Behind Closed Doors

 I haven't been blogging for a while. By the time it gets to the weekend. I am usually too tired. For that matter, by the time I get to the week, I am also too tired. 

There has been so much going on in the news, and out of it, with the Janner investigation, as secretive and redacted as all the police investigations into Janner, and probably heading for the same failure. Various other things have caught my eye, but I haven't even had time to look at the Telegraph this week at all, I have a whole week's catching up to do. And I don't agree with their views on Johnson and Trump, so it won't take long.

A few years back, the Church of England did a PR show of installing a helpline called 'safe spaces' supposedly for abuse victims. I knew it was another show, so did many, but it took until this month for it to be labelled as a fake in the news.

The Guardian are running a Church of England PR show today as I write this, as far as I know, because they go on publishing the Church of England's every word without question or thought for the victims, they are owned by the Church of England.

I have been meaning to write more about individual cases we knew in the Church of England but I am tired, I am tired because I have chronic illness to battle and family matters to attend to, and tired because of the IICSA and the response by the C of E. 

Julie - (this account is from before the current virus crisis).

'What goes on behind closed doors is nobody's business'. This is a typical church line when they want to excuse failure to act.

Julie doesn't like waiting for her husband to come home from taking Evensong on Sundays, he doesn't like Evensong and thinks it should be abolished but the PCC won't allow it, he has to drive out to the furthest church just because about seven people want a droning old service in a cold church. So he may well come home in a bad mood.

He never hits her round the face, because of course there would be questions, but some Sunday mornings she sits in church aching from his cruelty and listening to the words of his sermons about 'love, forgiveness, kindness etc' and thinking how paradoxical it all is. She doesn't dare to leave, she has nowhere to go, and of course it would be such a big scandal, the congregation who are so friendly and treat her with such respect because she's the vicar's wife, would be horrified and disgusted and would turn away, while she would end up in that awful shelter in town that the church like to make a fuss of supporting. 

It's not just the violence, its the things he says, he calls her fat, tells her he's always looking round for a 'pretty young thing' to play with, she doesn't know if there have been any 'pretty young things'. He tells her she's stupid, she's useless, no career, 'just a vicar's wife', and that she isn't even good at helping with church events - she ignores that because there's always more than enough for her to do at church events, but it still hurts.

She endures it, it wears her down and she looks tired, it is hard to smile. Some of the ladies in church say it is because the life of a vicar's wife is a constant cycle of entertaining and attending obligatory events. There's always an excuse in the church, and Julie doesn't really do anything that isn't to do with the church, she doesn't go anywhere or have any activities or friendships outside the church, which is why she would be lost if she spoke up or left. So she goes on pretending that all is well.

She's not allowed to touch his computer, it's password protected anyway, but he's taking a funeral at one of the other churches and going to the wake afterwards, so he won't be back for lunch, and she's cleaning his office. She wipes the desk, and the computer springs to life when she moves the mouse.

Horrified at what she sees, she can't bear it any longer, she phones the Diocese. They coldly tell her that they can't deal with 'such allegations' and she needs to phone the police, they brush off her tearful protest that she's too afraid of him, she's afraid of the impact on the church and she has nowhere to go. They tell her again, robotically, that they can do nothing until the police investigate. Not a word of support or comfort.

Julie goes into the police station in town, she has a bag of clothes and essentials, and her handbag and purse. Having phoned the diocese, she didn't dare to stay at the house. They may have ignored her situation but they will undoubtedly contact her husband. That's how they work.

While she was left waiting to be interviewed, she phoned the Diocese again to ask where she could go and what she could do as she felt unable to return home. The Diocese gave the same cold response, that they could do nothing if the police were investigating, they offered to find her the numbers of homeless services, but she said she could manage that herself, and put the phone down.

The police interview was quite harsh, she was shocked. They kept asking if she had really had no idea, and she told them over and over that she never touched his computer and it was normally locked, that it had been by chance that he had forgotten to lock the computer or hide what he was doing. She felt like she was on trial, and now she was increasingly afraid, both of  her husband and his anger, and of the police, she felt accused.

Finally things changed, a WPC brought her a coffee and told her that they had seized her husband's computer and police were waiting at the house for his return. The WPC handed her a list of phone numbers and asked if she would be alright, they would be in touch. And that was it, now she was standing outside the police station with nothing but what she had packed.

She had savings, he hadn't taken that from her, interestingly enough, because while she didn't touch the savings, she was otherwise financially reliant on him. She had been entrenched in the life of the rectory and the church for a long time, a bland life of constant events and the sexism of the church and the violence of her husband, so this was a life-shattering, terrifying step into the unknown. She walked round the town centre, aimlessly looking round the market and shops. In the end, she went into the information centre and looked up hotels. 

Julie's husband was arrested, he wasn't charged with his violence against Julie, but he was charged with other crimes, and was bailed. Julie lived in fear, she was staying in a cheap hotel and trying to find a flat that she would pay for with her savings, it took her a long time to navigate the support services and the council, with all the red tape, many services were oversubscribed, and a number of services were connected to the church, so she felt she had to avoid them. The Diocese continued to be extremely unhelpful, and when she received no contact from anyone at the church, she was told in the street by a congregant that they had been advised by the Diocese to avoid contact with her.

Julie found that she quite enjoyed being alone, not having a house to look after or any events to attend and not having to anticipate violence. She enjoyed walking round the town and parks, walking beside the river. It didn't take away the shock of her experience, and she sometimes spoke to the Samaritans, but it was a relief to be free. She could get a cheap breakfast at the hotel or a cafe, she enjoyed the library, and she began to think about work. She was afraid that her husband's trial might get in the way of any job, so she took some computer training classes at the local day centre while she considered things, and she made some friends there.

The police investigation took a little while, and then the court only sentenced her husband to 3 years, it did make the papers along with all the praise and good references he got from the church; and the Diocese couldn't keep the fact that this was a Vicar out of the press, as they usually manage to do when it's a church officer, reader or layperson. three and a half years! And he probably wouldn't serve all of it. Julie wasn't mentioned, but she also wasn't supported by the Diocese or the church. When her husband was released from prison, he would be provided for by the Church for the rest of his life, while she was left to fend for herself. She hadn't been back to church since the arrest, and as she still had faith, she decided that a fresh start with another denomination and also in another area, outside of the Diocese, would be a good idea. 

Now Julie is working full time in a good job, she left the Diocese, she belongs to a large Evangelical church, she still has counselling for traumatic stress, and she still admits to being a bit scared of her husband but tries to be realistic. He was released and the Church of England look after him, she says the Church of England are total hypocrites and have lost their path, and she speaks up for other victims of violence and abuse. Julie says that it was hard to leave behind the social side and illusion of respectability that being a vicar's wife brings, but she enjoys being her own person now and although she enjoys church events, she also enjoys solitude and quiet walks. She feels that her eyes have been opened to the all-too-common abuses and violence that are widespread in the church and the world, she will never be the same again, and that is good as well as bad.

end.