Updated yet again 5 August and again on 12 August
Mary Hassall, the Senior Coroner for North London has written a lengthy criticism of the Church of England (and specifically of the Diocese of London) following the inquest held into the death of Alan Howard Foster Griffin. She sent this to the Archbishop of Canterbury, along with various others (including two persons “formerly of the diocese [of London]” and the document is published on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website.
You can read the text of her Prevention of Future Deaths report here. I do recommend that everyone should read it in full.
She sent another report in parallel to the Chair of the Catholic Standards Safeguarding Agency which you can read here.
In both cases she is requiring the named recipient to reply to her by 3 September describing what actions have been taken to prevent future deaths.
Media reports:
BBC Church of England criticised over suicide of falsely accused priest
The Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, said in a statement: “Alan Griffin’s death was a tragedy and my heart goes out to his family for all they have endured. I am deeply sorry for their loss.
“Following the inquest, we have commissioned a ‘Lessons Learned’ review so that we can fully reflect upon the diocese’s actions, and the coroner’s comments, in the period leading up to Alan Griffin’s death.” (see longer quote below)
Premier Church of England criticised over priest’s suicide following false child abuse allegations
A Lambeth Palace spokesperson told the Premier: “This is a highly distressing case and our deepest sympathies and prayers are with the family and friends of Fr Alan Griffin. The archbishop has received a copy of the coroner’s report and the matter will be taken extremely seriously. Appropriate discussion and investigation will now take place. Lambeth Palace will be in contact with the relevant other bodies, especially the Diocese of London.”
Evening Standard Priest killed himself after being wrongly accused of child abuse
The Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, said in a statement: “Alan Griffin’s death was a tragedy and my heart goes out to his family for all they have endured. I am deeply sorry for their loss.
“Following the inquest, we have commissioned a ‘Lessons Learned’ review so that we can fully reflect upon the diocese’s actions, and the coroner’s comments, in the period leading up to Alan Griffin’s death.”
she added: “It remains an absolute priority that, where allegations are made, they are taken seriously, and referrals made where appropriate to statutory agencies and other relevant parties. Our review will examine the decisions that were made in this case, in order to shape any necessary changes to our reporting processes in the future.”
Daily Mail Churches blamed for priest’s suicide over false sex abuse claims
Church Times Church’s safeguarding blunders could cause more deaths, coroner warn
Martin Sewell is quoted:
“Worse, the coroner remarks that nobody took responsibility for steering the case from start to finish. We see this time and again. The Church has evolved a successful strategy of learned helplessness. . . Worse still, some unknown senior church person tried to dissuade the coroner from making this plain in her report. She puts that attempt into the public domain. There need to be resignations.”He concluded: “Alan Griffin’s case was plainly never a safeguarding concern, but its mishandling foreseeably led to his death. Safeguarding needs to be preserved for the clear, serious cases.”
Archbishop Cranmer Church of England safeguarding drove Fr Alan Griffin to suicide
Ad Clerum from the Bishop of London: Fr Alan Griffin
A letter to all Diocese of London clergy from Bishop Sarah. Full text is copied below the fold.
——
There is a letter to the editor in the Church Times for 23 July (scroll down) by David Lamming that draws parallels between the cases of Paul Overend and Alan Griffin.
Private Eye in the 4 August edition names the archdeacon in this story as Luke Miller, and the now retired Director of Operations as Martin Sergeant.
There is a further Statement from the London College of Bishops dated 10 August.
Ad Clerum full text:
Dear Friends,
The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
Deuteronomy 33:27
I did not know Fr Alan Griffin. I cannot begin to imagine the pain his family and friends felt following the terrible circumstances of his suicide in 2020. The enormity of that pain will persist, despite the recent coroner’s inquest into his death.
On Monday, I met with the clergy of the Two Cities Area. A number of them knew Fr Alan, and I heard their grief, their hurt, and their questions. We do not yet have all of the answers. However, I am clear that the Diocese is absolutely committed to opening itself up to independent, external scrutiny over this tragic matter, and we are commissioning a full review with the National Church. This will examine any errors made in the lead-up to Fr Alan Griffin’s death, and we will act on its recommendations.
I realise that many of you will by now have read the coroner’s recent comments, either directly or through the media. The Diocese does have the opportunity to respond formally, but this response will not be published by the coroner’s office for a number of weeks, so I want to clarify a number of aspects at this stage.
When the former Head of Operations in the Two Cities retired, he held several meetings by way of handover, from which a report was compiled. It was not simply about safeguarding – it contained a whole range of historical and current information relating to forty-two matters, some to do with buildings and churchyard management, some relating to people, clergy and lay, past and present.
The report was reviewed by the Registry. There were no clergy discipline matters that required a complaint under the Clergy Disciplinary Measure. There was no investigation into Fr Alan Griffin under the CDM. There is no outstanding list of further action yet to take place, nor are there any unresolved issues resulting from the report that affect others. Nevertheless, any member of the clergy named in the report will now be contacted individually to provide further reassurance.
The Safeguarding Team reviewed the report for immediate actions. Out of that, information was passed to their counterparts in the Roman Catholic Church regarding Fr Alan Griffin, given he had left the Anglican Church in 2012. It was handed over with the caveat that no evidence had been produced to support the allegations.
