The Petition to have the Archbishop's Council Investigated is here:
My deepest apologies for omitting it. Sign if you feel moved to.
Regarding the Archbishop's Council, Registered Charity Number 1074857. Church House, Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3AZ
12/08/2020
I hope that you have been made aware of the letter from victims and members of the Church of England and the petition relating to the Archbishop's Council and accountability.
I hope that you will take it seriously, as the situation in relation to safeguarding in the Church of England shouldn't have got to a point where people are having to go to these lengths. The Church of England has nearly 7 billion pounds in assets but they are unable or unwilling to regulate safeguarding, while they have a rather surprising amount of time and money for PR and self-advertising displays which reach the media weekly, even when these PR displays are meaningless, ridiculous or unhelpful. The senior leadership of the church are out of touch with the general public and fail to accept or respond well to feedback, and with only a small percentage of the British public still worshipping in Anglican churches, the growing concern over the Church of England's privileges and their interventions in government and politics while failing to handle their own affairs or avoiding responsibility as a result of their connections appears to have escaped the notice of the Archbishop's Council.
While I am willing to support the letter and petition being raised regarding the Archbishop's Council to you, and I support it as a former Anglican who held numerous positions in the Anglican Church and witness a lot of wrong, I would like to highlight a few matters that the petition and its signatories may not raise.
Firstly and very importantly, in the past and undoubtedly to this day, you have members of the Charity Commission who are in dual roles with you and with the Church of England. It is noted by an abuse survivor that an officer in the Diocese of Bristol was using their Charity Commission email address as their Diocesan Contact email address, such matters would be enough to intimidate abuse victims from contacting you, although a number have and their concerns have yet to be addressed. It would be important that your employees who also hold roles in the Church of England are not involved in any investigation regarding the Church of England.
I am rather concerned about the Charity Commission's conflicted status and the unresolved complaints already submitted that I know of. One by an abuse victim who was preyed upon by serial abusers who the Church of England were aware of and failed to regulate, one by a female member of the clergy who was assaulted by a colleague; as no action appears have been taken, and other complaints about charities relating to the Church of England who have also been involved in concerning actions.
One of the reasons it has come to the point that you are being petitioned and a letter produced and signed, is that the Church of England, despite their ever more rapidly vanishing congregation, are in a position of total lack of accountability. Even the Queen, the head of the C of E, has not responded well to concerns raised with her. The Church are not regulated by the government, indeed they appear to be using government for their own ends and needs, passing their own law regulations to protect themselves, via an Ecclesiastical Committee who have behaved appallingly in relation to abuse victims and who have directly harmed victims.
Victims have no assured route to neutral or supportive action against the Church of England, because as I explained earlier on about you as a commission having Church officers in dual roles, this is also the case with victims turning to police, law, judges, politicians and even charities, members of the Church of England are in all walks of life, and while that is certainly not illegal or even untoward in its own, when it comes to victims seeking help and meeting with (often undeclared) conflicted sources of help where they turn to for help, this is where problems arise. This is why the only outcome that will be satisfactory and sustainable will be a safeguarding body that is not conflicted by the Church of England, or even it's victims, although their insight will be essential.
This is not a simple letter to write, and I feel that it will throw up controversy no matter how I word it, but I can foresee a problem arising from the current situation of victims having to fight for a voice to the point where they petition you or picket the General Synod, and the problems have already arisen in some ways.
There is a group of victims who shout loud while thousands don't have a voice. Some of these are the John Smyth victims, one of whom described the situation to me as 'We have some money and power behind us of course, we were Winchester College Students after all'. The others are victims who are still in position in or linked to the Church of England. These are the group with a voice and who know who to contact and how and what is going on within the church, (known rightly or wrongly as the Stockholm Syndrome Group) while other victims can feel intimidated by the victims with a voice and what they do. I am sure it is unintentional, but it creates two sides and the third, the quieter victims who are not in the know and do not know who to contact can only look on. If, in an ideal situation, the militant group who have a voice, manage to make a change, then that is well and good, in the meantime, there are people suffering in silence. It is important that other victims aren't overshadowed by the militant group or treated as not being credible because they are outside of the church and in the shadows and do not have the connections or do not want to be linked to the Anglican church.
