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Justice for Bishop George Bell of Chichester
1883 to 2023
CHRONOLOGY COMPILED BY RICHARD W. SYMONDS – THE BELL SOCIETY
George Bell House – 4 Canon Lane – Chichester Cathedral – before the name change [Picture: Alamy]
1883
Feb 4 1883 – George Kennedy Allen Bell born in Hayling Island, Hampshire
1910
1910 – George Bell appointed Student Minister and Lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford
1912
“This named priests known to have been guilty of criminal and moral offences, or viewed with ‘grave suspicion’. In fact, there are national and diocesan caution lists, and each diocesan bishop was advised to keep his own up-to-date, to consult it before making any appointment, and to pass any new name directly to Lambeth Palace”. [Source: “George Bell, Bishop of Chichester – Church, State, and Resistance in the Age of Dictatorship” by Andrew Chandler (Eerdmans 2016) – Page 196 & 197 – ‘Postlude: History and Allegation’]
1914
1914 – George Bell appointed Chaplain to Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson
“George Bell was very conscientious in keeping this Caution List up-to-date” – Richard W. Symonds
1918
1918 – George Bell marries Henrietta Livingstone
1925
1925 – George Bell appointed Dean of Canterbury
“At this time he was the driving force of the Canterbury Arts Festival, with artists including John Masefield, Gustav Holst, Dorothy Sayers and TS Eliot. Bell later welcomed Mahatma Gandhi to Canterbury”~ Richard W. Symonds
1929
1929 – George Bell appointed Bishop of Chichester
1935
1935 – Bishop Bell commissions TS Eliot’s ‘Murder in the Cathedral’
1936
In 1936 Bishop Bell appointed Chairman of the International Christian Committee for German Refugees
The Committee supported Jewish Christians who at that time were supported by neither Jewish nor Christian organizations.
1938
In 1938 Bishop Bell helped many people, including pastors’ families (eg Franz Hildebrandt), to emigrate from Germany to Britain who were in danger from Hitler, and the ‘official’ church, because they had Jewish ancestors or were opponents of the German dictatorship. As one of the leaders of the Ecumenical Movement, he influenced public opinion in supporting those persecuted by the Nazi regime. His public support is said to have contributed to Pastor Martin Niemoller’s survival (“First they came…”) by making his imprisonment in Sachenhausen in February 1938 – and later in Dachau – widely known in the British media, exposing it as an example of the Nazi persecution of the church. Hitler stopped Niemöller’s planned execution in 1938.
1939
“During the war, Bishop Bell was involved in helping not only displaced persons and refugees who had fled the continent to England, but also interned Germans and British conscientious objectors….During World War II Bell repeatedly condemned the Allied practice of ‘area bombing’. As a member of the House of Lords, he was a consistent parliamentary critic of area bombing…In 1941 in a letter to The Times, he called the bombing of unarmed women and children “barbarian” which would destroy the just cause for the war, thus openly criticising the Prime Minister’s [Winston Churchill – Ed] advocacy of such a bombing strategy. On 14 February 1943 – two years ahead of the Dresden raids – he urged the House of Lords to resist the War Cabinet’s decision for area bombing, stating that it called into question all the humane and democratic values for which Britain had gone to war. In 1944, during debate, he again demanded the House of Lords to stop British area bombing of German cities such as Hamburg and Berlin as a disproportionate and illegal “policy of annihilation” and a crime against humanity…” (Source: Wiki)
1946
“This significant, secret manual of episcopal practice was no ordinary labour, and it required no ordinary editor. A prefatory note by Archbishop Fisher announced, ‘We owe the revision of a record first compiled in 1912 to the industry of the Bishop of Chichester’ [Source: ‘Private Memoranda of certain matters discussed at the Bishops’ Meetings of Bishops of the Three Provinces of Canterbury, York and Wales held at Lambeth Palace (1902-1945), together with certain Resolutions adopted by the Convocations of Canterbury and York (1946)’, Bell Papers, vol. 306]
– Andrew Chandler – “George Bell, Bishop of Chichester – Church, State, and Resistance in the Age of Dictatorship” (Eerdmans 2016) – Page 196 & 197 – ‘Postlude: History and Allegation’]
“By now a working relationship with the Caution List had been a part of almost Bell’s entire career” – Andrew Chandler [Source: As above]
“It is difficult to believe someone responsible for a ‘Caution List’, which listed priests found guilty of ‘moral offences’, was as guilty as those on that List” – RWS
1958
Oct 3 1958 – George Kennedy Allen Bell dies
1961
1967
1971
1983
1985
1986
Jan 30 1986 – “Anatomy of a Cover-Up” – Gilbert Gauthe – The Diocese of Lafayette and the moral responsibility for the pedophilia scandal – Jason Berry
1988
1988 – “Rumpole of the Bailey” with Leo McKern – Episode: ‘Rumpole and the Age of Miracles’ [Series 5 Disc 2) – Filmed on location at Chichester Cathedral [‘The Diocese of Lawnchester’ – Ecclesiastical Court]
Rumpole: “I happen to have a good deal of faith”
Ballard: “Yes, in what precisely?”