Questions continue to be asked about how and why information, handed over by a retiring staff member, was passed to the Diocesan Safeguarding Team. The Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) said last year:
“We concluded that diocesan safeguarding officers – not clergy – are best placed to decide which cases to refer to the statutory authorities, and what action should be taken by the Church to keep children safe. Diocesan bishops have an important role to play, but they should not hold operational responsibility for safeguarding.”
IICSA’s findings were difficult for us all to hear, but we cannot ignore its damning indictment of historic safeguarding in the Church of England. It is vital that everyone in this Diocese continues to be trained in safeguarding, to follow practice guidance, and to ensure that information that could pertain to a safeguarding risk is passed to the Diocesan Safeguarding Team. It is for them in their capacity as safeguarding professionals, not us as clergy, to dismiss the information, or to act upon it.
We continue to invest in and improve our safeguarding, particularly in the light of IICSA. It is vital that safeguarding processes properly support everyone and create the safest possible culture in the church, and at the same time ensure proper pastoral care is in place for those affected by allegations that are made. We have a new Head of Safeguarding, Martin Goodwin, arriving at the beginning of August, alongside two new Safeguarding Advisors during the Autumn. Equally, it is vital that proper pastoral care is in place for those affected by allegations that are made.
We are taking the coroner’s comments extremely seriously. All of these events, and the decisions that were made at the time, will be properly and rigorously scrutinised. I will ensure that pastoral care is in place for anyone who has been named in the coroner’s report, and additional support is also available for everyone – please see below. We have been working with Lambeth Palace and the National Church to commission the review. We will confirm who is leading it in due course, and the terms of reference are being finalised at the moment. The review will examine all of the circumstances before and after the referral to the Roman Catholic Church.
I will not be involved in the review, but will receive its recommendations, alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury. I am clear that there are vital lessons we must learn from this desperately tragic situation. Together, we are committed to making this Diocese a safe place for all.
Please pray for me, as I for you
+ Sarah Londin
Additional support resources available
Safe Spaces: www.safespacesenglandandwales.org.uk or 0300 303 1056
Safe Spaces is a free and independent support service run by Victim Support, providing a confidential, personal and safe space for anyone who has been abused by someone in the Church, or as a result of their relationship with the Church of England, the Catholic Church in England and Wales, or the Church in Wales.
Thirtyone:eight: helpline 0303 003 1111, selecting option 2
31:8 has set up a service for the Diocese available to anyone who might require particular support.
The coroner records behaviours, but it is the culture which permits such behaviours – perhaps those who use the words “culture change” might now begin to appreciate that the culture will only have changed when the behaviours change – training and rulebooks are one thing, culture is another. And shocking also to read about the lack of reflection in the CofE (towards the end) – shocking, but perhaps not surprising to those of us who have been following IICSA or have read the recent Sheldon Report and compared the ELS proposals for the CDM with those of the Lambeth Group.… Read more »
As far as ‘culture’ is concerned, what on earth is the Bishop of London presiding over when her ‘head of operations’ has a ‘brain dump’ of information with an Archdeacon based on rumour and gossip? Is this in any way acceptable or defendable? And in the case of Fr Alan Griffin confecting the information about rent boys. And then slandering him with the Catholic Church. Leading to his suicide. Also issuing in a Two Cities Audit Report 2019 naming 42 clergy. The Coroner’s report is so damning and critical of presumably identifiable people (known to the Diocese at least) –… Read more »
Who are the other 42 clergy? Have their names been published? Surely they can sue for defamation? Have they even been informed that they have been named in such a report?
I’d imagine the audit mentioned in the Coroner’s report is confidential to back room Bishops’ files? And therefore unless they’ve been traduced pace Alan Griffin many will be unaware. It isn’t clear if this number 42 relates to the whole Diocese or just the Two City area Deaneries.
Once this gets round the diocese there will be many clergy wondering if they have been targeted in this fashion. A recipe for anxiety on a wide scale.
At least one Archdeacon in London Diocese has recently received a penalty under the CDM, but it has not been made public or the circumstances of the case.
However details can be requested from the Registrar of the diocese:
https://www.london.anglican.org/about/clergy-discipline/
to Alan Marsh
‘at least one Archdeacon in London Diocese has recently received a penalty’ I’m wondering how that was achieved. I’m trying to get an apology from an archdeacon who has repeated lies about me in writing and caused me mental and reputational harm. I’ve been under the impression that making a complaint about an archdeacon is futile because they are immune. Not helped earlier in the process by a bishop’s intern who forgot for eight weeks to post a letter to me.
Make the CDM complaint – and join Unite if you have not already done so.
‘Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.’
Sorry to be pedantic, but is there a body “The Anglican Diocese of London and Westminster”, the term used by the Coroner in both reports? I have never heard of it.
“The Diocese of Westminster and the (Anglican) Diocese of London” would have been more clear.
But still inaccurate, and in the wrong order!
Of course: Church of England, and it should come first as the church by law established.
I think she may have been confused by the London diocese containing the Two Cities Area, which is the area of the Bishop of London’s personal jurisdiction, comprising the City of London and the City of Westminster. (All other boroughs within that diocese fall within the jurisdiction of an Area Bishop.)