I need to be clear in my concerns. I am former Anglican, I left some time ago after a long period of voluntary roles in C of E, I left because I didn't like what I witnessed, although not in terms of unreported abuse; and a few months ago, after another increasingly bizarre run of press releases by the Archbishop of Canterbury, I was drawn into a website where the Archbishop and Church of England were being criticized, and I decided to add my voice by blogging some of my experiences and concerns. I was surprised by the attention that my work received, alarmed in a way, and how strong the weight of concern and anger is among the general public, while the coldness and anger of the Church of England and their associates in the House of Lords, unchristian to say the least, was in reply to criticism.
The general public against the church is a powerful, terrifying but almost comedic situation. Anyway, as a result, several of those victims who are in the know in the Church of England, the 'Stockholm' group, followed me on social media, which is okay by me. One of them asked me to follow him, and I did. I was a bit surprised when he started sending me information about the situation from his and the Stockholm group's perspective, now including the letter and petition, but when I asked him questions, he failed to respond. For example he sent me a direct message saying that he had posted a tweet about the C of E, obviously wanting me to read and share it, but he didn't respond to questions I asked him. I am very keen to see change, and to see this petition by the group succeed, but I am concerned about outcomes and what outcomes there might be, because all victims and their advocates should have a say and not be drowned out in the end, communication isn't a one way thing and the situation in the Anglican Church isn't limited to those with a voice. There is every possibility that I am not the only person being left on the sidelines but wanting to have a voice in the matter.
If you look at the letter from the Stockholm Group, for want of a better way of describing the victims who hold positions within the C of E or are connected to it, you will see that many members of the Church and associated groups have signed it. But even so, this is one voice, and what is behind the signatures? And will those people who signed be the ones to lead, mediate or be the voice to or for any future regulation of the C of E's safeguarding? If so, there is still the possibility that there will not be a voice for all. I am very sad to say that but I feel that I absolutely must.
One of the signatures on the petition to you is Gavin Ashenden, who proudly signs himself as 'former chaplain to the Queen'. His title sounds very grand but all it meant was that he used to be a volunteer chaplain in the Royal Chapel for services, no contact or counsel with the Queen, the title is the illusion which saw him removed because he used the title constantly in press-based hate and ignorance attacks on minority and vulnerable groups under the guise of his 'Christianity' which included xenophobia, racism and archaic and dangerous statements about people with mental illness.
Ashenden was asked by representatives of the Royal household to resign his position to avoid the upset of his dismissal. He was involved in direct abuses of his power and position in media attacks on a vulnerable adult who was an alleged victim of two serial abusers protected by the Church of England when the case was dangerously put into the press spotlight by Archbishop Welby as a PR stunt that went wrong; and despite Ashenden's abuses of position in this case, he only left the church of England later on in protest when a Black female, also a former Queen's chaplain, was elected as Bishop of Dover. Ashenden, who is racist and sexist, objected to this by becoming a Catholic and then hilariously demanding of the Pope that married men should be able to become Bishops (Ashenden is on his Second Marriage).
Ashenden was studied by a psychologist who blogged that Ashenden appeared to be having psychosexual problems, based on some of his bizarre sexually-based sermons, and it makes one wonder, especially after his heated untruthful and spiteful attacks on a victim who had no voice in reply, what his interest in helping victims is, aside from trying to get back at his old denomination, the C of E, who his rants caused much concern to.
So, considering Ashenden's behaviour, it is astounding that he claims to be an advocate for victims, considering that he nearly killed one with public lies and defamation and it isn't a great portent for this petition that he is a signatory and he, along with others who I will mention, will not be the people to take forward any safeguarding plan for the C of E, it is a bit like replacing one broken machine with another broken machine and saying that the new broken one is better because it's new.
Peter Ould is another signatory, a man who used repulsively to blog about sexuality and who has a perverted obsession with the subject that with his blogs and twitter has tried to parade as an academic interest, and he attacked the same victim as Ashenden in the Church of England's dangerous and sightless attempt to use that case as a PR pretence of safeguarding, which backfired badly, destroying the victim and other people, while not a single member of clergy or laity, including Ashenden or Ould, were disciplined for their appalling behaviours in a farce which became simply and purely an all-out defamation attack on the disabled victim, for three years, with aftershocks still occuring. Unresolved and with no one disciplined or suspended. It is interesting to see Ould and Ashenden back on the same team and this time purporting to care about victims, penance? I doubt it, but it rings very loud alarm bells to see them close to abuse victims and with a future ahead of them working with abuse victims when they would be standing between their own victim and justice if they did, this would sadly not be an improvement on the current situation.
