by Anonymous

This anonymous contribution arrived in the last couple of days. I would normally have elected to hold it over for a few days but the content appears to be relevant to our ongoing discussion about the weaponisation of safeguarding. The author claims to find psychopathic behaviour among those who currently administer safeguarding in the Church. This observation needs to be kept in mind as we watch the reaction and likely resistance to the radical proposals by Jay to remove control of safeguarding from those who currently hold this power. Ed.

Most would readily accept that paedophiles and other psychopaths tend not to thrive in normal hidden places but rather remain hidden in plain sight. Perhaps two of the most chilling examples of this would be Bishop Peter Ball and Jimmy Saville.

The psychology of the paedophile and abuser of vulnerable adults is complex but what is common among them is an absence of conscience about their crimes nor with respect to the devastating effect that they inflict on their victims. Sometimes there even seems to be a large element of personal gratification in seeing the harm they cause. Unwittingly however, the Church of England in its insistence of taking control of its own safeguarding has opened the opportunity for a new type of abuse, maybe not sexual, but every bit as devastating in its consequences.

While it would be very difficult for a sexual offender to be employed in safeguarding by the churches, what we now experience instead is the phenomenon of individuals within social welfare occupations such as social work and child protection who have a sadistic and psychopathic urge to harm vulnerable people. These people are deliberately hiding in plain sight by holding positions of enormous unaccountable authority such as diocesan or national safeguarding officers under the guise of the protection of their victims. This is of course not to say that all such office holders are in this category just as one should never suggest that all clergy, scout leaders, nurses, child protection officers and social workers are either. However, evidence is already available from their behaviours, that these psychopaths are present within safeguarding structures in the Church of England.

Taking refuge in their autonomous positions of trust, the new abusers exercise a control never dreamed of in the past by paedophiles when it comes to exercising maximum harm on their victims. This is manifested in parishes too where the local church safeguarding officer is sometimes someone who knows most if not all the people in their congregation and can consequently exercise huge damage entirely in a hidden way on people they choose to target. Long held resentments and vendettas are held by those with minimum training or supervision and while under the cover of being in plain sight and although charged merely with the apparent obligation to report rather than investigate, the parish safeguarding officer can cause immense harm to individuals without any accountability whatsoever.

In the past those who wanted to cause harm to their opponents would resort to accusations of heresy, now it is with vexatious allegations regarding safeguarding: this phenomenon has accurately been described as the weaponisation of safeguarding. (Please read the excellent book Letters to a Broken Church edited by Janet Fife and Gilo). However there is another aspect to this weaponisation of safeguarding and we see this also in the increasingly alarming behaviours of some of the diocesan and national church safeguarding personnel who although in theory are responsible to church bureaucrats (CEOs, diocesan secretaries, the Archbishops’ Council et al), these latter people have no relevant professional training or qualifications to make expert and informed decisions about the probity of their safeguarding personnel: this means that usual professional supervision is largely absent.

I am one of the so-called ISB 12 who was directly impacted by the brutal and sudden abolition of the Independent Safeguarding Board. It was said at the time that we were all told beforehand of the abolition but I am forced to write that this was a lie – I never was and nor was anyone else in the group of us that meets regularly for mutual support and planning. Alas, telling untruths often seems to be a pattern of behaviour with statements from the Church of England.

General Synod document 2336 states: “We do now have in place, through independent commissioner Kevin Crompton, a means for those seeking reviews under the terms of the ISB to continue with this. We are glad that several people are taking up this offer and working with Kevin to set in place reviews. We remain open to listening, to conversation, and to attempts to find resolution with all those affected.”

This was misinformation and dishonest on the part of the authors. As a result of this there was a request for a Survivor/Victim to read a statement from us to General Synod, but this was not accepted. Several people felt that our group should be clear that this statement contains a “lie” and it should be called out as such; in the end this was the statement to which we agreed unanimously and is now in the public domain as a consequence of the attempt to silence us:

 “GS 2336 states that the ISB 11 have a means in place to continue with their reviews – this is untrue. The necessary conditions such as data sharing agreements are not in place. It is also inaccurate to imply that the group are happily working with Kevin Crompton. The ISB 11 have instead expressed no confidence in his brief, role, or readiness to conduct our reviews on the same basis as the former ISB.  Not one survivor is currently having their review progressed with/by him. We are deeply concerned that the General Synod has been fed misinformation which we assume is designed to appease Synod members. This has exacerbated the ‘significant harm’ to survivors as evidenced in the recent Glasgow Report.” This statement has been agreed unanimously by those present.

On so many occasions Church of England safeguarding personnel and central secretariat officers engage in corrupt, dishonest and bullying behaviours towards those who have already suffered sexual and other abuse. It is also well known that some of those who wield the most power in Church House, Westminster regularly brief the press “off the record” spreading malicious untruths without their victims having any recourse to reply.

The alleged increasingly cruel, mean and bullying behaviour of members of the Interim Support Scheme office, part of the National Safeguarding Team and ultimately the Archbishops’ Council, also indicate serious questions of alleged bullying in many different forms perpetrated on some of the most vulnerable people among the Church of England’s many victims of abuse in all its forms. They are however also signs pointing to the individuals who are perpetrating the bullying: people who have perhaps been involved in safeguarding and administration in the church for many years, people who (hidden in plain sight) have exacted psychopathic cruelty on the very people that the Church of England has abused most and continues to abuse most: this is the same pattern of behaviour of the paedophile and other sex offenders.

I have often asked myself and others the question why some of the people in safeguarding in the Church of England, people with immense power, behave so badly towards the church’s victims: is it profound incompetence or is it profound cruelty? The answer invariably is that it is incompetence, not being “up to the job” and that they are “basically innocent” (to quote a former Archbishop of Canterbury about Bishop Peter Ball). I believe however that this is mistaken: some of the people concerned are far more likely to have deliberately placed themselves in their positions, under the cover of plain sight, so that they can inflict as much damage as possible on the most vulnerable of those that the Church of England has already abused.

The new abusers in the Church of England are the very same people who have been charged by their episcopal and lay leaders to offer protection: these cruel people are all in plain sight. The only solution now is for the Church of England to remove itself from all safeguarding and to put everything in the hands of an independent safeguarding board or body that will not be compromised either by the narcissistic psychopaths in safeguarding or the narcissistic sociopaths in leadership (lay and episcopal) – both who perpetrate the toxic increasing and serial assassination of souls. These safeguarding psychopaths must be finally driven out of the Church of England.

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting-place, but it finds none. Then it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.’ Matthew 12: 43-45

May our prayers ascend to you, O Lord, and may You rid Your church of all wickedness. Amen

One of the “ISB 12” (although writing as an individual).

