by Anonymous
(Editor) I want my reader to imagine a far away country with a totally dysfunctional legal system. The courts follow no consistent protocols for determining guilt or innocence. The only thing necessary for a guilty verdict is that there has to have been an accusation of some kind. If a child makes an accusation, then the reasons for the acceptance of guilt against an accused are reinforced. The motto that seems to be engraved above the judge/jury’s seat is ‘the child must be believed’. Into this crazy court, which does not bother to employ any actual lawyers, comes a man. He is accused of the indecent touch of a child. The police have examined the case and have found nothing worthy of investigation. Initially the accused is hopeful of finding justice but one by one the planks of his defence are denied him. In the first place the child complainant cannot remember the precise date when the offence took place or even where. It might have been one of three dates (or all three!). This makes it hard to present a defence. The fact is that, for at least one of the dates mentioned, the accused was out of the country. This cannot be brought forward as evidence. Indeed, in this dysfunctional court, there seems absolutely no interest in establishing what might be the truth. Registers of attendance for the child exist but they are blocked from scrutiny. A witness is also prepared to come forward to tell what she knows about possible days when the accused and the complainant might have been in the same space. This testimony is ruled out of order because seemingly, it might interfere with the narrative created by the prosecution. The accused man continues to protest his innocence. The court then tries to do a deal. If you sign this piece of paper admitting the offence, you can go free. Our accused is a man of principle. Freedom obtained through colluding with a lie is not a freedom worth having. This is topsy-turvy justice, but it also represents the justice protocols followed by a diocese in the Church of England in the prosecution of a man called ‘Kenneth’. This is the reality at work in one example of the church’s disciplinary processes and perhaps church justice in general. Kenneth’s anonymous friend and supporter takes up the story.
Another Episode in the Kenneth Saga
This is the third episode in the ongoing saga of my friend of fifty-six years, Kenneth. Not his real name of course, but given that might identify other people, for this blog we shall call him Kenneth. You will need to read the previous two episodes in order to fully understand this one. The first one, published December 13th 2021 was written by Stephen Parsons and the second one January 7th 2022 written by myself. At the end of my previous blog I promised you a report on a meeting to be held on January 12th 2022.
There was indeed a meeting on January 12th and although when Kenneth entered the room, alone, there were three agendas on the table which in the event were never used. Instead Kenneth suggested that those present, the Church Safeguarding Officer and the Assistant Safeguarding Adviser(ASA), should face up to the dysfunctional way in which his case had been dealt with. This occupied most of the afternoon. At the end they looked shocked and said that Kenneth had spoken strongly and they had heard him. There had been no discussion on the Safeguarding Agreement, the following week Kenneth received an email from the ASA with an attachment. The only word to describe this document is ‘bullying‘.
The Attachment:
This was a document listing the purpose of the Safeguarding Agreement and the points with which they wanted Kenneth to agree. It was stressed that this document was highly confidential and Kenneth was instructed not to share it with anyone until eventually he had signed it. What is written in it they are so afraid of anyone else reading? Is it the same reason they do not reveal the information in the choristers’ registers of attendance? In any case Kenneth wants to show the document to his solicitor before he signs anything. Why are they trying to prevent him doing this? Remember at the beginning of all this in 2020 they wanted to prevent him having a solicitor present at any meeting. They made enquiries and must have been told it was beyond their remit, because no more was said and the solicitor was in attendance at meetings.
Kenneth replied to that email saying, ‘Technically this is known as a “gagging order”, which I cannot agree to. My intention would be to discuss these proposals fully, first with my solicitor and second with my friend,both of whom you know.’ There was no written reply to this but it was discussed at the next meeting, February 2nd.
When the allegation was first made in March 2020, all the clergy connected to his church were told not to have any communication with him. Kenneth, who has no family in this country, regarded the church as his ‘family’, so effectively the core group took away his family and now are attempting to cut him off from his friends by telling him not to discuss with them what is worrying him. Their merciless power seems to be ultimate and unaccountable. What does the Core Group imagine the outcome could be on his mental health doing this? There is no reason or justice in this. Do the Bishops applaud and condone what is being done in their name?
The Meeting
Kenneth had a meeting on Wednesday February 2nd with the Church Safeguarding Officer and the Assistant Safeguarding Adviser.