Rumpole: “The health-giving properties of Claret. The presumption of innocence…that golden thread running through British justice”
1991
1993
1993 – Rev. Peter Ball, Bishop of Lewes, given a Caution by the Police for gross indecency, after abusing a trainee monk.
1995
1995 – First complaint by ‘Carol’ to Bishop of Chichester Eric Kemp, alleging Bishop Bell had sexually abused her in the 1940s and 1950s (not reported to Police). Second complaint in 2013
“I am increasingly of the speculative opinion that ‘Carol’ might have confused Bishop Bell with Bishop Ball. In other words, a simple case of mistaken identity where it is highly likely she was abused by a priest in Chichester as a child, but highly unlikely it was Bishop Bell” ~ Richard W. Symonds
1998
2000
2001
May 3 2001 – “Dean denies cover-up” (page 2) – Chichester Observer (mentioned by Carmi Report 2004 – along with the Saturn Centre Crawley Hospital)(Recommendations only in 2004 – Terence Banks et al not mentioned until 2014)
June 2001 – Edi Carmi is asked to review the Chichester case. The CARMI Report is completed in 2004, but only its Recommendations are published. In 2014 – 10 years later – the CARMI Report is published in full.
2002
“Boston Globe identified a pattern of systematic sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston in which known paedophile clergy were moved around parishes and/or sent to ‘treatment centres’ – but not prosecuted or de-frocked. The abuse was ‘covered up’. Any just legal recourse for victims was difficult – and made difficult” – Richard W. Symonds
“There are parallels between what happened in the Church of England’s Diocese of Chichester in 2015 and what had already happened in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Boston in 2002 – and beyond. The ‘Spotlight’ film brings this out clearly” ~ Richard W. Symonds
2003
2003 – Church of England abolishes “Deposition from Holy Orders” [‘Defrocking’]
May 10 2003 – “Warnings have been going on for 25 years” (page 2) – Chichester Observer (mentioned by Carmi Report 2004 – along with the Saturn Centre Crawley Hospital)(Recommendations only in 2004 – Terence Banks et al not mentioned until 2014)
2004
2007
2007 – House of Bishops Confidential Document
“Because of the possibility that statements of regret might have the unintended effect of accepting legal liability for the abuse it is important that they are approved in advance by lawyers, as well as by diocesan communications officers (and, if relevant, insurers)…With careful drafting it should be possible to express them in terms which effectively apologise for what has happened whilst at the same time avoiding any concession of legal liability for it” – Excerpts from House of Bishops confidential document – 2007
2008
2009
“No doubt there will be people who are going to think there is no smoke without fire. I can do nothing about that except to say such an attitude would be wrong” – Judge David Clarke (on the David Jones case)
2010
2010 – “Inspector George Gently” with Martin Shaw [Series 2 – Disc 1 – ‘Gently with the Innocents’] – on the theme of Child Sexual Abuse in a Children’s Home
2011
“Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss is critical both of Sussex Police and Chichester Diocese, for not taking complaints against Pritchard and Cotton seriously enough. There was ‘a lack of understanding of the seriousness of historic child abuse’ – Richard W. Symonds
2012
“The victims were effectively denied the opportunity of being believed in a meaningful sense and denied the opportunity of ‘timely’ justice. PJ spent many years trying to get the Church [and Sussex Police] to accept his allegations and respond with timely action and recognition of his abuse” – Roger Meekings
