A VICAR within the diocese of Chelmsford has been barred from schoolteaching, and has stepped back from ministry, over his failure to report that a convicted sex offender in his congregation was at risk of breaching a safeguarding order.
The Vicar of St Anne’s, Chingford, since 2005, the Revd Jude Bullock, also taught religious studies and psychology at Queenswood, an independent school in Hertfordshire.
The Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) this month barred him from the occupation, over his decision in 2018 to permit a convicted offender to remain within the parish centre without making either church or local authority safeguarding bodies aware of the person’s change of circumstances.
Police investigated the incident in 2018, but didn’t proceed with charges against Mr Bullock. Subsequently, a Clergy Disciplinary Measure (CDM) case was successfully brought against him, and he was suspended from ministry for 3 and a half years.
A spokesperson for the diocese of Chelmsford confirmed that, in light of the TRA’s decision this month, Fr Bullock had agreed to a request from the Bishop of Chelmsford “to step back from ministry with immediate effect so a safeguarding risk assessment could be undertaken”.
The spokesperson confirmed that Fr Bullock had previously been subject to a CDM “in relation to the identical conduct”, and was suspended from November 2018 to February 2022.
He “then served an additional three months prohibition, bearing in mind the lengthy period of suspension he had served,” the spokesperson said.
Queenswood, where he taught part-time, told BBC News that “the incident that was investigated didn’t in any way involve the college, its pupils or any member of its community.” The TRA report notes that his employment at the college ceased in 2020.
The TRA case has taken five years to return to completion. A report sets out the grounds on which he has been permanently banned from teaching, concluding that it “appeared” that Fr Bullock had “put the interests of a convicted sex offender above those of youngsters”.
CONTACTED by the Church Times last Friday, Fr Bullock said that he was “deeply sorry”, and acknowledged that he “fell in need of expectations on safeguarding”.
“It was nothing I’d done, but what I didn’t do,” he said. He admitted that his inaction had put people in danger.
Some details of the case are redacted within the TRA report, including the identity of the convicted sex offender and other individuals involved. But it recounts how he began attending the church in 2013, and was recognised by someone in 2015, who contacted the local authority.
A safeguarding agreement was drawn up by the diocese in January 2016, which prohibited the person from contact with children under the age of 16, aside from supervised contact along with his own children.
He was also prohibited from staying overnight in any premises where he believed that a toddler under 16 was present.
The Church Times understands that this became a difficulty when members of the person’s family were made homeless, and got here to live with him. Aware of the clause of the safeguarding agreement, which prohibited the person “from residing overnight with [REDACTED], Rev Bullock had offered alternative overnight accommodation arrangements within the parish centre” for the person, the report says.
Fr Bullock didn’t, at this juncture, inform the diocesan safeguarding team of the person’s change in circumstances, something which he acknowledged was a mistake. In the report, he’s described as saying that he “could not likely understand” why he had not done this, as there was no profit to him of not doing so.
Fr Bullock, the report said, thought that the person had been “growing in grace” and that, before this example developed, the person’s life had been stepping into a “positive direction”.
The man was arrested when police found him at his home with an unidentified member, or members, of his family, on the grounds that he was breaking the terms of his court-imposed Sexual Offences Prevention Order.
The panel criticised Fr Bullock, saying that he had “independently taken a choice that there was no risk to children in a convicted sex offender having contact with them”.
“The panel found that he deliberately and intentionally disregarded the necessity to adhere to measures and procedures put in place to safeguard children so putting them in danger,” the report said.
It also found him to have “acted in a seriously dishonest manner and fundamentally undermined the safeguarding of youngsters”, and justified indefinite prohibition from the teaching occupation on the idea is that “there remained a really serious risk of repetition”.
Last Friday, Fr Bullock said that he regretted certain comments that he made throughout the investigation. In the report, he’s quoted as saying that his life had been “ruined by the Kafka-esque incompetence and cruelty of the safeguarding industry which is marching full scale ahead into becoming a recent Stasi”.
He deeply regretted the comments, which had been made when he “didn’t really understand what was happening”, he said.