Coroners are members of the judiciary and confusion is hardly an excuse. Doesn’t it really demonstrate how little the C of E and its structures are now generally understood? We don’t have the ‘Anglican’ Bishop of London nor the ‘Anglican’ Diocese of London. The C of E has not yet been disestablished!
Please tell this to the Diocese of London! Its website and all contact addresses are at london.anglican.org…..and have been for years
The london.anglican.org website address immediately takes you to “Diocese of London”! I didn’t really want (or expect) this to be a contentious matter. I merely drew attention to the lamentable erosion of correct usage about the C of E – the Established Church – and finding errors about it on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website.
Others below are dealing with the substantive issues of this sad case and perhaps we can leave the matter there.
There are dioceses in England which share a name with a Roman Catholic diocese, e.g. Portsmouth or Liverpool, and now most recently Leeds. In these cases it is necessary to refer to the Anglican diocese.
The website address ‘anglican.org’ is used by any number of C of E dioceses, including Leeds and Liverpool as well as London, and, as a random further example, Exeter. In no case does any of these incorporate the word ‘Anglican’ in its official title. It’s a matter of popular usage to talk of, e.g., Liverpool Anglican Cathedral – but it’s still formally the Diocese of Liverpool. I’m tending to regret ever mentioning this, but the fact remains that the Coroner made a faux pas which one does not expect in any judicial document.
I meant to say C of E dioceses, not cathedrals.
The Anglican.org domain is, as I understand it, operated as a gift of the Society of Archbishop Justus to the Communion, and many if not most of the diocesan sites are redirects. It simply provides a uniform address format for accessing them.
I’m a bit out of date with what happens at national selection, but I believe there used to be a pastoral exercise involving writing a letter to address a difficult situation. Would the Bishop of London’s contribution pass muster?
It strikes me that the most salient point of the coroner’s report is that the diocese of London made a mess of things in the name of safeguarding, and the neutrally-phrased ‘a tragedy’ seems to avoid the admission ‘we messed up catastrophically.’ Is Luther Pendragon at work again?
Oh no, may God save us from yet another vacuous apology from an Archbishop in absentia.
Put this terrible tragedy into the “Lessons Learned” folder until the next time.
Too late.
“Lessons Learned”. ** sigh **
That sounds like what an elementary school (USA) or primary school (UK?) teacher would use after Johnny threw Ismail to the ground in the playground and the teacher found out. “Now children, what lesson should we learn from this, other than don’t get caught?”
I think the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office showed a little more tact.
Whether either organization will actually look at the report and change policy or culture (thank you, Mark Bennet) is an entirely different matter.
A key issue here seems to have been that no-one would take the responsibility for saying “there is nothing here that requires action” and closing the matter. Everyone passed the buck to someone else, presumably to avoid any possibility of someone accusing them of ‘failing’ to act on a safeguarding allegation. Since safeguarding investigations necessarily have a quasi-judicial nature, there needs to be a clear means by which an investigation can be brought to an end. Without that, the mere existence of an allegation is enough to ensure that someone is hounded indefinitely.
I think this is the nub of it, Fr Dexter. Buck passing. It hints at a culture of cowardice from the top down linked to fear in the underlings of getting things “wrong”. How often does “prayerful consideration” actually mean nobody having the balls to make a decision? For me, the most shocking part of the story (I used to think I could no longer be shocked by the shenanigans of the CofE, but I was wrong) is the use by a diocesan employee of the phrase “rent boy” and its subsequent appearance in the record. On a personal note,… Read more »
This seems to be exactly the same situation the Dean of Christchurch, Oxford, has found himself in. Some arrangement must be established to draw these cases to a close.
All of these questions do not hide the fact that a faithful priest died at his own hands, because of accusations made against him by persons not named. Accusations that had no substance, and yet the wheels of administration dragged the matter on to the breaking point of the priest. He was in the dark, without any details of the case. This not the first case, nor sadly will it be the last, when a church that preaches love and compassion, cannot apply this to their priests, or the priests spouses. Like all corporate apologies, they are hollow, and lessons… Read more »
“I then received submissions on behalf of the Church of England regarding any prevention of future deaths report. These submissions … urged me not to include any concerns that may be taken as a criticism of clerics or staff for not filtering or verifying allegations.” – Coroner
I keep thinking that I cannot be more shocked than I already am that the Church of England, the CHURCH of England, puts reputation ahead of care for individuals but it seems the institutional callousness really knows no bounds.
My prayers for Alan and his family.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of clergy are discussed like this in off the record meetings, with no chance to challenge the character assassination which goes on, or to read the unofficial files kept secretly in Bishops’ offices, like the Stasi, on all the clergy.
Clergy can submit a Subject Access Request (SAR) to all church bodies which might hold information on them, including the diocese they currently work in (or last worked in, if retired). It’s worth doing. I found that members of the archbishop’s senior staff had given a false impression about me, and in some cases lied – presumably to cover their backs and make themselves look good.
Victims and survivors can also submit SARs to see how their case has been, or is being, handled. Though I’d recommend they have support available when reading the file.
If you do that you will get the contents of the Blue File – but not the grey files locked away in the Bishop’s office.
