The opinion piece ‘Church of England Must Rapidly Accelerate Safeguarding Reforms’ by Anon 17 November 2025 https://survivingchurch.org/2025/11/17/church-of-england-must-rapidly-accelerate-safeguarding-reforms/#comment-26329 highlights the problems in the Church of England’s safeguarding when it comes to those accused of safeguarding concerns including abuse. Reading about the harm that bishops (and archbishops and other safeguarding officers) can do to accused clergy is shocking. However, Anon fails to prioritise those who have been abused by Church of England clergy (and other church officers) and this is a significant omission which skews the priorities of safeguarding.
The Charity Commission’s statement https://www.gov.uk/government/news/church-of-england-charity-must-rapidly-accelerate-safeguarding-reforms urges the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England to do better and speed up the process of establishing good safeguarding practice. The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England’s reply https://www.churchofengland.org/media/press-releases/archbishops-council-response-charity-commission-case-review is unhelpfully defensive and only serves to minimise reputational damage, thus failing to prioritise those abused by clergy and completely ignoring the needs of clergy accused of safeguarding concerns by bishops.
The Church of England has a terrible record of abuse to children, young people, vulnerable adults and those who trusted clergy as safe people. Abuse can be physical, sexual, spiritual, psychological, emotional, financial, be neglectful or include maltreatment as listed in the draft Abuse Redress Measure https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/50136/documents/270512/default/ There is now not only acknowledgement of the abuse by clergy, but there is also the offer of financial compensation https://www.churchofengland.org/safeguarding/redress-scheme for those who have experienced clergy abuse. The Church of England is to be commended for recognising that abuse has been taking place and for planning financial redress.
To be clear to readers, this author is someone who has experienced abuse by Church of England clergy, and has also been referred to as a victim, a survivor, and a victim-survivor of Church of England clergy abuse. This author is not a member of the Church of England clergy and has never been investigated by the Church of England safeguarding team.
Abuse hurts. Abuse has long term harmful health impacts and can negatively alter the lives of those who have experienced it. Abuse by Church of England clergy hurts in additional ways affecting trust, belonging, faith and spiritual identity. It is hurtful that Anon challenges the lived experiences of those who survive Church of England clergy abuse by focussing only on clergy accused of safeguarding concerns including abuse, seemingly ignoring those abused by clergy. It is also hurtful to see the word ‘victims’ used by Anon in a vague catch-all way to indicate, perhaps, although this is also not clear, both ‘victims of abuse’ and ‘victims who continue to suffer’ without it being clear if this refers to those who have experienced clergy abuse or clergy accused of abuse, thus failing to distinguish who is a victim of what and by whom.
Clarity is important. It is wrong to assume that those abused by clergy as well as clergy accused of abuse by Church of England bishops can both belong on the same safeguarding failure continuum. Those who have been abused by clergy, clergy who abuse, and clergy accused of safeguarding concerns are not all ‘victims together’ in some confused sentiment of grievance against the Church of England. Anon writes of ‘unspecified, vague or false allegations of ‘safe-guarding concerns’ but does not acknowledge that such allegations can originate from those abused by clergy, or that the accused clergy could include those who have indeed carried out abuse. There is no admission by Anon that those speaking up about abuse might do so honestly, exposing a truth of harmful experiences that are difficult to report. As someone who has experienced clergy abuse, it hurts to be sidelined by opinion pieces which prioritise clergy on the receiving end of the Church of England’s flawed safeguarding policies and practices when discussing the Charity Commission’s statement and the Archbishops Council’s response.
There is no doubt that for any clergy to be accused of safeguarding concerns including abuse can cause many problems. It is to be acknowledged that for the church to undertake safeguarding in a way which leaves accused clergy spiritually, psychologically, emotionally or financially damaged, neglected or maltreated is very bad practice. Anon is right to say the Church of England’s safeguarding practice is ‘in a frightful state’. But without first getting safeguarding right for those abused by clergy as the Church of England’s priority, clergy accused of safeguarding concerns including abuse will never be treated with fairness or given the support they need. And opinion pieces which present the Church of England’s safeguarding as having ‘all the safety and robustness of medieval witch trials’ risk enabling clergy who abuse because they too can claim they have been unfairly treated when they should be held to account.