“Sussex Police receive dossier from Lambeth Palace relating to Bishop Peter Ball in the Chichester Diocese” – Richard W. Symonds
“The problems relating to safeguarding in Chichester have been specific to that diocese rather than a reflection of failures in the legal processes or national policies of the Church of England. Nevertheless…” – Archbishop Rowan Williams
“The inquiry by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office concluded that the West Sussex diocese has ‘an appalling history’ of child protection failures, with ‘fresh and disturbing’ allegations continuing to emerge” – David Batty
Nov 10 2012 – “Masonic Paedomania” – ‘Archbishop Cranmer’ Blog [Deleted on Request]
2013
2013 – Second complaint by ‘Carol’ to Bishop of Chichester Justin Welby, alleging Bishop Bell had sexually abused her in the 1940s and 1950s (reported to Police). First complaint in 1995
2014
2015
Sept 2015 – Diocese of Chichester pays compensation to complainant ‘Carol’
“Moral, legal and common sense appears to have deserted the Church of England. The Presumption of Innocence has been described as ‘the golden thread that runs through British justice’. That thread was broken by the October Statement, and replaced with the Presumption of Guilt. The Media – including the BBC – assumed Bishop Bell’s guilt on the basis of the Church’s Statement, and their subsequent headlines reflected that assumption. No attempt was made by the Church, immediately after the headlines, to correct the media interpretation of the Statement. This would strongly suggest a Presumption of Guilt on the Church’s part towards Bishop Bell” – Richard W. Symonds
“In this case, the scrutiny of the allegation has been thorough, objective, and undertaken by people who command the respect of all parties….” – Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner
“The grandson was asked the reason why his school building, dedicated to Bishop George Bell, had been re-named. The answer came straight back, ‘Because he was a paedophile'” ~ Richard W. Symonds
Oct 23 2015 – “Bishop revealed to have sexually abused child” / “The dark secret of a respected peacemaker” – The Argus – Reporter: Rachel Millard
Oct 24 2015 – “Former bishop’s despicable fall from grace will prompt much soul-searching from the Church” / “Abuse victim hits out over ‘systematic behaviour’” – The Argus – Reporter: Joel Adams
“Beware of throwing someone under the bus. Remember: the bus can shift into reverse” ~ Janette McGowen
“The professional approach is to neither believe nor disbelieve the complainant and their allegation. There is no right or entitlement for a complainant to be believed, but there is a right and entitlement for a complainant to be treated with respect, to take their allegation seriously, to listen with compassion, and to record the facts clearly. It would appear the Church regarded ‘Carol’ as a victim to be believed at all costs. There seems to have been a panicked rush to judgement in which an astonishing lack of judgement was made manifest. Bishop Bell was an easy target, disposable and dispensable…’thrown under the bus’ for reasons unknown” ~ Richard W. Symonds
2016
“What I find deeply disturbing is that a Bishop’s reputation is destroyed and no-one takes any responsibility for destroying it – least of all the Bishop’s own Church” ~ Richard W. Symonds
“The presence of strident voices in the public arena which have sought to undermine the survivor’s claims has added in this case to the suffering of the survivor and her family. To that extent it is not surprising that she felt it necessary to take the courageous decision to speak out in public and reveal the personal details which the Church could not” – Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner
Feb 13 2016 – “George Bell is wiped out” – Argus – In Brief – [George Bell House re-named 4 Canon Lane]
Feb 22 2016 – “Bell’s family hit back” – The Argus – Barbara Whitley aged 92 [Niece of Bishop Bell] + Tim Sutcliffe [Former Member of General Synod]
May 23 2016 – “Spotlight” DVD Film release in the UK [Boston Globe investigation of Child Sexual Abuse in Roman Catholic Church]
“A small team of investigative journalists at the Boston Globe (US) – known as ‘Spotlight’ – investigate allegations of sex abuse within the Catholic Church, and expose the scandal that the Archdiocese of Boston knew of the abuse, but did nothing – or not enough – to stop it. Disturbing parallels with the Church of England’s Diocese of Chichester” – RWS
June 24 2016 – Chichester Post Letter – Richard W. Symonds [Church of England Press Statement Oct 22 2015 – Bishop of Durham/House of Lords Statement – Jan 28 2016]
Aug 4 2016 – “Police say sorry over Bishop Bell” – Chichester Observer (not online)
Aug 6 2016 – “Police apology to niece of child abuse bishop” – The Argus – Assistant News Editor: Arron Hendy (not online)
Oct 7 2016 – “Victims or Survivors” – Bats in the Belfrey – crhill764
Oct 7 2016 – “In an era in need of it, courage” – Book review of Andrew Chandler’s Biography – ‘George Bell, Bishop of Chichester: Church, State and Resistance in the Age of Dictatorship’ [Eerdmans 2016] – Church Times – The Revd Dr Jeremy Morris, University of Cambridge
Oct 19 2016 – Visit to Lambeth Palace to deliver The Bell Petition. Marilyn Billingham and Richard W. Symonds meet with the Bishop of Lambeth, The Rt Revd Nigel Stock.
“Moral, legal and common sense appears to have deserted the Church of England. The Presumption of Innocence has been described as ‘the golden thread that runs through British justice’. That thread was broken by the October Statement, and replaced with the Presumption of Guilt. The Media – including the BBC – assumed Bishop Bell’s guilt on the basis of the Church’s Statement, and their subsequent headlines reflected that assumption. No attempt was made by the Church, immediately after the headlines, to correct the media interpretation of the Statement. This would strongly suggest a Presumption of Guilt on the Church’s part towards Bishop Bell” – Richard W. Symonds
Dec 27 2016 – “2016 in front pages” – The Argus [Feb 3 2016 Front Page “He told me it was our little secret because God loved me”]
Dec 30 2016 – “2016 really was a year to talk about” – The Argus – Spotlight Argus – Reporter Joel Adams’ ‘favourite quote’ on Week 5’s Front Page (Feb 3): “He said it was our little secret, because God loved me” [The word “allegedly” is inserted in the write-up – which was missing in the Dec 27 write-up]
2017
Feb 3 2017 – Peter Ball, former Bishop of Lewes, released from jail after serving 16 months of a 32-month sentence
“After the Poetry Reading at the Quaker Meeting House, there was a retiring collection for the Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture [MFVT] – raising £210” ~ Richard W. Symonds
“In 1936 Bishop Bell was appointed Chairman of the International Christian Committee for German Refugees” ~ Richard W. Symonds
‘Responding to, Assessing and Managing Safeguarding concerns or Allegations against Church Officers’ [published October 13 2017] – Disclosures or allegations of abuse – Section 2 – First Response (Page 25) – “a person receiving a safeguarding concern or allegation against a church officer should ‘respond well to the victim/survivor to ensure they feel heard and taken seriously.’