You have to submit separate SARs to the Bishop’s office, and to everyone else who might have records of you, and you have to word your request carefully. Even then, as you say, some will deny ever having known you. I submitted separate SARs to Bradford Cathedral (where I was on the staff) and to Leeds Diocese for records from the now obsolete Bradford Diocese, and they replied saying they had nothing at all. But of course they must have – if only the articles I wrote for the Cathedral magazine, the minutes of meetings I chaired, and my signature… Read more »
It is a terrifying fact, and one has to wonder why this sinister scapegoating of gay men, both within and without the church, goes on. If I were a gay man, I would go nowhere near any religious institution, and save my God-given gifts for people and institutions that truly appreciated them.
It might be better to start calling the ubiquitous “Lessons learned review” a “Lessons to be learned review”. The lessons have not been learned until they have been digested and incorporated into practice. Every teacher knows that there can be a mismatch between what is taught and what is learned, and you can’t say it was learned just because you wrote it in the lesson plan.
I shudder to think how many clergy have committed suicide – or attempted to commit suicide – because of false accusations and the ‘duty of care’ failures of the church hierarchy. Thank God for the likes of F.A.C.T. and FASO.
Perhaps the planned laity-run 10,000 new churches are the church hierarchy’s solution to the problem of replacing clergy whose lives have been destroyed by false accusations and lack of pastoral care?
Surely such a shambolic approach benefits neither clergy nor potential victims of abuse, highlighting the need for safeguarding and disciplinary systems staffed by appropriately skilled professionals and independent of dioceses? If people in responsible positions in the Church of England thought that someone might have been abused, should they not have probed further, to establish whether possible victims needed support and why earlier action had not been taken – at which point it would have become clear that there were no specific allegations of anything more improper than generosity when taking adults to dinner? Contested evidence can be tricky but… Read more »
“If people in responsible positions in the Church of England thought that someone might have been abused, should they not have probed further?”
Yes, but they risk being targeted by unaccountable ‘higher powers’ – almost invariably hidden from view and scrutiny.
That’s the evil of the system.
As Chair of Unite the Union’s Faithworkers Branch I made several attempts to get the CofE to disclose the rate of suicide among clergy as I suspected it was disproportionately high. I was thwarted at every attempt with a range of excuses but most frequently we don’t keep any data on clergy deaths. This was obviously untrue as clergy leave the payroll and the pension scheme when they die. Self supporting clergy are removed from lists of those holding the Bishops licence or PtO. Meanwhile I was aware of a cleric who had stood on the track in front of… Read more »
A pertinent question could be asked Father, do we not have a Freedom of Information Act or have the Church of England decided on their own authority that this Law does not apply to them, and therefore they are exempt from this Act and any requests for Freedom of Information? Jonathan
The Act does not apply to the Church of England
Hi Dean (Long time, no see!)
I have personally known two clergy who have committed suicide. One of them still haunts me, with the thought that I could have done more for them, had I realised how far down they had gone.
As you say, please let there be an investigative journalist out there who could dig out the stats and the sad sad stories.
Fr Griffin was my hall of residence tutor at Exeter University many years ago. A quiet, gentle person in whose company I never once felt uneasy. When I was working in the City I encountered him again as vicar at St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe where his pastoral skills were much in evidence. It is beyond belief that he was the subject of such baseless allegations that lead to his death. My question is this. To what extent was this aspect of the so-called ‘brain dump’ motivated by unreconstructed homophobia rooted in a conservative Evangelical antipathy towards gay people; and why was the… Read more »
Yes – whoever the Archdeacon was clearly needs to be suspended and face the likelihood of being removed as he/she should never agreed to have been part of a process involving such a lack of evidence and unsubstantiated claims – let alone the lack of clarity and keeping of records about what was being alleged. And all the others referred by the Coroner should be suspended during the investigation. We don’t know what the Audit on 42 other clergy will contain and if any action has been taken against them (by the Diocese of London) in the way it was… Read more »
I’m no sleuth, but since the coroner’s report has revealed which part of the Diocese of London was involved in all this it is pretty straightforward to work out which archdeacon is at fault here.
A London archdeacon has recently “stepped back from ministry”
Where is that reported? I can’t find anything online.
So the buck will never stop with the Bishop of London?
The Archdeacon of Hackney – and quite some time ago. She isn’t the one involved in this – but why she stepped back isn’t clear. Which Archdeacon in the Two Cities area is the culprit is yet to be revealed.
According to the London Diocesan website the Archdeacon of Hackney stepped down to concentrate on other work rather than stepped back. In other words she has resigned. So in addition to the other matters in her intray, + Sarah has to find a new Archdeacon of Hackney and a new + of Willesden.
You don’t need to read between the lines to pick up what HM Coroner thought of the CofE witnesses or of CofE processes. Even in judicial language her assessment is damning. There are many clergy who may never know how much they owe to this lady’s tenacity and to the junior Coroner who brought this case to her attention.