Safeguarding activity in the Church of England is currently a shambles; the Church needs to hand over all its power in this area to two new and independent bodies.

The sentences above are probably an unhelpful summary of Professor Alexis Jay’s skilled overview of the current state of safeguarding in the Church.  For her report, The Future of Church Safeguarding published today (Feb 21^st), Jay has spoken to dozens of individuals involved in this area of work.  While she is impressed with the work and dedication of many of them, her overall conclusion is that the procedures and protocols that are in place for church safeguarding are not fit for purpose.  She sums up her finding by saying, ‘the Church’s system of operational safeguarding is not compatible with best practices …’  A striking finding from her questionnaire data states also that 69% of the victims and survivors were unsatisfied or very unsatisfied with the outcome of the safeguarding process as it applied to them.  With only a mere 16% declaring themselves satisfied, it is clear that the Church is involved with a system which creates many unhappy customers.  In spite of spending huge amounts of money, the Church authorities are presiding over procedures which let people down.  In the process they inflict considerable reputational damage on the Church itself. 

One important feature of the report is that the reader is allowed to listen to anonymous voices of some of the many involved in safeguarding.  Some are those who are responsible for operating the protocols, while others are the victims and survivors.  This focus on the lived experience of individuals caught up in the system is an aspect of the total picture that Jay wants to share with her readers.  Her report is independent, and thus there is no attempt to gloss over some quite serious claims of institutional cruelty or incompetence being used as a way to protect the ‘system’.  One major problem across English dioceses is the inconsistency of practice.  One member of the clergy described the safeguarding instructions emanating from the centre as ‘opaque, confusing and complex.’  Different dioceses may treat an identical issue in quite different ways.  Line management of Diocesan Safeguarding Advisers (DSA) can frequently prove to be a problem.  Also, not every DSA had worked in a profession previously which valued a sensitivity to trauma.  An absence of the skill of working with old-fashioned human kindness has the consequence that some of these survivors are forced to retreat into a hidden place where they are out of reach of the help of others.

One important way that Jay shows her helpful understanding of the negative dynamics of some safeguarding activity, is when she refers to ‘weaponisation’.  This is the habit of making an otherwise lightweight issue of behaviour into a ‘safeguarding matter’ so that it attracts to itself a disproportionate weight of process.  Most disagreements between colleagues or within a parish setting can be resolved by mediation.  Instead, we hear that clergy can now be intimidated to the point of breakdown by lay people threatening a safeguarding process against them.    Jay is clear that safeguarding is an area of church life which is about offering protection to children and vulnerable adults.  It is not a method for disgruntled individuals to settle scores against others by defining the word vulnerable in a loose way.

Some of Jay’s report concerns itself with incompetent and less than professional breakdowns of communication and understanding between safeguarding officials.    She notes the highly variable structure of personnel across the dioceses in England.  Some employ up to six full-time staff (Chester) while others (Carlisle) have a single Safeguarding Adviser with some secretarial back-up.  The key proposal in the report is to set up two new independent organisations, A and B.  These would be to coordinate all the national safeguarding work and would have the effect of removing the ‘post-code lottery’.  Organisation A would serve all the safeguarding work of the dioceses in a even-handed manner.  Local Diocesan safeguarding committees would disappear.   Organisation B would act as a supervisory body overseeing the work of Organisation A, thus removing responsibility from bishops to act as the place of last resort.  Jay had noticed, not infrequently, that crucial decisions were expected of personnel who did not have either the interest or the professional skill to make such decisions.  A house of Bishops, such as the one we have in the Church of England, which finds it difficult or impossible to nominate a Lead Bishop for Safeguarding, should surely not want to protest if the responsibility was removed from their control.  It would be a popular change among the survivors I know.  Most recent Lead Bishops for Safeguarding have appeared to become demoralised by the tasks placed on them.  Some have responded to their role by becoming invisible while others have demonstrated all too clearly in their words and demeanour something of the toll that this responsibility has placed on them.

The basic message of Jay’s report is to indicate to the Church of England that it is out of its depth when seeking to provide safeguarding for those who need it.  I have not attempted to give the detail of Jay’s Organisations A & B in this short commentary, but suffice to say, it is a radical departure from what is in existence at present.  The suggestions of Jay would appear to be based on good common-sense, but, likely, they will be firmly resisted by those who exercise power in the Church of England.   The power that has accrued to senior lawyers and senior church civil servants will not be surrendered easily to two independent bodies that cannot be controlled and bent to the will of William Nye and his circle.  The management of safeguarding in the C/E currently seems to be all about power. We must hope that the evidence of mishandled power in the Church up till the present, will allow parliament and public opinion to force these necessary changes on the C/E.  We need a safeguarding regime which will allow transparency and justice.  Such a new system may help to provide healing for all who have suffered power abuse or institutional re-abuse at the hands of their fellow Christians.

This blog piece and the title that is given to it, is one that I would rather not have to write, The reason I am writing it will become, clear to the reader as I set out a series of events and correspondence that began on January 16^th 2024.  The Open Letter from Martin Sewell and others to the two archbishops who chair the Archbishops’ Council (AC) concerned the sudden, some would say shocking, termination of the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) in November of last year.  The issue with the closure was not just the event itself, but also the brutal insensitivity and apparent absence of any trauma awareness with which it was done.

Sewell’s Open Letter to the Archbishops began with a call for the immediate suspension of the Secretary General of the C/E, William Nye.  This was to enable his conduct and responsibility for the disastrous ISB episode to be properly investigated.  By his actions and negligence in this affair, Nye had forfeited the position of trust placed on him by General Synod. ‘The misconduct that we identify hereunder has resulted in the complete forfeiture of trust in him and in the institution which he serves across the survivor community and beyond’.

The recent Wilkinson Report has identified many failures in the way the ISB closure had been mishandled but Sewell’s letter focuses on one particular issue of great importance to the survivor community.  Specific expert advice had been given to the AC, and to Nye as its CEO, by Steve Reeves of the ISB about the risks involved in leaving vulnerable individuals without proper support. This had to be in place when they were informed of the drastic decision to close the ISB.   Any professional opinion would have concurred with the view that a sudden closure was a risky, potentially disastrous, action.  In short, to quote Sewell’s letter,  ‘(Nye) chose to prioritise his perception of the interests of the AC and/or General Synod over the needs of the Church’s survivors.’  Further ‘he owed a duty of care, both personally and as an institutional leader across multiple iterations of safeguarding within the CofE.’