“Because of the possibility that statements of regret might have the unintended effect of accepting legal liability for the abuse it is important that they are approved in advance by lawyers, as well as by diocesan communications officers (and, if relevant, insurers)…With careful drafting it should be possible to express them in terms which effectively apologise for what has happened whilst at the same time avoiding any concession of legal liability for it” – Excerpts from House of Bishops confidential document – 2007
“Yes, the inquiry was about child care, but at its heart is the Jersey Way in its sinister, controlling manifestation: ‘protection of powerful interests and resistance to change, even when change is patently needed’”
~ Richard Digard [Jersey Evening Post – “Complacency over Inquiry’s report has been astonishing” – July 21 2017]
Oct 3 2017 – Bishop Bell Day to mark the 59th Anniversary of his death
Oct 7 2017 – Lord Carlile submits his Review to the Church of England
Oct 8 2017 – “Child abuse in the Church of England: Justin Welby must either accelerate the change or carry the can” – ‘Archbishop Cranmer’ Blog – Guest writer: Martin Sewell [Deleted on Request]
“Moral, legal and common sense appears to have deserted the Church of England. The Presumption of Innocence has been described as ‘the golden thread that runs through British justice’. That thread was broken by the October Statement, and replaced with the Presumption of Guilt. The Media – including the BBC – assumed Bishop Bell’s guilt on the basis of the Church’s Statement, and their subsequent headlines reflected that assumption. No attempt was made by the Church, immediately after the headlines, to correct the media interpretation of the Statement. This would strongly suggest a Presumption of Guilt on the Church’s part towards Bishop Bell” – Richard W. Symonds
‘Responding to, Assessing and Managing Safeguarding concerns or Allegations against Church Officers’ [published October 13 2017] – Disclosures or allegations of abuse – Section 2 – First Response (Page 25) – “a person receiving a safeguarding concern or allegation against a church officer should ‘respond well to the victim/survivor to ensure they feel heard and taken seriously.’
Oct 15 2017 – “Bishops damn church insurers Ecclesiastical Insurance Group [EIG] over ‘horse-trading’ with child abuse survivors” – ‘Archbishop Cranmer’ Blog [Deleted on Request]
“No doubt there will be people who are going to think there is no smoke without fire. I can do nothing about that except to say such an attitude would be wrong” – Judge David Clarke (on the David Jones case)
“Beware of throwing someone under the bus. Remember: the bus can shift into reverse” ~ Janette McGowen
“The professional approach is to neither believe nor disbelieve the complainant and their allegation. There is no right or entitlement for a complainant to be believed, but there is a right and entitlement for a complainant to be treated with respect, to take their allegation seriously, to listen with compassion, and to record the facts clearly. It would appear the Church regarded ‘Carol’ as a victim to be believed at all costs. There seems to have been a panicked rush to judgement in which an astonishing lack of judgement was made manifest. Bishop Bell was an easy target, disposable and dispensable…’thrown under the bus’ for reasons unknown” ~ Richard W. Symonds
Oct 20 2017 – “Let the Chronology speak” ~ Richard W. Symonds – The Bell Society [adapted from Page 167 of “George Bell, Bishop of Chichester – Church, State, and Resistance in the Age of Dictatorship” by Andrew Chandler: “it is as well to let chronology speak for itself” and Dennis Potter: “Let The Past Speak”]
Oct 22 2017 – ‘”I need a friendly bishop”, said the child abuse survivor, as the prelate passed by on the other side’ – ‘Archbishop Cranmer’ Blog – Guest Writer: Martin Sewell [Deleted on Request]
“Moral, legal and common sense appears to have deserted the Church of England. The Presumption of Innocence has been described as ‘the golden thread that runs through British justice’. That thread was broken by the October Statement, and replaced with the Presumption of Guilt. The Media – including the BBC – assumed Bishop Bell’s guilt on the basis of the Church’s Statement, and their subsequent headlines reflected that assumption. No attempt was made by the Church, immediately after the headlines, to correct the media interpretation of the Statement. This would strongly suggest a Presumption of Guilt on the Church’s part towards Bishop Bell” – Richard W. Symonds
The Portrait is, at present, in storage within the Cathedral Library
The Plaque below the Portrait reads:
“Bishop Bell has a worldwide reputation for his tireless work for international reconciliation, the arts, education, and church unity. The House that bears his name provides a place where work in these areas can continue and prosper. The generosity of an Anglican Order, the Community of the Servants of the Cross (CSC) has enabled the purchase of the House. Canon Peter Kefford (Treasurer of Chichester Cathedral 2003-2009) was the prime initiator in establishing George Bell House as a centre for Education, Vocation and Reconciliation”