This case reveals how things go terribly wrong when there is a vague accusation without a victim. There is no evidence, or even suggestion, that Griffin committed a criminal offence. It appears that the most that could be said was that he entertained men with nice meals and hospitality and (by implication) had sex with them. Whatever your view on the morality of this, this has not been remotely close to criminal since the 1960s, assuming they were over 21. Now we might want to start thinking about “spritual abuse” and “coercion” and the rest, except that without a victim… Read more »
I dispute “a vague accusation without a victim” – we know who the victim was: I know you didn’t mean it that way, but with gossip and innuendo, that is so often how it falls out.
thinking logically this would have not stood up in a Secular Court of Law in the Criminal area of Law, in my neck of the woods in Scotland, under the Rules of Evidence in the Scottish Legal System all evidence has to be properly corroborated, and cannot be based on Hearsay nor Gossip, otherwise it is inadmissible in any Scottish Court. Jonathan
A Ps
I should have in-admissible in a Scottish Court-Please forgive the typographical error here. Jonathan
quote … the Catholic safeguarding team were waiting for the engagement of the Anglican safeguarding team to enable a joint approach to be taken. When it was clear that such engagement was not forthcoming (whether for reasons of sickness or anything else), the Catholic safeguarding team should have gone back to the local authority designated officer (the LADO) and recommended that they continue without further input from the Church of England. unquote
NO NO NO NO NO This is a hellishly irresponsible and immoral procedure and should be utterly abolished.
How so? Organisation A makes a report to Organisation B about its employee P. B has a duty to investigate just as if anyone else had made a similar report. A then refuses to engage. What are B’s choices? Simply close the case? Risky, if it then turns out the hold-up was just a case of failure to reply to a couple of letters. Continue to hassle A to respond? In this case, they didn’t even do that. But if tht had dailed, should they go over A’s head to a grown-up, who can hold A’s hand to the fire… Read more »
1 – As Father Alan had his reasons to quit the C of E, this meant D of London had a conflict of interest. RCDOW – which has got several bishops – should have wanted to know what D of London had been doing to Father Alan. 2 – If an actual complaint had been known of it would have immediately been stated, therefore the case hadn’t arisen, as would be clear within days of initiating an enquiry. RCDOW should have got a lawyer to caution D of London after a week or two not to string them along in… Read more »
1 The obvious assumption would be that “what D of London had been doing to Father Alan” was “ordaining women”. Jumping straight to dark assumptions would be inverting events: he crossed the Tiber, and then these sad events happened some time later, surely? 2 Agreed. This is the problem with innuendo and gossip. 3 Agreed. The claim was that the people who could release it were variously ill or unavailable. I suspect the reality is that they were slowly realising that they had let loose a monster they couldn’t control and were hoping that inaction would cause it to wither.… Read more »
5 and 3 – if I were RCDOW SO, in the event of illness of the D of L SO after a few weeks, or any other delay, I would ask them or their stand-in whether the alleged allegations were both serious and not serious at the same time, and I would suggest inviting the CC to remind D of L of their duty to decide. How long had RCDOW actually dallied before (let alone after) the D of L person went sick? Do RC SOs think themselves sensible to not say what the alleged allegation “is” when its not turning… Read more »
I think of the literal truth of James 3:5-10: “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame… Read more »
This makes me by turns very sad and very angry. Reading the report by the Coroner – the work of the staff there has been respectful, thorough and has got to the heart of things in a clear way – the same cannot be said of the Church of England. Only two details seem true – Fr was a gay man and HIV+. This set him up for gossip, innuendo and judgement about his alleged conduct and character – the use of language by an Archdeacon shows contempt and ignorance for LGBTQ people as well as Fr Alan.There is no… Read more »
The Bishop of London is ultimately responsible for this, but no resignation is forthcoming. Instead clear blue water is placed between her and those of her staff who are responsible. Worse, they are not named; and the clergy of the Diocese must now live in fear that their names are included in the 42 so casually included in a secret report.
I agree. The unnecessary death of an innocent man ought to be an immediate resignation by the Diocesan bishop.
Alan there is bitchiness in every workplace but I have never encountered anywhere as bad as the CofE. Several of my contemporaries were for various reasons members of bishops senior staff meetings and to a man and woman they described meetings where lists of clergy were sniggered or harrumphed about each month. One diocesan who rose each morning at 5am to spend an hour in silence before morning prayer and the Eucharist who then spent the staff meeting day moaning about how hopeless most of his clergy were. You might think all that prayer might have caused him to reflect… Read more »
I agree. The Bishop of London is responsible as are those who have aided and abetted this shameful behaviour. The use of secrecy, threat and lack of accountability high up guarantees the safety of those perpetrating these acts of bullying and worse. I only hope the other 40+ don’t end up in yet another lessons have not been learned incident paying for this wickedness with their lives.
The Bishop’s statement “Alan Griffin’s death was a tragedy and my heart goes out to his family…” sounds empathetic but it completely fails to recognise that she and her staff are the dramatis personae in this tragic story. “We will learn the lessons” is unconvincing because there is no unequivocal apology and nobody has resigned. No CDM procedure has been invoked to deal with this collapse from acceptable standards. Alan Griffin was a gentle soul who was no doubt vulnerable. He deserved better but, as the Coroner effectively makes clear, the Church he served is too mired in venality to… Read more »
Words are cheap – it’s action that counts and the lack of action speaks volumes. By that I mean resignations and the church nationally handing over responsibility for safeguarding to independent outside agencies. Sadly I think you are right about the Church. No doubt the tittle tattle behind doors revealed the nature of those taking part in this victimisation and bullying. They also should consider their positions.
