coates. (OK, he wasn’t CofE, but you get the message.) Cloud Cuckoo Valley sums it all up – and I don’t mean Rowland Emmet’s version, which made us all smile.
BLASPHEMY? Is this what really underlies sham allegations red-flagged against innocent people, and massive trails of evidence ignored when a celebrity cleric has been maltreating people?
SAFEGUARDING (SAFE GUARDING) can be about guarding diocesan money in safes. The Bible gives us a better answer: ‘One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offence they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses’.
Mark Twain allegedly said: ‘It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand’.
Votes.
Even an atheistic government won’t enforce much action against the nation’s established Church. It’s not that many people even go to church any longer of course, but many regard themselves as Christian, even if nominally so, and reserve the right to attend, once or twice a year.
Obviously the Church’s systems of say justice or even fairness, are archaic. But to impose any stricture is likely to be a net vote loser. Added to this is the embedded personnel common to both Church and State, such as the episcopal Lords, who have feet in both camps. Their vested interests are generally to maintain the status quo.
Of course we do have a different kind of vote, and that is with our feet. The Church of England cannot be changed from within or by government, but it can decline by the one thing common to all its actions, Money. Stop giving. Support food banks directly, or whichever other cause you support.
Charities have to show “public benefit”. By inference this includes not causing harm, surely? Again, in theory, you would imagine society or its government would legislate against organisations causing systemic harm, as described in the article above, but in practice politically it is challenging to do so. Not least in this is that any legislation would have to apply to other denominations and um other religions. Good luck with that!
i ~ Have the practical standards of actual Archbishops and bishops declined since the establishing of Mr Nye’s office not many decades ago?
ii ~ Is the so named Synod a Synod in the usage of the term?
iii ~ What is the status of core groups, their members and their values in any scheme of professional regulators of professional regulators?
iv ~ Steve (8.43 a.m) mentions money: how many of the public realise Queen Anne’s Bounty was purloined by a central body? Are account books being certified locally square while overall crooked, and has this been the case for long enough to be enshrined in warm Cotswold stone?
v ~ Are there conflicts in honesty among: the chief decision takers promoting HSB (which got off to a moderately good start 50 years ago) as the C of E’s main triumphal showcase, HSB controlling parishes and places across the country instead of just its own sole self, and parishes and places not looking to their bishops. The badly named Church Society slips in in the same role in HSB’s wake, and jointly they form the bridgehead for Bethel Redding, etc.
vi ~ This isn’t a conflict of “churchmanship”: imbuing congregants’ headspaces with lack of attention to detail in life and relating is MORE bad for everybody than it is good for attracting a targetted demographic. Should the personnel at HSB now take the nation’s lead in praying the prayer of Daniel ch 9 v 3-21 in fulfilment of Psalm 1?
vii ~ John reminded us (7.24 p.m) of cross-denominational ecumenism. The disastrous merger with Vineyard – which was meant to be a different sort of thing – was allowed to carry on for far too long. Then New Frontiers and increasing instances of “independents” are forming copycat “C of E’s” outside the C of E. But shouldn’t ecumenism be centred mainly in private ad hoc fellowshipping by grass roots and shouldn’t clergy and management stay in their lanes in regard to ideology and fads in governance? The value in denominations used to be their faithfully handing down their unique gifts.
Add to points ii and iii:
The phrase “archbishops’ council” appears simply a euphemism. Secretary General of the C of E = Secretary General of the C of E. Are the members of the Secretariat allowed a worthwhile and free individual role?
There is a whole raft for HM Charities Commission to examine (I am not in touch with them so please will those who are, ensure nothing gets left out).
The current archbishop of York and the future archbishop of Canterbury have both used inflated and disingenuous allegations of “safeguarding concerns” in order to silence clergy dissenters and punish whistleblowers – especially if the clergyperson had raised quite proper safeguarding concerns in the first place. +Rochester is a repeat offender on this count, as are several other bishops. +Oxford notably so. Their bullying is backed by their diocesan lawyers. One can only pity the poor clergy.
With such brazen episcopal bullying taking place all the time, there is no chance of any bishop ever being trusted, believed or considered to be a safe pair of pastoral hands or a person of integrity. So, the CofE will continue to slide into an ever deeper decline, with no trust or confidence in the leadership. Most bishops know all this. yet not one has the moral courage to call it out. The Charity Commission need to intervene as a matter of urgency.