The next section of the letter spells out some of the clinical observations of Professor Glasgow which we looked at in an earlier blog.  The clinical analyses he had made backed up all that Steve Reeves had indicated in the advice he had earlier given to the AC.  By rejecting this advice, the Secretary General had caused serious harm to some of those who had come to depend on the ISB, for the sustaining support they needed to keep them at a minimum level of psychological well-being. Taking away such support with no notice or any replacement available was experienced as an act causing ‘significant harm’.  Such harm needed to be responded to, and anyone responsible for causing such serious damage to individuals should face suspension.  This would enable the whole episode to be investigated by independent individuals who had no connection with the governing structures of the C/E.

The reply that Martin Sewell has received was sent on Tuesday 6^th February, some three weeks after his original letter to the two archbishops and members of the AC.  It bears the signature of Carl Hughes, the Chair of the Finance Committee of the AC.  It has all the hallmarks of a letter written by several hands.  It is not hard to see the language of both lawyers and the publicity professionals employed by the Church.  The letter predictably contains expressions of ‘regret’ and ‘learning lessons’, but there is absolutely nothing to persuade the independent reader (me) that anybody involved in the letter has any real understanding of the trauma and pain that survivors, such as those at the heart of the ISB episode, carry every day of their lives. 

The kernel of Carl Hughes’ letter was to reject Martin Sewell’s request for the immediate suspension of the Secretary General, William Nye. The reason given was that an opinion given by a specialist employment law solicitor declared that there were no grounds for this suspension.  We need to pause for a moment to consider the implications of this statement.  A senior (and well-paid) employee is accused of reckless and highly damaging behaviour but there are no grounds for suspending him, even when the accusation involves serious ethical lapses as well as raising concerns of apparent administrative incompetence.  Does employment law protect the Secretary General in every circumstance?  Does Nye’s status at the very top of the Anglican pinnacle of power mean that he cannot be challenged, let alone suspended for what is arguably a serious failure of professional competence and judgement?  The misdemeanours that Sewell wants investigated are not only serious administrative failings but severe breaches of Christian principles.  Hughes’ letter does not engage with any discussion of whether Nye’s actions created harm; he simply appeals to employment law and what is legally possible.  In noting the absence of any apparent attempt to show the AC as being a place of compassion and kindness, we catch a strong sense of an organisation where the chill winds of pragmatic managerialism blow strong.   I would not feel comfortable working for an organisation that could not discuss and resolve issues which should be rooted in Christian morality.  Did the AC in their deliberations about the ISB really fail to realise that their response to problems there needed to engage with realities beyond the realm of legality and contracts?

The previous paragraph is a personal response to Carl Hughes’ words which were written in reply to Martin Sewell’s demand for the suspension of William Nye. Sewell’s own response, sent on Thursday 8^th February , contained much more in the way of legal rhetoric and style of argument.  At one point he accuses the Hughes’ letter of containing a claim that is ‘quite plainly untrue’.  This concerns the status of a law firm working for the AC, Farrer and Co.  Sewell notes that this is the same firm that was suggested for the ISB in the dispute with the AC.  There was an attempt to force the ISB members to use this firm even though the firm was already much involved in AC business and thus would not have been able to act in the best interests of the ISB whenever they conflicted with the interests of the AC.

What struck me as an important point In Sewell’s four-page response to Carl Hughes letter is his discovery that the Church of England has placed legal obstructions on anyone ever investigating the Secretary General. When Sewell asked for a copy of the NCI (National Church institutions) code of conduct for their employees, he was told that the policy is not a public document. It is not clear to me whether the terms “code” and “policy” are interchangeable; perhaps one cannot have a code without a policy, but whether one has followed the other we cannot be sure because the head of HR at Church House advised that this is a private document. Survivors have from time to time been told that the terms of their complaints do not fit within the terms of internal policies, yet if those policies and procedures are not publicly available, how can they complain and be sure that they are receiving justice, and how can a church that constantly issues platitudinous statements about “transparency and accountability” justify secrecy in such areas. Employment law is deeply dependent on contract documents and procedural compliance. When these are kept hidden, it is hard to see how justice can be done or be seen to be done.

Secrecy will always be an enemy of transparency and it is hard to see the Church easily achieving such transparency and thus obtaining the trust of the English people.  Once again, we express the hope that Alexis Jay has found a way to cut through the brambles of obstruction and impediment to help us to become a body that flourishes in the light and can be trusted to tell the truth.  Lying is an attempt to abuse power.  It belongs to a different arena of human activity to sexual violence, but both are abuses of power which sadly are found too frequently in our national Church.

               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.

From time to time I look back over my life and thank God for people and institutions that I have been able to trust and rely on.  As a child I learnt that many friendships with those of my own age could be extremely fickle.  A friendly face one day could change into a scheming bully the next.  Life taught me that you had to be on the alert for the frequent changes of mood in the children around you so you could adjust your response accordingly. In contrast to these constantly changing moods of my contemporaries, the world of adults offered an opening to something much more stable.  It is among these adults, or a number of them, that there were some who were prepared to befriend a child and help in the task of interpreting a confusing world.  Parents, however good, could never answer all the questions one had about life.  I remember the proprietor of an antique shop who for years tolerated my browsing through his wares even though I was not in a position to buy anything.  Then there was an old man who sat day after day near our playground and welcomed conversation and the sharing of his wisdom.  The elderly of the 50s were all Victorians and they provided a glimpse of another world, one without cars or machines.  The existence of terrible disease and shorter life-expectancy seemed somehow to be partly compensated for by a strong moral order and decency in society. 

It is this cohort of adults who offered friendship to me when I was a child to whom I owe an enormous debt   Some were teachers, some clergy and some were random people I met elsewhere, even on the bus or train.  Yes, I was allowed on occasion to travel on a bus alone at the age of 5 with two old pennies in my clutched hand to pay the fare.  Adults, known or unknown, were a breed that my young self saw as a resource for help, friendship or information.  There were obviously places that were off-limits but fortunately my overall sense of trust in the stranger was never betrayed.  Others of my generation will no doubt look back to their childhood and also remember a sense of overall security with adults who had not been through anything resembling our safeguarding training.   There was an inbuilt wisdom in the child that knew that accepting sweets from someone who was a stranger was somehow risky.  We also knew that in a crowded place, the vast majority of the adults present were on one’s side and would react instantly if a child showed signs of fear or discomfort.

I could go on to describe particular people that helped me gain a perspective on life and provided the mentorship within an environment of trust that was so important when eventually making the choices I made about the future.  I am aware from the perspective of today that I may have sometimes been in risky situations.  There were, no doubt, dangerous adults who used more relaxed attitudes and access to children for their own nefarious purposes.   Fortunately for me, at any rate, the freer atmosphere between adults and children did provide the many benefits of knowing and interacting with a wide range of people.  Growing up in this pre-safeguarding era may have had some dangers, but for those whose trust was not betrayed by deviant adults, there was a sense of a society of people who were generally good, friendly and looking out for us.