So please, Anon, get this the right way round! Demand that the Church of England first improves safeguarding for those who have experienced clergy abuse, then hold abusive clergy to account but bishops must do this in a way that is fair and also supportive of clergy who abuse to help protect against additional harms. Prioritise those who have been abused because their world has shifted to become unsafe by Church of England clergy who should have been trustworthy. This is the most urgent safeguarding issue – that the Church of England’s safeguarding fails to protect those abused by clergy and fails to hold to account clergy who abuse. Putting those abused by clergy first is vital if the Church of England’s safeguarding is to ever improve. Only then can there be any hope of fairness in the management of clergy accused of abuse or safeguarding concerns.
Name and details withheld
There are fewer differences between these two posts once you look at them side by side. I don’t think the first post was equating victims of deliberately false and malicious safeguarding allegations with those who have actually been sexually abused. What the first article says, and what this one also effectively infers, is that nobody really thinks the CofE can get ANY of this right. Thus, the falsely accused and the sexually abused BOTH have vested interests in getting all safeguarding in the church – delivery, scrutiny, regulation, appeals and sanctions (the whole thing) – shipped out to independent bodies that can do the assessment, scrutiny, process and the appeals.
The CofE will never, ever manage this if left to its own devices. Victims of abuse and the victims of malicious allegations will never, ever be able to secure truth and justice from the CofE. Because all the CofE ever wants to do is manage the risk of reputational damage. That is why it finds it expedient to make examples of some perpetrators (low-hanging fruit, to try and kid the public it is serious about safeguarding), but not actually investigate others who are more senior, if it could cause too many problems and too much reputational damage, or become a full-blown scandal. Victims of sexual abuse are only ever secondary, because the CofE’s primary objective is always to try and minimise any potential for bad reputational news.
The piece of writing above, and the earlier piece to which it refers, are both correct in their diagnoses. This is not about competitive victimhood. The CofE cannot be trusted in safeguarding to be truthful, consistent, fair, honest, thorough, competent or just. CofE safeguarding is frequently found to be dishonest, opaque, evasive, deliberately negligent, and quite often corrupt. That is just a fact.
Victims of sexual abuse know this only too well. Equally, so do those clergy who have been deliberately targeted, gaslit and defamed by the CofE with false allegations, often perpetrated by senior clergy and church officers. The CofE needs to be stripped of all power and responsibility in this field. It simply cannot be trusted, ever, to act primarily for victims – whether of sexual abuse or deliberately false, malicious allegations. The CofE will only ever look after its own reputational interests. It always looks away from victims. It thinks it would be better if they did not exist, and treats them accordingly.
As a 1980’s medical student a GP tutor advised my small group: “You will be hearing a lot more about this”. They were referring to abuse, and their words were prophetically accurate. Experiences of seeing abuse victims during my career will never leave me. We now far better understand the dreadful impact of abuse. Kangaroo court justice has let down victims on a massive scale.
But clergy, or other Anglican church members, who unfairly face malicious (or accidental) allegations of sexual misconduct, face a different trauma. I felt violated and deeply hurt, by a New Wine and Anglican Church tutor, who threatened to evict me from a Church programme for being unmarried. There were five students commissioned in my group. Two of us complained about the same New Wine tutor unfairly accusing them of sexual misconduct. This has been reported to Anglican Bishops and Archbishops. But no formal and independent inquiry has ever taken place.
Should the UK Anglican Church be re-examining its relationship with New Wine?
New Wine are possibly active in England, Wales and Northern Ireland/Ireland. During a 2015-2016 course-overseen by New Wine-I was stunned by what I saw and heard.
At one event I noted discussion of serious concerns about Mike Pilavachi. As an NHS medic this really shocked me. Why discuss serious concern at a 2015-2016 student meeting? That really is a lose-lose! If the alarm is wrong, well then it’s unfair gossip. If the alarm is right, well then the matter should be documented and discussed in confidence with senior New Wine leadership. Pilavachi was removed a number of years later, and was the subject of a damning formal inquiry. The concern I heard red-flagged now appears correct. But it was not being discussed with the right people, or indeed in the right place.