Marise I seem to remember reading that when the former Archbishop of Canterbury Bishop Lord Williams gave evidence to the IICSA enquiry (If I have got the initials right here) one of the things Bishop Rowan said was that he felt that the Church should not be in the business of doing its own in House Safeguarding, it should be done independently at the Secular level, and it is proving in the tragic appalling situation of the late Father Alan, that Bishop Rowan ahs been proved right in what he said to the enquiry.
Jonathan
Jonathan I think you are right. The IICSA inquiry and events since suggest the church should not be doing this work and its procedures – or lack of them – are not fit for purpose. I don’t know how many lives have to be lost before this important lesson is learned – take safeguarding out of the hands of self interested amateurs and let people trained and independent do this work.
Less than a fortnight ago, as the Synod was trying to kick any proposals to reform the CDM into the long grass, the Bishop at Lambeth came out with “In fact, I believe the real issue is a lack of clarity and definition, and that, whilst we have a sense implicitly of how things are meant to work, we need to be much clearer and explicit.” Leaving aside the question of how it is a brilliant example of mindless and obfuscating corporate-speak, it does rather describe the process (such as it was) surrounding this tragic situation rather well – as… Read more »
General Synod did not try to “kick any proposals to reform the CDM into the long grass” when members met online over the weekend 9-12 July. Rather, a ‘following motion’ on Sunday 11 July to the ‘take note’ debate on GS 2219 (“Report of the Lambeth Working Group on the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003”) inter alia “encourage[d] the business committee to enable the implementation group to present its initial proposals on a proposed approach to Synod in November 2021 so progress can be made with serious intent through Synod sessions of 2022.” . The National Safeguarding Team must be grateful… Read more »
Would it be completely outrageous and innacurate to speculate whether that attempt to persuade the coroner came on Luther Pendragon headed notepaper, David?
I suspect most priests fully expect to be treated as guilty until proved innocent of false abuse allegations and thrown under the bus by bishops (and archdeacons) only concerned to cover their own arses by being seen to have ticked every (self-protecting) box, using the rhetoric of victim protection. I despair of the rotten, incompetent Church hierarchy, which needs wholesale reform and numerical reduction.
Dakingate has shone a valuable light into abuse of (too much) authority.
The issue of the ‘innocent but accused’ has been an elephant in the room in the whole Safeguarding episode since day !, and has of course affected not just clergy but valuable lay people who someone has decided to have a ’tilt at’ but where the complaints has been totally unfounded. Fr Griffin’s suicide is a tragic example as to what can happen when the complex issues are not dealt with sensitively and properly, and there are far too many cases where good people have been lost to the Church, and far too many examples of people who have made… Read more »
The Church Times report names the archdeacon as Luke Miller. But we still do not know the names of the other participants criticised by the coroner.
The Diocese of London website names two archdeacons as archdeacons for the ‘Two Cities’ area, viz the archdeacons of London and of Charing Cross. The Coroner refers only to ‘the archdeacon.’ It’s a pity that she did not name the various diocesan officials to whom she refers and who gave evidence, presumably in public and identifying themselves. One at least, a ‘safeguarding adviser’, escapes criticism (see page 7, “With the notable exception of the safeguarding advisor who was finally tasked with the investigation into Father Griffin…“) but there are two women with that designation listed among the ‘Human Resources &… Read more »
Luke Miller is (I know from personal experience) a decent and honourable man. I would say the same of the ‘head of operations’ (if it is who I think it is). But this case was catastrophically mishandled from start to finish and there need to be consequences for those responsible. In most secular organisations this would trigger a disciplinary case and, at the very least, a final written warning. It speaks volumes that the Church of England thinks it can get away with a ‘lessons learned’ review.
Thank you, Simon. So Luke Miller will be the sacrificial lamb thrown under the bus to save the Bishop of London’s skin (and reputation)? Interesting that she was sold to the CofE at the time of her unexpected appointment as the person who would transform safeguarding.
Whilst the comments in this thread, and by the coroner, have criticised the conduct of certain Church of England staff, we should not ignore how wider issues of the Church of England culture may have contributed to this death. It is not just a failure by a limited number of named people (the “bad apple” argument), the institutional culture of the wider organisation puts people at risk. The sensitivity around LGBTQ issues in the church means that much happens in secret, and people are nervous about risking starting a discussion for fear of causing offence or embarrassment. Such a culture… Read more »
Meanwhile the cover up of other abuse scandals continues, with five bishops given another breathing space as inquiries are indefinitely postponed. https://twitter.com/JanetHFife/status/1417873690780442630
Safeguarding has never achieved its true purpose within the C of E. It has never been properly integrated or welcomed as part of our pastoral care. Instead it has become a mechanism used to give the impression that we are tough on abuse. I acknowledge the good work of safeguarding officers and advisors but feel we are seeing the implications of adopting processes that run in parallel to, rather than as an intrinsic part of, our ministry. The invitation to turn gossip into allegations is widespread. It feeds a false sense that we are doing something positive. The example set… Read more »
Would I be correct to assume that the Bishop of London will step aside from the LLF Next Steps Group and any safeguarding responsibilities until the Archbishop of Canterbury has concluded his investigation into this behaviour in her diocese?