I mentioned the existence of trust in the minds of most children that coexisted with a sense that grownups were a breed on your side for the most part.  There were also trustworthy institutions like the corner shop, the public library, the church, the school and the doctor’s surgery. Each represented to the child the wider society, one which had predictability and security.  It comes as something of an unpleasant shock to discover how far the general public have withdrawn from trusting these same institutions and those who work for them. The results of a recent survey which suggests that trust in society’s institutions has severely diminished over the decades. This contrasts with the positive way that many of us experienced them as we grew up actively trusting both people and the institutions of society.  One might have hoped that the Church had retained some of its traditional standing    It would appear that the Church of England elicits the same diminished amount of trust and confidence as our political parties.  The figures are well below 50%.  Other institutions like the police and schools have also seen their standing downgraded in the eyes of the public.  The decline of trust in the C/E is striking, even alarming.  The one institution still attracting our loyalty and confidence is the National Health Service, though it remains to be seen whether this trust will survive the Letby scandal and the results of midwife failures in parts of England. 

The Church of England, in losing a large amount of the goodwill that it used to enjoy a few decades ago, faces a crisis.  The trust that a clerical collar used to attract to itself can no longer be taken for granted.  Indeed, there are many places in society where the dog collar invites ridicule and/or hostility.  What are the reasons for this diminishment of trust?  There are probably a number of reasons we could bring forward.  Some of them are particular to the Church, while others relate to a distrust of institutions in general.  Safeguarding scandals that have reached the public domain have obviously poisoned attitudes among many people.  It is not a single scandal that creates a change of atmosphere.  It is in the way that people see a scandal-racked institution  which appears to do nothing obvious or effective to change the situation.  The Church of England employs quite a large number of people to manage its reputation both nationally and locally.  When these professionals merely repeat formulaic words about learning lessons and tightening up protocols and no one in the organisation ever resigns or accepts any responsibility, the public is not going to be impressed.  The horrors of abuse and the incredibly damaging cover-ups that follow have poisoned attitudes to the church institution.  Can we really be surprised that trust in the Church has fallen to levels that now threaten its very survival as a national institution?

In a blog post as short as this I cannot solve the problems of the C/E in a few words.  I can, however, point to a few principles that could help to rebuild trust above its miserable trust score of 38% before it is too late.  One of the most important aspects of the Church is that it finds much energy as a body when it successfully relates to local areas.  It tries hard to employ people who are recognised as honest and trusted within their local patch.  Forty years ago we used to hear the slogan: Small is beautiful.  We need a rediscovery of this principle and relearn that large complex but anonymous structures are not what most people hanker after.  The mega-church has little to offer an elderly person who remembers a parish church where all were valued and all had a place within the  whole.  The Church must be a place where the traditional values of trust and honesty are highly honoured.  People must find in their local church not only a sense of safety and trust but the opportunity to discover their giftedness for love and service.  The church should become a place where all ‘know even as they are known’ – to misquote St Paul.  Honesty, transparency and justice are all values that everyone wants for the Church, both those within and those looking in.  If we can rediscover these simple moral truths to replace power games, secrecy, greed and emotional gratification, then the Church might once again connect with the British people.

These thoughts are written with a sense of nostalgia for the possibility of living in a society and a Church where trust is taken for granted.  Perhaps it is an unrealistic dream to have, but we can still hold out the thought that it should be possible to find it in a group familiar with the teaching of Jesus.  The greatest frustration for any Christian is to see dishonesty and failure of trust becoming endemic among Church leaders.  In another area of society – politics, there is the constant cry of citizens is to find politicians who genuinely serve their constituents and not themselves.   Such figures do appear on the scene from time to time but all too easily they seem to be outnumbered by those on the make.  Can we not expect the ethical honesty we ask of politicians to be found among our church leaders?  It should be a simple matter to find Christ-like values in a Christian organisation but somehow even that assumption of goodness still seems often to be absent!

by Martin Sewell

It is around this stage of the football season that some teams performances go into free fall and they plunge inexorably towards relegation; the paying customers stay at home, morale sinks, some players “want away”: no discernible plan is evident on the field of play, and rumours of dressing room dissension emerge. Spectators watch with dismay as the ball is routinely kicked aimlessly forwards, more in hope than expectation only for the pressure to mount from the more clued-up opposition teams which purposefully continue to run rings around the hapless, week after week,

At such times a hymn tune is re-purposed on the terraces reminding the players that not only are they “sub-optimal” – but they know they are.

Clubs can respond in one of two ways.  Sometimes, like my own team Tottenham Hotspur,  they bring in a new coach with fresh ideas whose clarity of thought creates a “bounce” and the team finds a new lease of life; sometimes they appoint someone from the existing staff who continues the old culture with predictable dispiriting results.

Just before the Archbishops’ Council met to consider their response to the Wilkinson Report I wrote to the members in the vague hope of introducing a few ideas to develop a different approach to get us out of the Safeguarding morass which the current leadership and culture have created. The underlying thought was simple enough. “If things don’t change things will remain exactly the same.

In order to signal a fresh start, I offered them a list of “Do’s and Don’ts”, a few tips about how to get back onto the front foot.

Here were some of my suggestions; in the comments section below you might like to suggest a few of your own

DO

Commission and announce an immediate safeguarding investigation into the allegations contained in the Glasgow Report which are supported by expert evidence.

Consider where suspensions may be appropriate in the light of the above – be consistent in applying the same criteria which would be applied in other allegations of serious safeguarding failure.

Consider what governance and managerial failures have been highlighted in the Wilkinson Report and what steps must be taken immediately to address these.

It is understood that external auditors have been appointed to fully investigate the Gilo complaint regarding false evidence. Request confirmation of the Terms of Reference of the investigation and of the anticipated reporting timescale. Require that the report be made available to all members of the AC and the AC Audit Committee immediately it is received.

Establish an unimpeachable, independent process to investigate all of the above. Recognise that any suggestion of taint or partiality will bring huge discredit on our Church.

Prepare for significant independent oversight during the transition period between the delivery of the Jay recommendations and their implementation; business as usual will not carry credibility.

Bring a clear commitment to Synod to accept the Jay recommendations without obstruction, even if these mean that control will be removed from Archbishops/ Bishops

Issue an immediate public apology to all the former ISB members for creating an under-resourced ill-conceived ISB project with disagreement ‘baked-in”.

Where appropriate tell Synod and the public where responsibility lies for the failings identified by the Review in matters including

             Initial conceptualisation
             Poor scrutiny
             Legal ambiguity over what “Independence” means Resourcing
             Data protection responsibilities
             Poor minuting and record keeping.
             The absence of and /or resistance to proper Audit
             The “confusion” over the Terms of Reference for the ISB.