New Wine students on my course were poorly treated, in a horrible fashion which shocked senior education specialists, and also a top flight church leader. I was stunned at evidence of students being savagely bullied, and how a senior New Wine leader failed to address this. A senior minister advised bullied students, and also concerned witnesses, to urgently leave the Down and Dromore Diocese, to avoid further risk of harm or trauma. There appeared to be little or no regard for UK national law, Anglican Church rules or biblical principles of natural justice.
My formal report to an Archbishop in 2017 saw no formal or independent inquiry ever get convened. My report (about an abusive New Wine tutor) was passed to the senior regional leader of New Wine. The senior leader of New Wine almost certainly faced an immediate conflict of interest, given their close relationship and intensive association with the New Wine tutor we were all concerned about. My impression was of the investigator and New Wine tutor working together very closely over many years. Were they intimate friends and/or close work colleagues?
The two bullied students noted how a fellow student (from a different year) appeared to be fast-tracked into a parish role. This student was an ex-prisoner, but I was unsure if they had any past association with the Anglican Church. They appear in a 2022 posted Olive Tree Media YouTube film: ‘Karl Faase interviews Joe Turner for Jesus the Game Changer Season 2’. But multiple locals have pointed out how that ex-New Wine student has also now mysteriously or acutely vanished. Indeed they appear to have vanished well before the 2022 film clip was posted. This may be apparent when looking at the Facebook site of Saint Brendan’s Church, or the parish website. Locals have asked me if the Bishop of Down and Dromore, David McClay, is hiding yet another major scandal of some kind.
Has Bishop David McClay got no conscience or self-respect? I saw how his failure to address savage bullying drove an NHS medic (me), a female university professor, a senior schoolmistress and a farmer-businessman to leave the Down and Dromore Diocese. My understanding is that the latter person may have returned to their old parish over time. Should Bishop McClay be asked to resign in disgrace before his disregard for Anglican Church rules, national law and biblical principles of natural justice endangers any more Anglicans?
Should David McClay be the subject of an independent inquiry, if he does not resign? As a well as multiple vanishing ex-New Wine students, there is also concern about David McClay’s pathetic and cowardly failure to formally name the late Canon W G Neely, a child abusing priest who was cynically shielded and shifted. KRWLAW, a leading Human Rights legal firm, have posted: ‘Neely abuse: Church of Ireland Bishop ‘apologises’ for unnamed rector – ignores Belfast-Tipperary transfer’.
Lightning striking once is a random fluke, but multiple strikes are certainly not. Multiple hidden incidents of bullying-abuse-harassment cover up in David McClay’s diocese point to his immorality and incompetence. He should be asked to resign.
Just a quick reminder that the “UK Anglican Church” is in fact three churches: the CofE, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Church in Wales. I don’t know if the latter two have relationships with New Wine; however the CinW (at least) has safeguarding problems of its own, with a former Bishop in prison.
See my answer above. Apologies, posted in wrong place.
No problem!
It is paradoxical that they “should” be on the same continuum but where pitting smaller people against other smaller people is concerned this is the lowest common denominator ever since the Act of Uniformity and in the now fashionable “church associations” / “emergent streams”.
In the church we look up for spiritual teaching and advice to our leaders. Support on this level helps us on our pathways to find God. Clergy need this support from Bishops and Archbishops just as much as members of congregations need the support from their vicars and spiritual leaders.
The Church must safeguard that this support and guidance must be genuine and sustained. If the church fails to fulfil its duty, an independent group must step in.
There are secular situations where a judicial panel is convened of a lay person, a professional relevant to the sphere examined and a legal person (barrister-judge). It would be relatively easy for the Anglican Church to fix up something akin to this. But our Bishops and Archbishops possibly prefer some Anglican equivalent of papal infallibility: ‘anointed leaders vs troublemakers’. Victims, witnesses and whistleblowers, all too easily get ignored or cast as villains in current systems. Christ-less Christianity never works. Neither does safeguarding. or Church bullying-abuse-harassment protection, if bishops pass complaints to underlings with a vested interest in finding nothing.
BBC Radio 4 (09 Dec 2025) has a 37 mins programme-‘An unholy row over bishop accused of bullying’-about the Bishop Anne Dyer case in the Scottish Episcopal Church. The ‘File on 4 Investigates’ programme is very interesting.