“Bishop Bell, who served the diocese for 30 years until his death in 1958, is regarded by some as one of the great peacemakers of the 20th Century and had been granted the closest thing Anglicanism has to a saint’s day, an annual commemoration” – John Bingham – Telegraph Religious Affairs Editor
“Beware of throwing someone under the bus. Remember: the bus can shift into reverse” ~ Janette McGowen
“The professional approach is to neither believe nor disbelieve the complainant and their allegation. There is no right or entitlement for a complainant to be believed, but there is a right and entitlement for a complainant to be treated with respect, to take their allegation seriously, to listen with compassion, and to record the facts clearly. It would appear the Church regarded ‘Carol’ as a victim to be believed at all costs. There seems to have been a panicked rush to judgement in which an astonishing lack of judgement was made manifest. Bishop Bell was an easy target, disposable and dispensable…’thrown under the bus’ for reasons unknown” ~ Richard W. Symonds
Nov 1 2017 – “What matters is the Conclusion to Lord Carlile’s Review – and that is already known. The rest are just ‘footnotes'” ~ Richard W. Symonds [The Bell Society]
Nov 2 2017 – Church of England Statement on the Rt. Revd George Bell and the Carlile Review – Expected Release Date (Delayed)
“Because of the possibility that statements of regret might have the unintended effect of accepting legal liability for the abuse it is important that they are approved in advance by lawyers, as well as by diocesan communications officers (and, if relevant, insurers)…With careful drafting it should be possible to express them in terms which effectively apologise for what has happened whilst at the same time avoiding any concession of legal liability for it” – Excerpts from House of Bishops confidential document – 2007
When raised with two trustees of ATL last year after the Elliott Review, an irritated retort from one senior cleric was “We don’t own our own insurer”. This senior cleric sits on the board of Trustees that owns the insurer, and also on the Archbishops’ Independent Safeguarding Panel. If that’s not a conflict of interest – I don’t know what is. It’s not surprising that many survivors feel the CofE National Safeguarding is in place to safeguard institution and hierarchy! – ‘Sea of Complicity’
“Yes, the inquiry was about child care, but at its heart is the Jersey Way in its sinister, controlling manifestation: ‘protection [‘safeguarding’ – Ed] of powerful interests and resistance to change, even when change is patently needed’”
~ Richard Digard [Jersey Evening Post – “Complacency over Inquiry’s report has been astonishing” – July 21 2017]
Nov 6 2017 – ‘Archbishop Cranmer’. Deleted on request.
“Beware of throwing someone under the bus. Remember: the bus can shift into reverse” ~ Janette McGowen
“The professional approach is to neither believe nor disbelieve the complainant and their allegation. There is no right or entitlement for a complainant to be believed, but there is a right and entitlement for a complainant to be treated with respect, to take their allegation seriously, to listen with compassion, and to record the facts clearly. It would appear the Church regarded ‘Carol’ as a victim to be believed at all costs. There seems to have been a panicked rush to judgement in which an astonishing lack of judgement was made manifest. Bishop Bell was an easy target, disposable and dispensable…’thrown under the bus’ for reasons unknown” ~ Richard W. Symonds
‘Responding to, Assessing and Managing Safeguarding concerns or Allegations against Church Officers’ [published October 13 2017] – Disclosures or allegations of abuse – Section 2 – First Response (Page 25) – “a person receiving a safeguarding concern or allegation against a church officer should ‘respond well to the victim/survivor to ensure they feel heard and taken seriously.’
Nov 7 2017 – ‘Archbishop Cranmer’. Deleted on request.
Nov 9 2017 – “Victim Must Be Believed” versus “Victim Must Be Taken Seriously” [See Nov 6 2017]
”Must Be Believed” vs. “Must Be Taken Seriously”
The key passages seem to be this – an Oct 13 2017 re-draft of the
House of Bishops Policy & Practice Guidance: [a re-draft which appears to have been made less than a week after the Church received the Carlile Review – Oct 7 2017 – a Review which has yet to be released ‘in the public domain’ (although its “flawed and unfair” conclusion has been ‘leaked’)
* NEW – as of Oct 2017 – Responding to, assessing and managing concerns or allegations against church officers practice guidance
Page 23 – 2. Responding to a safeguarding concern or allegation against a Church Officer
Page 25 – First Response – The person receiving a Safeguarding concern or allegation against a church officer
Page 30 – 2.2 Responding to an adult a safeguarding concern or allegation
In a
Preface, +Peter Hancock says
“This guidance substantially updates and replaces the ‘Responsibilities of Church Organisations’ section in ‘Protecting all God’s Children 2010’. It is in line with ‘Promoting a Safer Church’ : The Church of England policy statement for the children, young people and adults.