Issue a clear summary to General Synod of your responses to the Wilkinson Review;

DO NOT

Issue evasive press statements like the ones hitherto

Speak of “prioritising victims” until you have put specific radical measures in place

Attempt to limit the capacity of Synod to exercise its duty to hold all responsible parties to account.

Speak of “scapegoating” or “witch hunting”;

Speak of a fresh culture before there is hard evidence for it –“by their fruits ye shall know them”.

Advisory

Do urgently re-open consideration of the Mr X case. NOTHING absolutely NOTHING will say “ we are sorry and are changing the culture” better than treating the most harmed of victims properly. Forget “this will set a precedent” (it will not): forget “we have been advised that” – this is what Baroness Mone and the leaders of the Post Office and Fujitsu said to excuse their appalling conduct.

Instruct the Church lawyers to stop pressing victim Sophie Y  for costs which she cannot afford,  for simply seeking justice; she is a victim, and you should not replicate Post Office behaviour by using lawyers ultimately funded by congregations (even if this is via lost grant opportunities) to bully victims. There is genuine fury across the British public over the behaviour of a trusted institution. Once they have torn down one edifice, they may be hungry for another. We must not let it be our Church. You are trustees of a charity. Accept any loss and help close this down. Consider how to give justice to Sophie. Invite her to stay the current proceedings pending a proper independent investigation.

Most readers will have seen that my “ Postecoglou” approach was rejected. Instead of a few key principles clearly understood and consistently applied becoming the model for the future, we are to apply the same culture under the watchful eye of Bishop Joanne Grenfell, who will be simultaneously overseeing all the affairs of the Diocese of London during the Bishop Sarah Mullaly’s sabbatical leave.

If there are any Terms of Reference or timescale for the new Working Party, nobody has seen them. A key criticism of the Wilkinson Report was the incoherence of the conceptualisation of the ISB project. This “plan” seems to have been designed by the same people who got us into the current mess, but it will will be overseen by a Chair who openly acknowledged when she was appointed that she had no experience or specific skills in the Safeguarding field.

She will however be supported and guided by the same management team that brought us the current “success” …. Oh Wait!

Amid all the reviews and reports that are appearing on the topic of Church of England safeguarding, there is one that currently stands out for our attention.  It is written by a highly qualified clinical and forensic psychologist, David Glasgow.  He was asked to describe the psychological impact on some of the twelve survivors who were directly affected by the sudden termination of the work of the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) by the Archbishops’ Council.  The report that has appeared in the past seven days is not one to argue the rights and wrongs of this closure.  The concern of the author, and this is what gives the document considerable authority and power, is to provide a professional and expert assessment on the degree of damage caused to individuals through of the closure of the ISB.  His purpose is not to take a position on the rights and wrongs of this closure or place blame anywhere.  He simply wants to use his professional experience to assess and describe the damage and trauma endured by a number of the twelve individuals who had looked to the ISB for help.  They had all endured the same sudden withdrawal of support through the dissolution of the ISB. Not all of the twelve chose to engage in the process set up by Glasgow.

Glasgow’s report is not lengthy and thus it lends itself to a summary suitable for Surviving Church.  He uses the expression ‘significant harm’ in describing the impact of the event at the heart of the report – the sudden closing of the ISB with virtually no notice.  I understand that the expression, when used in a professional/legal context, is normally the prelude to immediate and often radical intervention by concerned social agencies.  This may include such a drastic action as removing a vulnerable child from their home and placing them in care.  ‘Significant harm’ in the context of the ISB closure suggests a recognition by a well-qualified professional trauma expert that the closure of the ISB was a seriously damaging event to the well-being to several individuals caught up in the process. The results of this kind of damage are clearly familiar to Glasgow as he describes the phenomena of ‘trauma related symptomology’ he observed in the survivors he interviewed  .  These are described and include ‘intrusive experiences, dissociation, defensive avoidance, dysregulation of affect, self derogation and self harm. …’  He further comments, ‘most [symptoms] I would characterise as moderate to severe’.  In these few words, especially the use of the words ‘significant harm’ and ‘severe’, we are taken into a dimension of pain and suffering that few can imagine, let alone have experienced.  The tone of the report hints that Glasgow himself was moved by the plight of those he interviewed.  The pain endured by those in the ‘severe’ category was, he noted, made worse by the trust that some of the survivors still had in the Church authorities to resolve the problem.  Some simply could not believe that the Church they had always looked up to could so utterly fail them.  The ISB had built up a level of trust with this group and the abolishing of the ISB was a cause of real anger and bewilderment.

As a professional involved with other situations of individual and corporate trauma, Glasgow asks the Church some challenging questions.  From the norms of his professional practice, he would have assumed that  the decision of the Archbishops’ Council to terminate the contracts of the remaining members of the ISB would be a decision that would only have been made after an expert risk-assessment.  The way the termination in fact took place showed no sign that an ‘appropriately qualified expert’ had been anywhere in the decision.  No expert or properly qualified assessor, Glasgow notes, ‘would fail to highlight the very significant and entirely foreseeable risk of significant harm to victims.’      Another less professional way of expressing what Glasgow is trying to say at this point is simply this.  How can the Church be so crassly incompetent and careless for the wellbeing and safety of its members?  Did they really take a decision of this order  of magnitude without taking advice about the likely consequences?  We are, perhaps, in this episode seeing the Church at the highest-level exercising power when it is quite clearly out of its depth.

Glasgow’s report concludes with a discussion on the task of rebuilding trust between survivors and victims and the Church authorities.  He has no shortcuts to offer but recognises that such a restoration of trust will be a ‘challenge’ after all that has happened.  While such reconciliation work is not within the remit of his task or his expertise, he helpfully points to literature and the potential contribution of other academic researchers who understand the level of complexities and the degree of expertise needed for such an undertaking.

In drawing attention to this highly professional piece of work and commentary to the Church of England’s somewhat failing attempts to put things right in the safeguarding sphere, I have to mention two other expected documents that have (Jan 14^th) not yet appeared. The first one is Professor Jay’s report.  This was originally promised for the end of last year.  While the reasons for delay may be totally valid, a delay of several weeks would seem to merit some kind of formal announcement.  The second document that was expected by now is a formal response or reaction from the bishops about the Wilkinson report.  It would seem to be important to have a reasonable length of time for General Synod members to study such a response before the gathering of GS in February.  Currently I am detecting an increasing dissatisfaction among some members of Synod as they come to realise that important decisions affecting the Church are being made without an adequate level of skill and expertise.     Both Wilkinson and Glasgow have drawn attention to the acute level of pain inflicted on members of the Church which can be ascribed, not only to the wickedness of malefactors, but also to the incompetent and unfeeling treatment of survivors by senior members of the Church.  Glasgow wonders whether it is now too late to bind up the broken levels of trust between survivors and those who have power in the Church.  His own prognosis is gloomy in the extreme.  He states when speaking about the task of rebuilding of trust ‘I can think of no obvious remedial steps that might usefully be taken on this issue’. Those of us who want to feel optimistic that the future may improve things in the world of safeguarding, perhaps have a duty to make our voices heard.