A further form of bullying is that no notes or minutes are written down by anyone at these meetings. Our notes are dependent upon Kenneth’s memory of what was said as soon as possible after the meeting, which he tells me and I then type out. This does seem an amateurish way of recording minutes. Not writing formal minutes or even taking notes at meetings makes it easy later, when challenged, for two people in agreement with each other to claim Kenneth has ‘misunderstood ‘ what has been said. At this meeting they denied any attempt at ‘gagging’ him, but Kenneth pointed out that it had been written to him in an email and therefore there could be no misunderstanding. The author of the email said she was sorry Kenneth had interpreted her instruction to maintain confidentiality as ‘gagging’ him, but she had not been a good communicator in this instance and that the document is a starting point for negotiation. ‘Not been a good communicator in this instance’. What other instances has she failed to be a good communicator? When else in the past twenty-three months has she failed to communicate effectively? What an admittance!
There were other denials and contradictions of what had been said and done in past meetings and an attempt to justify their actions. This can be shown as contrary to evidence we have provided throughout the past twenty-three months.
The worst thing said at this meeting was there would be no scrutiny of any evidence and no investigation, meaning that Kenneth cannot contest their decision of being ‘high risk’ and therefore if he wants to go back to church again he must accept whatever safeguarding procedures are appropriate for a high risk person. We have appealed to different organisations of the Church, but Kenneth is a lay person and they only counsel the ordained. We even wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who not surprisingly passed it to a Provincial Safeguarding Advisor (PSA) who said (place names have been omitted) ‘The matters you refer to are essentially a complaint about how the diocese has managed a safeguarding complaint through the core group process. Neither the Archbishop, nor the National Safeguarding Team, have the jurisdiction to investigate such complaints. Complaints must be directed towards the Diocese’
We did this but the answer was effectively to say ‘this has already been dealt with under our Safeguarding procedure…….the matter is now closed’. Although I had sent a detailed, well evidenced document about our complaints which the PSA said he had ‘skimmed through’, it was not realised by Lambeth Palace that we were complaining about these same safeguarding procedures.
The Core Group constantly say that they are following the House of Bishops Guidance and their mantra is, ‘on the balance of probabilities we have to believe that you might have done it’. In view of the boy and his mother’s contradictory stories surely it could be claimed that on the balance of probabilities the boy, could be telling a whole tissue of lies. Not to consider this is discriminatory against Kenneth.
Whilst claiming it is not their role to investigate, judge, seek the truth, scrutinise any evidence or doubt the boy, although asked many times, the Core Group has failed to give the section or page reference in the House of Bishops Guidance where this is said. I, on the other hand can identify 15 procedures relating to respondents and 5 general instructions which they have not followed.
I make no apology for having mentioned this in my previous blog because it is the crux of the whole way in which this case has been handled; a constant reiteration that the Core Group are following the House of Bishops Guidance, which they plainly are not.
The core group is unaccountable and answerable to no-one. They apparently can do as they like and, without any evidence otherwise, seem to be making it up as they go along.
The meeting ended with a promise to send Kenneth a new draft of the Safeguarding Agreement sometime the following week and which is still based on a risk assessment of 2020 and not the one in 2021. No arrangements were made for any future meeting. Between two previous meetings in 2021 ten weeks had elapsed with no communication. Little wonder the case has dragged on for twenty-three months and still counting. Such a dilatory, lackadaisical attitude is totally unacceptable. Even the independent investigator, engaged to investigate the procedures only and not the allegation itself, said in his review of August 2021 that, ‘without strong and decisive leadership it [the case] seems to have drifted and meandered’.
In one month it will be exactly two years since Kenneth was told of the allegation and so it goes on and on and on with no end in sight.
Kenneth has serious health issues and is almost 77 years old. How long do they think he can continue with this level of persecution? He has been part of that church for sixty years with clean DBS checks throughout. Nothing has ever been proved against him. Surely he can be left to live out his old age in peace and without being bullied by authorities in the Church of England.
Postscript: This account links back indirectly to the story of NST failing to act quickly in the Percy case. It is also pertinent to the powerful speech given by Gavin Drake at General Synod on February 9th calling for something beyond ‘moral authority’ in the oversight of the NST. Martyn’s and Kenneth’s stories clearly need an ombudsman to appeal to but such a figure does not at present exist. The incompetence continues.
Anonymous wishes to add as an addendum
‘I should like to add here a comment to note how similar is Kenneth’s case to that of J in the opening chapter of ‘The Trial’ by Kafka and now, after almost two years, in chapter seven of that book the events in the life of J are almost the same as those of K.
‘Somebody must have laid false information against Josef K.; for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested’.
He is shortly summoned before the inspector, who does not know what the charges are either but tells K. that he is free to continue living his life as usual. K. goes to the bank where he works and is later told that a series of hearings will be taking place on Sundays………..
One of Kafka’s best-known works. Although written in 1914-15 and published 1925 after his death, it has become synonymous with the anxieties and sense of alienation of the modern age and with an ordinary person’s struggle against an unreasoning and unreasonable authority.’