John Alderdice (‘Lord’ Alderdice) has pressed for a charity commission review of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The denomination has been the subject of intense media interest latterly. But the Anglican situation in Ireland may be far worse.
Successive Irish Anglican bishops, based in Belfast’s Down and Dromore Diocese, have belonged to the GAFCON movement. GAFCON Ireland received negative publicity when a different GAFCON bishop failed to launch any formal inquiry into the alleged eviction of a gay organist from Drumcliffe Church in Count Sligo in 2019.
But what is being covered up in Down and Dromore Diocese could be far more sinister. There is an almost 50 year failure to name the late Canon W G Neely as a child abuser, who was shielded and shifted when his maltreatment of children was discovered. KRWLAW-a leading Belfast Human Rights law firm-have posted: ‘Neely abuse: Church of Ireland Bishop ‘apologises’ for unnamed rector – ignores Belfast-Tipperary transfer’.
I cannot understand why Bishop David McClay, of the Down and Dromore Diocese, has failed to formally name Canon W G Neely as a child abuser. Our Lord perhaps took a very different line on child harmers: “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. “
I can verify that this is true. I know of a number of cases. It’s a disgrace.
” …with Archbishops and Bishops all engaged in this misconduct …” Really? All of them?
I found this a difficult piece to engage with. For all the church’s problems, I still recognise (and honour, and canonically obey) our Bishops as decent & honourable people rightly in authority over me by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps I’m naïf .. but I’ve been ordained for almost fifty years, and in that time have met a depressing number of hypocritical Christian leaders, but nevertheless I find this article disturbing in its condemnatory generalisations and exaggerations.
I recollect the pre-Harold Shipman case era, and also noted how a massive culture change in UK medicine came post-Shipman. Lots of older medics hated some of the bureaucracy around appraisals and revalidation. But a culture change on UK death reporting was very badly needed, and it did happen quite quickly. Are lots of Anglican clergy, and a great many Anglican lay members, unaware of the dreadful crisis in our denomination with concealed bullying-abuse-harassment?
Post-retirement from NHS medicine I was commissioned as an evangelist. But the sad state of the Anglican Church drew me to leave the local diocese, and reduce input of time or money to the denomination. A massive bullying crisis has caused other former ministry trainees to vanish. Two out of five trainees in my year group felt deeply traumatised by unfair allegations of sexual misconduct which were delivered with savage brutality, then covered up in a sinister fashion by senior leaders.
The nonchalant was in which incompetent leaders dismiss victims reflect the scale and depth of Anglicanism’s crisis. It’s reaping and sowing really, and Anglican Church statistics tell a tale.
Sadly, the archbishops have engaged in the misconduct described above, as have many other bishops. There is no protection against this bullying from within the church, and the brutal nature of this means that clergy can be suspended without due process or proper cause for years.
The case of Fr. Alan Griffin was the canary in the mine here, and there has been no sign of any change that prevents bishops from repeatedly weaponising baseless safeguarding claims against clergy to harass, mute or hound them out of office.
If bishops want to be regarded as decent, honourable people, they need to show accountability and model proper standards of truth and justice. In the absence of such, they are unworthy of trust, and rightly regarded as hypocritical – and worse.
My position on this has changed the more years I have spent in stipendiary ministry, the more influential my posts have been and the more I have seen of what happens in the strata of the denomination beyond a Deanery or Archdeaconry. I started off assuming that Bishops must be fundamentally decent and honourable people, otherwise they would not have been selected to become a Bishop. I now assume nothing at all about what kind of person a particular Bishop is, until I experience them and discern that for myself, but I also start from a place of not trusting any Bishop just because they are a Bishop.
I do this because I have experienced way too many fundamentally decent people who have received preferment and then conformed to groupthink and group culture – the culture of a highly toxic institution that cannot exercise power well and wisely. Occasionally, an individual is strong willed enough to forge their own path, and goodness do they face the consequences. But for every one of those, there are far more who, for whatever reason, seem to abandon their core humanity in favour of putting on the mantle of this mythical being called ‘Bishop’.
Yes, there are many of them engaged in these kinds of abusive practices towards clergy, not all the time and not to all their clergy, but when it suits their purposes. Sadly, under it all, they probably remain fundamentally decent people, but they find it harder to roll it back the more their humanity is subsumed by the persona.