January/February 2024 are months when a decisive shift may take place in the Church of England.  The shift that is looked for is linked to the promised publication of a report by Professor Alexis Jay on C/E safeguarding.  This report promises to take a hard look at this area of the Church’s life and make some recommendations for the future.  None of us know what those recommendations will consist of, but we hope that they will be marked by the same fearless independence that Jay has shown up till now.  After her lengthy exposure to the internal operations of the Church of England at the highest level during the IICSA hearings, Jay knows how the system works.  It is likely that she realises that allowing the Church to continue to manage its safeguarding responsibilities in the future, without external oversight, will prove to be potentially disastrous.  Her professional background and her understanding of church dynamics in the C/E at General Synod and Archbishops’ Council level, has prompted her to take a strongly independent line right from the beginning of her investigations.  Jay has publicly stated that she will not tolerate any attempted interference which seeks to undermine or compromise the integrity of her investigations.  This strongly independent line taken by Jay is backed up by her decision to see her interviewees only in locations that have no links with church institutions.  

We still do not have the Jay report at the time of writing, but we do have hopes and expectations that it will be a thorough piece of work.  What do we know so far?  It became apparent early on in the process that Jay was not attempting to do a safeguarding survey of every diocese in the C/E.  She decided to focus on six sample dioceses. I played a tiny part in the overall process by encouraging two individuals known to me, and who lived in one of these six named dioceses, to approach her.  Both did so and reported back that they received what they felt to be highly professional and considerate attention.  The fact that Jay was there to record what was truly going on and not defend an institution involved in safeguarding, meant that each felt heard in a way quite different from that received from church authorities.  Good reports of other interviews have also been shared across social media and this gives everyone following this process good reason to believe that the eventual report will reveal truth and objectivity.

In this waiting period for Jay’s report and recommendations for the Church of England, it is natural for some of us to express our hopes and think out loud over what we would like to see.  The main finding that I would like to see as part of the Report is a conclusion that the Church should hand over completely its safeguarding responsibilities to an independent body.  Such a body would have to be financed by the Church of England, but it would be set up in a way that removed all control from bishops, Archbishops’ Council and the Secretariat at Church House.  Dismantling the existing structures that have appeared in the Church since 2015 with a confusing plethora of acronyms, would be a major piece of work.  If anyone were to propose and redesign from scratch a structure for delivering church safeguarding, it would be a very lengthy document.  I have neither the ability nor interest in even outlining such a reconstruction.  What I offer here are some thoughts on the broad areas that need to be covered by a comprehensive safeguarding body, able to do the work that needs to be done.

Long time readers of this blog will know my propensity for attempting to simplify complex problems or ideas by dividing them into three.  Safeguarding in the Church is one such immensely complicated activity, but it does, to my simple mind, allow itself to be divided up into three distinct strands.  The first manifestation of safeguarding is the point at which it touches almost every church member.  Awareness of safeguarding hazards and dangers has successfully been made part of every church activity down to the parish level.  If this process of teaching safeguarding awareness was the sole content of safeguarding activity, then the Church could be considered to have earned a ‘good’ or ‘satisfactory’ in an imaginary tick-box exercise.  But safeguarding is of course much more than this and the Church cannot in any way be said to achieve even ‘satisfactory’ in these other two strands.

If the first strand to be identified comes under the broad description of training, the second tranche of safeguarding activity may be described as legacy issues.  By these two words I am indicating the enormous amount of work that is still outstanding from the past to put right injustice and the appalling cases of neglect by the Church of vulnerable and damaged people over decades.  The skills required to put right legacy issues are, of course, quite different from those used to manage the massive training programme already undertaken by the Church.  We need a small army of legal experts, psychotherapists and financial experts alongside professional abuse-informed investigators to do the work.  It will not be cheap, and I am not going to suggest how many people it will need to do this aspect of safeguarding.  The main observation I make about this work is to say that just because safeguarding training and safeguarding legacy issues possess a word in common, it does not mean that the work and expertise required for these areas of urgent work should be done by the same people.  The compilers of training courses for the Church cannot be expected to have the necessary skills to pick up the wounded from the side of the road and minister to their emotional and physical needs.

The third area of urgently needed work is a requirement for a skilled cohort to attempt the task of rebuilding trust in the Church as a place of safety.  There has to be a huge effort in trying to wipe away the appalling reputationally destructive events of the past twenty+ years.  We might call this the public relations strand.  The Church has been employing reputation managers and experts in public communication for a long time, but it has been largely unsuccessful in convincing a sceptical public that it is doing a good job at maintaining high standards of transparency, justice and integrity.  Indeed, like a political party that has been in power too long, the Church gives the impression of repeatedly being involved in covering up its own version of sleaze.  This is linked to what looks like a complacent entitlement and an inflated sense of its own importance.  Recent comparisons with the Post Office in Britain, and the way the Church has refused to support victims or thoroughly investigate the guilt or innocence of the accused, have left a sour taste in the mouth of many onlookers.  Working for the Post Office proved to be a dangerous and costly choice for many of its employees.  Working for, or in some way supporting, the Church of England appears to be sometimes equally hazardous.  This public relations strand, which compels the Church to put considerable resources into the task of honest reputation repair, is a vital one.  If the Church demonstrates further examples of destroyed trust, then its survival as a public institution will be under serious threat.

So far, I have identified three distinct strands of safeguarding activity which the Church must engage with even if they are hugely costly in terms of finance and effort.  These strands, named as training, legacy issues and reputational repair, demand the skill and effort of highly qualified individuals and institutions.  If the Church tries to take short cuts as, for example, using the services of inexperienced unqualified people, the long-term damage to the Church will be potentially massive.  What I am hoping to see in Professor Jay’s recommendations is a move to greater professionalism as well as greater independence.  One thing I have not attempted to set out here is a new structure for safeguarding within our Church.  That is for others to do, and I would suggest that it needs to look quite different from the haphazardly evolved arrangements we have at present.  The major point I have wanted to make is that the strands of activity that together make up the enterprise we call safeguarding, require an immense variety of skills.  Lawyers are seldom trained in psychotherapy and managers are not known to be especially trauma-aware.  Setting out all the tasks that need to be done and then identifying the skill sets required, will take a great deal of work and time. I am hoping that Professor Jay also will want to say some of these things to the Church.  I am just an observer right on the edge of the safeguarding enterprise.  Those of us on the margins are sometimes entrusted with information and/or insights that may help the Church get things right in the future as it tries to repair and move on from all that has gone so wrong in the past.