They would argue, as the Stockholm Group might even, that the terrible media based hash-up of their victim's case proved the victim to be fake and the church to be right, but that is not the case nor are they in a position to judge, no one who claims to be a victim or advocate and wants to be taken seriously in this current situation is; it was a whitewash unparalleled in the history of the C of E in abuse of power by senior clergy, laity, and those conflicted C of E members in judiciary, police, press, government and law, and it awaits investigation while all involved remain unpunished, but how can such a case be brought to justice with the petitioners to you including those who have harmed or disbelieved the victim? We are looking at one conflicted group, including victims who are within the C of E, who may prevent a voice for other victims, against the conflicted C of E, and that is not the fault of the Stockholm group, the militant victims who have somewhat of a voice, but it is a real issue.
The Victims outside need a voice too. They shouldn't have to be re-traumatised by talking shop with the well-meaning victims who are in the Stockholm group, who are members or linked to the Church of England still, victims who have left the Church of England and are traumatised by it, need a voice and a place to turn that doesn't involve having to be back in a C of E environment and using C of E language and knowledge, or being overriden by the desire of the victims still within the church to talk about their actions but not listening to the quieter victims in reply. There needs to be independent intervention and a voice for all.
There are other signatures on the letter which would be of concern. Representatives of ThirtyoneEight, whose bizarre and hard to spell name does them no favours, they are, although they do not declare it, partly run by Anglican Safeguarding Officers, making them part of the confliction problems. If their friends and acquaintances in the Church of England are reported to them, what will happen? What usually happens within the Anglican church when a man is reported for abuse to his friends and acquaintances in the synod? Closed ranks. And this is unlikely to be properly raised to the IICSA and even by this petition to you, ThirtyOneEight, and Macsas as well, are conflicted and will and have, ignored or failed to act on, complaints raised with them. I know quieter victims intimidated and turned away by these groups whereas the Stockholm group have included them on the letter's signatures.
Three years ago the victim who Peter Ould and Gavin Ashenden abused their position to harm and defame, went to join a protest run by some of the 'Stockholm' victims, she was harmed by an abusive member of the group, as well as another member trying to force Anglican ideology on her and confusing her by trying to tell her she couldn't criticize the C of E, while he himself criticized them. She was in a broken state as it was, physically and mentally, from years of conflicted whitewashes of her case, vilification of her, violence against her and the horrendous press coverage, which Peter Ould and Gavin Ashenden had amplified.
She travelled a long way to the 'protest' against the C of E handling of abuse, only to be set upon and seriously harmed because members of the 'safeguarding representatives' from the C ofE were also there and able to silence her through the other victims, to the point where she nearly committed suicide. The 'protest' itself didn't appear to really exist, and she was warned off being there, while she had been told in advance that she and other victims should find and wear purple clothes to the protest, and although broke and homeless, she had purchased purple shirts to wear from a charity shop out of her limited food money, all for nothing, she was driven away, abused, and one of the Stockholm group, a 'former Vicar' if he was to be believed tried to set the police on her without charge, when she was in collapse, while the abuser who had trolled and abused her, stood and grinned, until she showed the police some of his extremely concerning social media messages to her. She attended in good faith, and left, suicidal. The victims who are complaining about safeguarding didn't safeguarding the non Stockholm group victim.
The victim, diagnosed as autistic by the Maudsley hospital in 2005, although the C of E tried to deny diagnosis and use their persistent ploy of making her out to be insane, led the victims at the 'protest' trying to echo that her autism and distress were madness. It is thankful that instead of killing herself she came to us and then went back to her own church, an independent church who supported her until the slander against her by the Church of England National Safeguarding Team which was very open and very untruthful
reached them soon afterwards.