I cannot see how someone can chair the LLF Next Steps group whilst her diocese is accused of behaving in this way towards a gay man.
The Bishop of London should resign. Period. The buck stops with her – not the named archdeacon (who should certainly be the subject of some kind of disciplinary/competency procedure). A priest committed suicide and, apparently, she is hoping to hide behind the ‘lessons learned’ trope. Her stance is morally repugnant. Although I am in no doubt that she is being told to stand her ground from the very top of the stinking pile, she should have a much better sense of what her moral responsibilities are. Is another diocesan synod, or at least its house of clergy, going to have… Read more »
Jane, I think you are right on this, but I think it should go further than this, now that Justin Welby is 65 and can now draw his Pension, I think the Lambeth Conference should be put on hold until there is a New Archbishop of Canterbury and I think Justin Welby should now set a date for Retirement, and Retire as it is clear now that he should not continue in Office any longer, if he had any usefulness, he may now have outlived that usefulness and lost his grip completely and it is now time he retired. What… Read more »
I don’t agree that there is a case for the Bishop of London to be called on to resign. If it were the case that she was party to the attempt to get the coroner not to criticise diocesan clergy and staff then I would take a different view as putting such pressure on a member of the judiciary is obviously unacceptable in public life, but at the moment there is no suggestion that she did that. I think it is fairly obvious that some of the staff involved cannot fulfil their duties (particularly around safeguarding) whilst this is being… Read more »
Dame Sarah is the ‘head of the shed’ in her diocese . She has a basic duty of care to ensure that the management systems in place in her diocese for priests and secular employees are fit for purpose. They are not. Should she resign ? I dont know the answer to that. If more details were public we could take a more informed view. The tragic case of Father Griffin is not the only one. No material should be being shared that has not been properly investigated and disclosed to all parties involved . The Archdeacon should by now… Read more »
… putting such pressure on a member of the judiciary is obviously unacceptable in public life,…
It would seem not, well, only for a day …
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57914664
I’m going to stick my head over the parapet on this one and give what is probably going to be an unpopular opinion based on the phrase in the coroner’s report “[The C of E] submissions impressed upon me that referrals to child protection and safeguarding professionals must not be reduced and urged me not to include any concerns that may be taken as a criticism of clerics or staff for not filtering or verifying allegations.” This suggests that the church safeguarding procedure is not so much to safeguard people as it is to safeguard the church reputation. No one… Read more »
‘It is vital that everyone in this Diocese continues to be trained in safeguarding, to follow practice guidance, and to ensure that information that could pertain to a safeguarding risk is passed to the Diocesan Safeguarding Team. It is for them in their capacity as safeguarding professionals, not us as clergy, to dismiss the information, or to act upon it.’ But in this case the (mis) ‘information’ turns out to be confected tittle tattle that most educated people, or magistrates found in most congregations, let alone an Archdeacon (supposed to know a little about Church law) would dismiss out of… Read more »
I am not sure that Bishop Sarah’s letter makes things any better. If the system were fit for purpose and there really were safeguarding concerns, why did the Diocese of London not investigate these at the time, to protect anyone at risk and do justice to anyone harmed? And, if investigations had not finished when Alan Griffin became a Roman Catholic priest, why were those church’s relevant authorities not informed at once, with a handover of ‘evidence’? What is more, after the ‘brain-dump’ happened, with among the most serious possible allegations made against this former C of E priest, should… Read more »
I don’t think the letter helps at all. It is a repetition of the mantra – ‘we will work to make safeguarding better, we’re on it, sorry for the grief caused.’ If Fr Griffin had not been a gay man with HIV I doubt the tittle tattle mob would have had much to go on. How does safeguarding tackle gossip and malice which is happening behind closed doors led by unnamed people? What is happening about the other 40+? Safeguarding needs to be taken away from all things church – it has proved itself incapable of handling these matters decently… Read more »
I think the most shocking thing about Bishop Sarah’s letter is that she appears to use IICSA as an excuse for the safeguarding team being involved at all, despite the fact that the fault lies with those who passed on inaccurate details to that team.
It feels as though hardly a week goes by without some major blunder on the part of the CofE coming to light; in this case with fatal consequences. The damage this must do to it’s already battered reputation cannot be overstated and yet almost no one ever seems to resign or be dismissed. Admittedly the Bishop of Winchester is going but with what appears to be a very generous early retirement package and with barely any acknowledgment of the hurt he’d caused. The archbishops and bishops are unwilling to accept that it is the organisation’s culture which leads to these… Read more »
‘The tittle tattle and accompanying innuendo involved in this ‘brain dump’ was nothing other than homophobia and it ultimately led to Fr Alan’s death.’ It is very hard to conclude otherwise — but no doubt a way will be found. The way is made easy by the fact that we are not just institutionally homophobic, we are licensed to be so. I don’t know what to do about this, and I don’t know whether my not knowing is due to irresponsibility or despair.