I was hoping to find the phrase “must be believed” in these old policy statements but, alas, no – unless I’ve missed it. These old policy statements are very generalised, so make for wide and open interpretation. I think this is what has happened, and the phrase “must be believed” has crept into the unwritten language of Safeguarding.
It would appear the phrase “To ensure they feel…taken seriously” is the new post-Carlile guideline, introduced on Oct 13 2017 – thus erasing the unwritten pre-Carlile “must be believed” idea which somehow crept into proceedings.
~ Richard W. Symonds
“Many people claim to have been abused. but you cannot know for sure if these claims are true. I’m not suggesting that people in making these claims are lying or being malicious. Their stories may be true, but equally they may be mentally ill and delusional. You simply cannot know without proof. The point is that people – who may be innocent – are defamed and have their lives destroyed by these claims” ~ Anonymous
“The treatment by the Church of England of the former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, and that of the late former Bishop George Bell, needs further scrutiny and reflection…” ~ James Macintyre
It’s a sad sad situation
And it’s gettin’ more and more absurd…
Always seems to me
Sorry seems to be the hardest word.
~ Elton John
The Bishop of Bath & Wells [Safeguarding Bishop Peter Hancock]: At the meeting on Thursday of the National Safeguarding Steering Group, we will already be giving consideration as to how and when we might consider the report when it is made available to us in order that there may not be any delay once the report
is published.
Nov 17 2017 – Richard W. Symonds. The Bell Society
Is the Church of England, as an institution, capable of a public ‘we were wrong & we are sorry’ apology, genuine repentance and humility- especially in the case of Bishop Bell and George Bell House ?
Martin Sewell has noted the “extraordinary lack of curiosity as to whether there was a case for the defence”.
There was also an extraordinary lack of concern and care for basic justice regarding both Bishop Bell and ‘Carol’.
Carl Jacobs has said: “The Church of England deliberately threw George Bell under the bus because he was dead. It sacrificed his reputation to protect the institutional reputation of the CoE. It wanted the story buried, and George Bell’s grave was a convenient place to bury it….the CoE knew an investigation would produce no conclusive result. An unresolvable accusation that remained in the public domain was the worst possible outcome – especially given the current climate where an accusation against a church is sufficient to establish guilt. Pursuing an investigation would guarantee the problem would never go away. So to make the problem go away, they decided to presume George Bell was guilty. You can’t libel the dead. Only his family would be affected, and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. That beyond any reasonable doubt is what I think happened”
~ Richard W. Symonds
Rt Revd Peter Hancock, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Lead Bishop for Safeguarding (Chair)
Rt Revd Mark Sowerby, Bishop of Horsham, Deputy Bishop for Safeguarding (Vice Chair)
“The Rt. Revd. Mark Sowerby, Bishop of Horsham in the Diocese of Chichester is available for interview today. Please use the above numbers or contact his office on 01403 211139” [October 22 2015 – Church of England Statement on the Rt. Revd George Bell, 1883-1958]
“The report concerns one issue, one case and its message that the secret trial of George Bell was wholly unfair is quite clear. There is no real reason for any further delay. There has been quite enough delay in the Church acknowledging that it made a grave and severe mistake by treating allegations against George Bell as proven facts back in October 2015. They then sought to claim, falsely, that critics of their action were attacking the complainant. It really is time they grew up and owned up. If the Church had spent as much time thinking about whether to publish the smears against George Bell as it is about publishing the Carlile report, we could have been saved a lot of trouble” ~ Peter Hitchens
“For what I care, those responsible for this nasty episode can remain anonymous with their shame, and be left to seek forgiveness in private, through contrition. All I want to see is an admission that the procedure was (as it was) quite unjust, and immediate steps taken to re-establish the good name of George Bell, including the restoration of his name where it has been expunged from buildings, schools and guidebooks. And the recognition by several media organisations that they treated an allegation as a proven charge and were wrong to do so. It took quite long enough to persuade a reluctant church even to admit there was anything to worry about. But if they are so keen on delay and caution, why did they not pause for a little longer before publicising the original claims, as they so energetically did?” ~ Peter Hitchens
Nov 22 2017 – “Terms of Reference” of the The Carlile Review ?
