RESPONDING to the Channel 4 News report on allegations against the Bishop of Liverpool, Dr John Perumbalath, which he denies, the Bishop of Dover, the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, emphasised the importance of process: “We live in a world where we’ve proper processes, and we don’t just sack someone when there may be an allegation.”
A typical thread in recent Church of England safeguarding stories is concern in regards to the adequacy of those processes.
If the Clergy Conduct Measure (CCM) receives final approval from the General Synod next month (News, 12 July 2024), it is going to replace laws with which there may be widespread dissatisfaction, and that has been criticised by, amongst others, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) (News, 19 July 2019). The diocese of Blackburn has said that the failure to remove Canon Andrew Hindley via the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) caused “devastation” within the diocese (News, 16 August 2024).
Among the statistics quoted within the working-party report that informed the drafting of the CCM was the incontrovertible fact that, under the CDM, roughly 45 per cent of all cases either were dismissed at an early stage or resulted in no further motion. This has since increased to 60 per cent.
“This will often leave the complainant unsatisfied on the consequence, and the respondent unhappy at having been subject to a legal process,” the report observed. A statistic that can not be measured, nevertheless, is the number of individuals afraid to bring a criticism under the CDM in the primary place — including individuals with allegations against the Church’s senior leaders.
In the case of Dr Perumbalath, allegations from the lady in Chelmsford reached the eye of the National Safeguarding Team (NST) in February 2023, after a referral from a priest in whom she had confided.
When the lady discussed with the NST the potential for bringing a criticism under the CDM, she felt deterred by the team’s response.
“I used to be talking to my [NST] caseworker . . . and he or she said that they’d talked to the church lawyers, and weren’t going to place in a CDM on my behalf, since the evidence was on a knife edge as as to if it could succeed,” she told the Church Times.
On one other occasion, she says, an NST member told her: “We don’t even like our own processes; it’s a horrible process, going through a CDM.”
The NST disputes this account, stating that there was no try to dissuade her, but that efforts were made to clarify the method — which is “not survivor-focused” — so as to be each honest and trauma-informed. Its position is that, while the data received didn’t meet the brink for the NST to take out a CDM, it could have supported her through the method.
THE NST has raised concerns in regards to the CDM for several years. A 2019 report produced for the House of Bishops, and quoted by the Ecclesiastical Law Society in its report on CDM reform, observed that “victims are sometimes vulnerable and require significant support: this will impact on their ability to submit a CDM criticism.”
The then national safeguarding officer, Graham Tilby, suggested throughout the IICSA inquiry that there ought to be “a separate process that’s more tailored towards safeguarding”. The late Dr Alan Wilson, a former Bishop of Buckingham, told the inquiry that the system was “self-protective, inconsistent, and opaque”, and that witnesses were “very often intimidated and don’t need to make statements because they’re afraid that this might be thrown back at them by the person about whom they’re complaining”.
Jane Chevous, a co-founder of Survivors Voices, says that concerns include the shortage of communication with complainants, who could also be asked to seem as a witness during a CDM tribunal, but, equally, may not even learn that a tribunal is under way. She lists “lack of agency, lack of support, lack of recommendation”. When she saw the response made to her own criticism by the respondent, she realised that “if I had been given higher advice, I could have put together a significantly better case to begin with.” Her position is that it shouldn’t be as much as a survivor to make your mind up to lodge a criticism under the CDM, however the responsibility of the Church.
Ms Chevous had a request to bring a criticism out of time turned down. The latest report of the Clergy Discipline Commission — of which Dr Perumbalath is a member — states that, in 2023, 19 such applications were made, three of them unsuccessful.
THERE are expectations that the method will improve under the CCM. Complaints will now be categorised as either a grievance, misconduct, or serious misconduct. An investigation and tribunal team might be established to oversee cases of great misconduct, which, the NST says, will ensure a “trauma-informed approach” to the gathering of evidence. Other changes include the permission for kids or individuals with a disability (including mental-health illness brought on by the trauma of abuse) to have a “litigation friend” appointed to help them through the method.
The 12-month limit for all complaints of great misconduct might be abolished (currently, exemptions from the limit are open just for misconduct of a sexual nature towards a baby, or towards a vulnerable adult). The draft laws states that bishops “must consider what support might profit” each parties, and must offer to rearrange the availability of such support, once a criticism has been received. Ms Chevous stays concerned, nevertheless, that “serious misconduct” stays undefined.
In the case of the lady in Chelmsford, the 12-month limit expired while she was still reflecting on the NST’s warnings.
Among her concerns is whether or not the NST’s decision to not bring a criticism itself reflected inadequate assessment of the evidence.
The safeguarding codes of practice (Managing Safeguarding Concerns and Allegations and Reporting Safeguarding Concerns and Allegations) emphasise that responding to, assessing, and managing safeguarding concerns about church officers is in regards to the “identification and management of risk”. They emphasise that these processes are usually not about accountability, responsibility, or establishing guilt — the domain of criminal investigation and the CDM. But additionally they discuss with the gathering of evidence to find out whether, “on the balance of probabilities there may be evidence of a safeguarding risk.”
The Vicar-General of the Province of York, the Rt Worshipful Peter Collier QC, is amongst those that have raised concerns in regards to the coherence of the approach, (News, 7 January 2022). Ms Chevous raises concerns in regards to the codes’ “tightening” of safeguarding, with a give attention to risk-management. It is accountability that survivors want, she says.
The case in Liverpool has also raised questions on what’s, and isn’t defined as safeguarding. Although the lady in Chelmsford had her case taken up by the NST, an announcement from Church House states that the criticism from the lady bishop alleging sexual harassment was “deemed to not be a safeguarding matter but a matter of alleged misconduct”.
The report on the longer term of safeguarding by Professor Alexis Jay raised concerns that safeguarding within the Church was “defined way more widely and loosely” than statutory definitions focused on “the protection and support of kids and vulnerable adults who’ve been abused or who’re vulnerable to abuse” and “ceaselessly includes circumstances which are usually not safeguarding matters”.
Responding to a survey on the Jay advice to moving to a statutory definition, many individuals, including safeguarding professionals, expressed concern that this was “too narrow for a church setting where everyone might at a while be considered to be vulnerable, given the pastoral situations presented in most congregations”.
An option open to complainants who imagine that they’ve been a victim of against the law is to make a report back to the police, which the lady in Chelmsford did. No charges were brought.
The revision committee for the CCM has accepted an amendment, proposed by the NST, so as to add a cleric’s being interviewed under caution as grounds for suspension or imposition of a restriction order.