Your very comment makes me think it’s not irresponsibility but the despair many of us feel about the CofE’s absurd position on sex and sexuality. I happened to see that a genito-urinary consultant had said that there had been no slowdown in traffic at her GUM clinic during the lockdowns of the pandemic. Her conclusion was that the predominantly younger people she sees view sex as an essential bodily function, rather as Professor Monkhouse argues later in this thread. A tutor of mine at Cambridge said that “it was only the bourgeois middle class that worried about sex; the aristocracy… Read more »
Marvellous, Dean. Thank you. “The sexual instinct is incredibly powerful”. Indeed so. It is the reason we exist. We are animals – end of. Everything we do is done in some way to increase the chances of species propagation. We work to earn money to eat in order to have sex. For many this involves reproduction but don’t preach this to my lovely and glorious sterile daughter. Other societies handle sex much more gracefully than do we. As for the bishops, who cares? I can think of no area of life in which their pronouncements have been worthy of attention.… Read more »
In the early days I would ask wedding couples if they had talked about the possibility that one or both of them might be infertile. Mostly they were shocked at the thought of such a possibility. Lately couples had almost always established their fertility levels by the time they appeared in my study and so the question was redundant.
Did not Sentamu say something about ensuring the milk was good before buying the cow? Necessary in cultures (eg rural England when I was growing up) where the family must produce enough workers to maintain the farm. Some wedding couples approached me sheepishly about the fact that they already had children and were mightily relieved when I told them that IMO official church teaching was bonkers, invented by old men who found other ways to express their god-given urges (I put it more directly than that). The couple’s children taking part made for some of the loveliest weddings at which… Read more »
He certainly did and in the context of a discussion about our future King and Queen’s domestic arrangements prior to their marriage. Rather maladroit I fear.
Thank-you Fr Dean. I wonder what it is about ‘church’ that seems to make us (and I say ‘us’ as a member of the clergy) into such awful human beings?
I recall a book I read years ago, “Being Human, Being Church” by Robert Warren, and I loved this quote from Bishop David Jenkins: “God is not about religion, and very much religion, I fear, is not about God. God is about the fulfilment of being human and personal in the glory and celebration of the community of love.”
(Pace Prof Monkhouse’s comment about the pronouncements of bishops!)
Fr Andrew in quoting Bishop David Jenkins you quote one of the last bishops who was a serious theologian. I don’t think that most human beings are ‘awful’ just flawed. Those who are emotionally intelligent and self aware see that in themselves and try to do their best to overcome their flaws and failings. Sadly the Wash House doesn’t appear to be looking for those qualities in the people they put forward for senior leadership in the CofE. Our current crop of bishops and archdeacons all seem rather two dimensional and ‘computer says no’ types. David Jenkins was bishop when… Read more »
I don’t even accept that we are “flawed”. We are as we are, “flaws” divinely made. We need some theology lessons from the Orthodox who, it seems to me, are concerned less with what we are saved from and more with the destination. “Made like him, like him we rise”. You can’t beat Charles Wesley. Please, please, please study his astonishing hymn “Let earth and heaven combine” https://hymnary.org/text/let_earth_and_heaven_combine_angels_and_ Never been in CofE hymn books, and no longer in the Methodist book, though it was in the great 1933 hymnal. “Our God contracted to a span” – the single celled embryo.… Read more »
You expect competent, imaginative, rooted and orthodox theology from the Bishop of London, Stanley? Stick to Charles Wesley. His whole output was rooted in the scriptures and the tradition (notably the writings of the Patristic era). Funny how most contemporary ‘Evangelicals’ know nothing of his hymns. It’s why Rowan Williams’s favourite hymn is his ‘And can it be.’
No, Will, I certainly don’t expect any imagination or intellectual resilience from the hierarchs! (By the way, I use Orthodox with a capital O. My theology could never be described as orthodox as the term is used these days in the CofE.) The other thing that strikes me about CW’s hymns, apart from their theological richness, their rootedness in scripture and the Fathers and their Evangelical zeal, is just how astonishingly “charismatic” they are – but again I doubt they feature much in charismatic worship. And not one of them descends to bathos. They sustain me.
Your second comment leads me to mention two further Charles Wesley hymns from ‘With One Voice’: “Let earth and heaven agree” No 145 also to the tune St John. Very similar in spirit is Wesley’s beautiful “To us a child of royal birth” No 230 to the tune Eisenach. I’m fairly certain that this last was in the original ‘English Hymnal’ which, in some ways, was far broader than the ‘New English Hymnal’. It is, in fact, surprisingly (?) found in ‘A&M New Standard’ No 45, but was not carried forward from there into the successor ‘Common Praise’.
Charles Wesley’s “Let earth and heaven combine” is in the Australian hymn book ‘With One Voice’ No 229 to the tune St John.
With One Voice was a fine ecumenical hymnal: “A Hymn Book for all the Churches” published in the UK by Collins which never really ‘took off’ in this country, a great pity as it contained a very wide spread of hymns from various traditions covering all occasions, the sacraments, the complete Church liturgical year, all comprehensively indexed, including a section specifically paraphrasing psalms.
A reflection arising out of all I have read here, that the way the world works which the Church is in danger many times of falling into, especially when a serious crisis arises in the Church and people have to take responsibility, is to follow the way of the World and go down the Road of damage limitation, but if we go back to Gospel Basics, the Lord does not call us Christians to go down the road of damage limitation but he calls us to repentance “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. In any area of… Read more »