I note with no delight (but had I been a Buddhist I may have made a point about Karma…) that old ‘friends’ from prominent safeguarding cases of yore appear to have landed in the midst of the consequences of some very unwise decisions. After an evening allegedly drinking together in the Bishop’s Palace, a quite junior in orders priest (formerly a lay official of the Church House Westminster Legal Office) is reported to have left driving the Bishop’s car with a blood alcohol level way in excess of the legal limit. After crashing His Grace’s car said priest was arrested, and duly convicted in a Magistrates’ Court. According to various accounts online and in the media, a CDM complaint is underway against said priest. The Bishop? Well, deny deny deny, of course. Plus ca change, as we say in these parts. I won’t name said people, but their names are very widely reported, and have been previously reported as linked to case handling issues in the Smyth and Percy cases.
Yes, indeed, was it twice or thrice over the legal limit????
I know of two, decent and able enough to carry credence so as to weaken the hold of bureaucratic saboteurs, but I assume there are several more. The overall scheme creates an atmosphere of severely cramping honest initiative so it takes strength – and appreciative prayer support – to carry the day for good.
Anon,
A passionately written article .
I’m not sure what the situation is in Australia currently statistically but concur that we do see some egregious cases surrounding safeguarding of children and adults. Hundreds historically.
My sources in Australia and Aotearoa/NZ do not have the same contacts into the inner sanctum of Clergy networks which are often Byzantine mazes of whisper gossip and malicious falsehoods.
What we do see though is a lack of transparency denialbdelay resistance intimidation and rampant bullying. Survivor Advocates named as trouble makers,mentally ill or fabricators.
It divides on political lines as well as allegiances with shadow networks of defenders of church polity creating mayhem and false flag operations to discredit victims families and supporters.
The church based canons are not fit for purpose and are again secret.
So in Australia NZ and Oceania without truly independent safe guarding and safeguarding trials being open and transparent what you reflect in the CofE is also apparent here.
We must have truly independent investigations , transparent canon law enquiries and independent chaired disciplinary outcomes similar to Professional standards boards in Healthcare Law accounting and governance. The situation is a dumpster fire of epic proportions here as well .
Your last sentences are an excellent summary of the vast pit our senior Anglican leaders have dug for themselves to fall into. KCJ (kangaroo court justice)and DARVO (deny-attack-reverse-victim-and-offender has been the Anglican way for decades.
Ex-Archbishop Welby, in England, had to resign. Ex-Archbishop John, in Wales, had to go. A terrible safeguarding crisis in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has seen the Moderator resign. Might Archbishop John McDowell, in Ireland, be next to go?
Why have Church of Ireland Archbishops and Bishops, even after almost 50 years, still not admitted to the sinister cover up of savage Belfast child abuse by Canon W G Neely?
Neely was banned from the Scouting Association for life. But the Anglican Church shielded, shifted and protected him. He ended up founding the Church of Ireland Historical Association, having Canon status restored and received a burial plot in the national Cathedral graveyard, equivalent perhaps to Canterbury.
Should Archbishop John McDowell resign in disgrace at what has been shamefully covered up on Canon W G Neely? Also, why has the Archbishop not come clean on the total Canon Neely cost, in terms of Church legal bills and compensation?
Cynically, and as an abuse survivor who successfully obtained a considerable amount of money from the C of E in compensation, I am beginning to see through the whole ‘safeguarding’ racket for what it is.
It is a box ticking exercise to protect the organisation, not people. It exists to prevent legal action against the Church by people like me. When someone makes a complaint, the documentation with the ticked boxes can be produced and all hands will be clean.
The complete disregard, in the policies, for what happens to the complainants afterwards, and the refusal to contemplate that many complainants just want the abuse to stop and don’t want to be dragged into a traumatic process that, if they are under 18, will involve their possibly abusive and/ or homophobic parents, is completely unacceptable.
‘We’re not a statutory body; that’s the local authority’s responsibility’, was the answer I was given when I raised this at a Safeguarding Forum. We know what happens to teenage girls in local authority care!
The use of NDA’s is highly controversial, and of questionable integrity in many instances. There are massive problems across the Anglican Church, and lots of people have lost patience with our bishops or archbishops.