The New Year is traditionally a time for a whole plethora of mixed emotions. Some of these emotions relate to the past and may include a sense of regret or disappointment.  There may also be positive feelings of achievement or success in the face of challenge.  The word ‘new’ evokes for us emotions about the future, both good and bad.  The future possesses an ambiguity.  Alongside hope and excitement there is also a sense of dread of the unknown.  We welcome the new but at the same time we cannot avoid, to a degree, fearing it.

As I was thinking about this idea of newness, especially in its positive aspects, I realised that some people cannot see to welcome the future and the newness that comes into their lives.  I am not here thinking of those who face life-limiting events like injury, poverty or illness. There is a further group of people who take limited pleasure in any thought about the newness of the future.  For this cohort, the idea of change or newness is received as potentially undermining their pattern of life. These individuals have adopted a type of rigid thinking in political or religious matters, and this makes anything new at best uncomfortable and at worst a threat.  A sterility of thought has been adopted which prevents this group from being open to any kind of newness entering their minds.  They are paid-up members of the ‘what I always say’ brigade.  They keep company with the millions of MAGA Americans who blindly follow an authoritarian leader into the desert of mindless and intellectually bankrupt mental inactivity.  The word conservative is applied to such people, though we might find this adjective rather weak as a description of individuals who refuse ever to be open to new ideas and ways of understanding.  The reward they receive for this static outlook is a sense of emotional and intellectual security.  The price that must be paid in adopting this stance is the absence of any joy in celebrating newness or the excitement of discovering fresh horizons of thought and insight.  Instead, such people live within the rigid embrace of the past and the value systems that have been handed down to them.  Newness is a contradiction of what they know and believe.  Among religious conservatives there are many who hold that truth is locked up within a single text. The permitted way of reading that text makes no provision or allowance for change. I mentioned, when discussing the defining beliefs of UCCF, how puzzled I was by the attachment to a compulsory statement of beliefs from the 19^th century.  This must be reaffirmed today by current members without deviation or change. I felt in myself a claustrophobia, a drowning sensation, by the idea that such a list could ever form the basis of my faith.  If I was compelled to affirm such a list, would I also have to turn my back on the wondrous complexity and creativity of Christian revelation that has taken place over 2000 years in every part of the globe?  The enforcers of such a document (among them many leaders of the influential con-evo constituency in the Church of England) seem to be insisting on such a stance.   They are saying in effect: ‘Here there is safety but no newness.  You are not permitted to think outside the box of defined statements.  Loyalty, obedience and correct thinking are demanded of you as the price of membership to our club.  Thinking in any other way is strictly forbidden.’

The attempt to hold conservative Christians inside the ghetto of ‘orthodoxy’ is probably far less successful than the leaders of these groups would like to think.   Policing the thinking of all the members of a congregation is an impossible task.  The current polarisation in the Church of England over attitudes to same-sex relationships would appear to suggest that entire congregations are all in tune with their leaders as to what they think.   That is improbable.   The other factor is that everyone, Christians and non-believers alike who live in our world, are automatically caught up in the wide maelstrom of evolving ideas, fashions and new ways of thinking that are constantly appearing.   In other words, we are all good at adjusting to the new.  In science, industry or human thought, ideas and inventions appear with breath-taking speed. Scientific invention is not an area where I have any speciality, but there is one feature of great inventions and discoveries that I marvel at. This is the fact that in many cases, great ideas seem to occur in more than one place at the same time.  In the case of the telephone, the light bulb and other experimenters with electric power, there seems to have been, almost literally, a race to the patent office.  Something similar seems to have been going on in the 5^th century BC in the Ancient World or 15^th century Italy.  Dozens of artists emerged simultaneously enriching our world enormously.  Discovery feels like an unstoppable process which catches up everyone somewhere in its wake.  Newness and our participation in that newness is part of being human, though there are different expressions of change according to where in the world you live.  We can also see that certain ideas which are commonplace today simply could not have been articulated even ten years earlier. Specialists from every discipline seem to have some part in thinking about or maybe even participating in this process of working out the next new idea.  It may be a genuine discovery, a fashion idea or a new literary trend.  The world of the new is an exciting place to live in.  Among Christians, only members of the Amish community make a serious attempt to resist the new as a way of being faithful to their Christian convictions.  Most of the rest of us are content to play a full part in living in (and enjoying) the modern world which welcomes newness and change.

There is a group of active Christians who are largely ignored by much of the Church so that many people in the pew are not aware of their existence.  The group I am speaking about are the phalanx of researchers and theological professionals.  For a brief time in the past, I was involved in academic research while knowing that I was never aiming to become a lecturer or teacher.  But one thing that my research period gave me was a deep respect for the task of academics in theological faculties around the country, even though their work is ignored and even despised by many in the Church.  

Academic theologians and those who work at the leading-edge of research activity are not asking the rest of us always to agree with or even understand their discoveries and insights. They are simply asking us to accept that in their theological research, new concepts and new insights are always emerging.  This process of seeing newness in theology, as in every other area of knowledge, is a valid one. It is saying that creativity and fresh thinking is part of theology and faith as it is in every other area of human learning.  Attempts by leading evangelical Christians in Britain to draw congregations and individuals into a new conservative grouping which seems to deny newness and change, is an attempt to fly in the face of reality.  Any church or congregation which sets its face against change is likely to be seen as sterile by a new generation.  A reactionary approach to theology in the name of safety and orthodoxy cannot ultimately prevail.  The Church needs to draw on the creative and exciting energy that is found in the thinking of those who embrace the future as well as in the radical changes in society that are constantly being shown us day by day.  Engaging intelligently with the new and the future is part of the task of academic thinkers and ordinary folk alike.  Do Christians really want to be identified with those who try to push back the tide, or can they engage enthusiastically with the new and what lies in the future?

Newness is a category of experience that, however disturbing to those of a conservative temperament, is an inevitable part of the human condition.  At this moment in its history, the Church of England is faced by having to choose between an embrace of the new or the retreat into a stance of rejection.  In writing this I am reminded of a line from a Sidney Carter song ‘it is from the old I travel to the new.’  The so-called liberal Christians are suggesting that there is a theology of newness which presents us with a different approach to truth.  We may not get all the precise definitions that some require.  We find, rather, it must be approached in the way we encounter beauty.  The Christian faith is not, as I have indicated many times, reducible to a formula of words; it is found in a process which involves wonder, awe and a contemplation of a reality which cannot ever be fully expressed in words.  When we arrive at this point of knowing we will be, as the hymn puts it, ‘lost in wonder, love and praise’.