A key player in this 'protest' scenario was another abuse victim who was also a representative of Macsas, the church abuse charity who were conflicted by one of their leaders also being a member of the Church of England's safeguarding board. Macsas had also been involved repeatedly in the high profile case of this victim, in harmful ways. Indeed aiding the Diocese of Winchester in defaming her and trying to silence her, overstepping their boundaries as a charity. At the protest, the member of Macsas, drunk, repeated to the victim who was being attacked by her fellow victims from the Stockholm group, all the defamation of her that he had heard from the news and from his colleagues in Macsas and the C of E. He then advised the other victims to shun her.
As the victim did not commit suicide, she made another complaint regarding Macsas, the complaint was answered by...guess what, another signatory on the petition being brought to you. David Greenwood from Switalskis, one of the leaders of Macsas but abusing his legal position to protect the culpable and conflicted Macsas and intimidate the victim. I am not sure if this is correct, but I think this victim or another, referred Macsas to you as well.
This victim and others are in danger of being bypassed or left helpless if the voice remains only with the militant group and their inter-meshed friends mentioned above. There is a situation whereby those involved decided on what they had heard, and not on the victim's full story, which was forcibly silenced by the Church, that the victim was wrong and that they could abuse and punish her and fail to safeguard her from a predatory member of the group, despite having been made aware of the predator's conduct. In fact, the Stockholm group of C of E victims who are trying to represent all in the current very unstable and unjust Safeguarding Situation, could even be seen as a representation in miniature of the Anglican Church and their stance towards the vulnerable. From making conversation one way, as the chap on social media did with me, to failing to safeguard within their own efforts, to blaming and condemning, to being conflicted and inter-meshed by people with questioning behaviour and motives. I am increasingly concerned about Ashenden and Ould's involvement as I write this, although I am aware that they have taken the bizarre and unjust treatment of Martyn Percy, the Dean of Oxford, personally.
The victim mentioned above remains homeless and destroyed, her whole life taken off her and the Church of England have no intention of restoring her, and appeared to be hoping for her suicide or imprisonment on false charges that they brought to silence her, and as mentioned above, the victims with a voice are not people who she can turn to. Others will feel the same if communication is the same one way street with the Stockholm victims that it is with the C of E.
The victim mentioned, who suffered a childhood of relentless abuse and neglect and horror within her family, was abused as a very vulnerable adult as soon as she escaped her upbringing, and therefore has no access to the IICSA or most other forms of help, and has been failed by the NHS to extremes, for example left struggling with injuries including a broken spine from a beating she took as a result of reporting the C of E abuse.
I really want to see you accept the petition, and I want to see the Church of England held accountable, but the solution isn't for those signatories to become the replacement in safeguarding or representation of victims. I also want you to be aware, no matter what actions are taken, and action of some kind will have to be taken before this becomes much more serious, that the conflicts of interest that I have mentioned, exist and there are more, and the voices being heard is what it is about.
I have no doubt that the Core group, the Stockholm Victims mean well and mean right with all their hearts and have been wronged, there is no doubt in my mind of that, even those who aggressed the autistic victim; but the change and the future need to be safe and to be inclusive, and the fault lines are more visible to me than they may be to either you or the signatories of the letter and those involved.
As for the Archbishop's Council and Senior Church of England leaders, they don't care, they won't care until they are made to, and who is going to make them? One and all, they need to be removed, and as the C of E shrinks, a system such as that with the Church of Scotland's moderators would be more appropriate, with a new election of senior leaders every year so that no one is comfortably entrenched and able to feel unaccountable, but instead those elected would feel more motivated to make a positive impact during their time in power. First and foremost though, a lot of senior leaders in the C of E who have been involved in the current appalling situation, should be barred from leadership and jobs involving vulnerable groups.
There are enough signatures from clergy and church members on the letter to you, as well as enough outcry from outside the church, for the complaint against the Archbishop's council to need to be taken very seriously indeed. I understand that you have dragged your heels on complaints from individuals, but the Archbishop's Council and senior clergy have become complacent with their unchallenged and unregulated status and feel that they can behave as they please and answer to no one despite the waning congregation, and it is not just offensive or awful, it is a risk to vulnerable lives such as the one used as an example.
I trust that you will consider this matter with the seriousness which it deserves.
Kind regards,
John Carter
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