Almost exactly one year ago, Surviving Church carried my blog piece on trauma-informed practice in safeguarding matters. https://survivingchurch.org/2022/12/10/trauma-informed-therapy-some-lessons-for-the-church/   It was a continuation, among other things, of my long-held dissatisfaction over the way that abuse survivors frequently encountered something other than compassionate understanding when seeking to tell their story to authority in the Church. I had noted some time ago that the National Safeguarding Team did not employ a single psychotherapist on its staff.  The dominant NST skill set seemed to lean towards management   I was thus pleased to see that Sarah Wilkinson, in her recent review of church safeguarding protocols, was anxious to emphasise the importance of trauma awareness among those who manage safeguarding at every level.  This is the first sentence of her recommendation on this theme.  ‘Everyone involved in decision making about safeguarding issues at the NCIs, from the Archbishops to case workers and including all members of the Archbishops’ Council, should have mandatory training on trauma-informed handling of complainants, victims and survivors.’ Wilkinson is evidently concerned at the high levels of stress and trauma being carried by survivors.  This is exacerbated by the fact that many of those representing church bodies, who sit on powerful committees and deal with the survivors, has little or no prior understanding of the trauma and experience of being such a survivor. She rightly discerns that when highly vulnerable survivors are brought face to face with people with little empathy or understanding, the level of additional suffering endured will be considerable.

When we look at the Church as a whole, the question that might well be asked by an abuse survivor is whether this institution is ever a safe place to enter.  The answer to this question may depend on our being able to discern where the particular local manifestation of church stands along a spectrum of what we can call abuse sensitivity.  At one end of this spectrum, we find compassion and effective care. Here we encounter a readiness by a church to provide every conceivable form of help to survivors.  There will be included spiritual, emotional and practical support over as long a period as is necessary.  At the other end of our imaginary spectrum, we can envisage a harsh cold and bureaucratic indifference to the survivor.  There would be no understanding of the pain and trauma, and even the existence of damage and vulnerability would be a cause of annoyance to the one trying to deal with the situation.  The judgement about where the current levels of care in the Church are to be found has to be a matter for the discernment of the observer in each situation.  At present, based on my listening to what people are saying, the consensus of opinion seems to find that the typical experience of care by the church is closer to the negative end of the spectrum.  What is experienced is more likely to resemble what is routinely found as a bureaucratic or managerial response to this kind of issue.

Churches generally fall somewhere in-between the two extremes of the abuse response spectrum in the attitude they show to survivors.  An inept or hurtful response to a survivor seeking help may of course be as much to do with ignorance and lack of training as it is an act of deliberate cruelty.  The fact that amateur clumsy responses are retraumatising victims should, nevertheless, be a matter for concern.  To say that so-and-so did not mean to hurt or trigger a painful reaction in an individual, already vulnerable, is not a good look for people who are claiming to preach a message of good news, love and healing to a hurting world.  There is good news in all this, though one has to understand these words in a non-biblical sense.   The good news is that the secular discipline of psychological healing does understand how to respond to trauma and can teach this skill to Christians. At the very least, church leaders and representatives need to learn from these experts how to stop heaping additional hurt on the vulnerable victims of church-based power abuse.   This, in essence, is one important challenge that Wilkinson is presenting to our Church. We ignore it at our peril.

The contemporary discipline, practised by professional carers who are faced with clients afflicted by trauma, is one that offers hope to trauma victims and survivors of every kind.  Various approaches can be found in the therapeutic literature, and I make no claim to any expertise in this area. Wilkinson was clearly, in making her recommendation for trauma-informed training to be provided across the Church, familiar with this material.  What follows here is an overview of what one centre in the States, the Buffalo Centre for Social Research, describes as Trauma-Informed Care (TIC).  Their helpful initial summary definition goes as follows. ‘Trauma-Informed Care calls for a change in organisational culture, where an emphasis is placed on understanding, respecting and appropriately responding to the effects of trauma at all levels.’  The short summary that follows this broad description of TIC, brings to our attention a number of observations about the wide prevalence of trauma in individuals seeking any kind of help.   Because the presence of trauma is so widespread, the ability to respond appropriately has to be built into the culture and practice of all care providers.  Their task is to provide appropriate support from the outset, providing a caring response towards any possible trauma victim.  This support must be shared in such a way that it does not lead to the exacerbation of the existing trauma symptoms.  One helpful question to be asked routinely, and which well articulates the assumptions and culture of TIC, is not ‘what is wrong with this person?’ but ‘what has happened to this person?’  

The Buffalo approach makes a number of other helpful suggestions about the possibility of re-traumatisation.  When an abused person has to experience a trauma over and over again through repeating the details to different agencies, this can be so painful that the survivor may be unwilling to cooperate with otherwise well-intended offers of help.  Sensitivity over such things as the location of an interview with a senior official need to be carefully looked into.  A TIC approach will ‘respond by changing policies, procedures and practices to minimise potential barriers.’  The staff dealing with abused individuals will always be alert to signs of trauma and thus lessen the danger of any re-traumatisation. 

In some ways this blog piece follows the pattern of the previous one looking at the Nolan principles.  TIC, it is clear, is also about values and culture rather than institutional competence.  Instead of the seven Nolan principles we have the Five Guiding Principles of TIC.  These are safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness and empowerment.  In some ways each of the words is self-explanatory.  Most of the values they describe focus on the importance of helping the survivor to feel safe and protected from any further exploitation of their vulnerability. Alongside this provision of safety and protection, there is also a recognition of the need to help the survivor to regain his/her own power and find the resilience to begin the process of healing.  The Church often refers to the ideal of putting the survivor at the centre of the process of safeguarding.  What we often find is an organisation in a state of panic, believing that its primary task is to protect its reputation (and assets) from the legitimate claims of the wounded and damaged.  TIC presents us with another model, one that respects the need and the longing of survivors to heal so that they can continue their lives with new hope for their eventual complete wholeness.

Although I cannot claim to have mastered all the other detail of Sarah Wilkinson’s thorough and detailed review, it was helpful that she chose to shed some light on this major issue concerning trauma in the safeguarding process.  Survivors are never a problem to be managed; rather they are a group of human beings who have emotional and practical needs as the result of abuse/trauma they may have suffered.  Their practical needs may include the recovery of lost income and livelihoods and the availability of professional support from experienced therapists.  Hopefully all these professionals will understand the meaning of trauma-informed help.  If some of this sensitivity were to be a required part of the wider culture of the CofE, as Wilkinson recommends, the Church everywhere would become a more wholesome organisation, built on the gospel principles of compassion and love.