“It is now eight weeks since the eminent QC Lord Carlile delivered to Archbishop Justin Welby the report of his investigations into the unproven allegations against the late Bishop George Bell. Eight weeks – and the report is still unpublished. This delay is intolerable and there is now a large body of people nationwide calling for its immediate publication – one hopes, without redactions” ~ Meriel Wilmot-Wright
Nov 25 2017 – From The Archives [April 2 2016] – The Bell Petition opens – “Justice for Bishop George Bell of Chichester – To: Archbishop of Canterbury” – Petition closed in Oct 2016 with 2169 signatures, and delivered to The Rt. Rev’d Nigel Stock at Lambeth Palace by Richard Symonds & Marilyn Billingham on October 19 2016]
“Just over two years ago, the Church of England authorities hurriedly condemned George Bell because of claims that he had abused a child nearly 70 years ago. They paid money to the alleged victim. Bell, Bishop of Chichester and the leading British supporter of Christian resistance to Hitler, died in 1958. Many protested at the process by which Bell had been condemned. No contemporary documents seemed to have been studied and no surviving witnesses, such as his domestic chaplain, had been asked for their testimony. The mere accusation carried all before it. So great was the anger that the Archbishop of Canterbury courageously decided to review the decision to which he had been party and called in Lord Carlile QC to review the process which damned Bell. Lord Carlile reported in early October, and the steer was that the church would release his report roughly now. On Monday, however, a C of E press release said that the authorities ‘are at the stage of responding with feedback from those who contributed’. ‘This is the process with all independent reviews, there is a period of a few months between receiving the first draft and final publication,’ it explained. A few months! Obviously those criticised should be allowed to comment privately on what the report says, but there was only one accuser and only one supposed perpetrator. This is not the Chilcot report. Two thoughts occur. The first is that the delay strongly suggests that Lord Carlile has found the process to have been severely wanting. The second is that the ‘safeguarding’ team at the heart of the process are being much better safeguarded than ever poor Bell was” – Charles Moore
“What good is a church without justice? As Mrs Merton might have asked: ‘So, Archbishop Welby, why have you now sat for 50 whole days on a report which says the Church of England did a wrong and unjust thing?’ I am repeatedly disgusted by the way in which our country has forgotten the basic rules of English justice. And I have written before here about the case of George Bell, the saintly and brave Bishop of Chichester who repeatedly risked unpopularity rather than remain silent about wrongdoing. If only there were more like him. He died in 1958, much mourned. Yet two years ago, on the basis of a single uncorroborated accusation made many decades after the alleged crime, the Church of England publicly denounced him as a child abuser. Somehow, the allegation became a conviction and was blazed abroad on the BBC and in several newspapers which should have known better. Despite huge publicity nationally and locally, no other accusation has been made in the years since. I had long revered Bell’s memory, and, with several allies, sought to get justice for him. We found that he had been convicted by a slapdash and inconsiderate kangaroo court. They made no serious effort to consult Bell’s huge archive (or his biographer, who knew his way around it) to check the claims against it. They never found or warned Bell’s living niece, Barbara Whitley, who was astonished and appalled to see her uncle suddenly smeared in public, and is still livid. They never looked for or consulted Adrian Carey, Bell’s personal chaplain, who lived in the Bishop’s Palace at the time of the supposed crimes. We did. Until the day he died, Canon Carey rejected the charges as baseless and impossible. The Church’s main response was to accuse us, quite falsely, of attacking the complainant, which we never did. Then, very grudgingly, it announced a review. Then, with glacial slowness, it appointed a QC, Lord Carlile, to undertake it. Lord Carlile delivered his report on October 7. You can imagine what it says. The C of E is still making excuses for not publishing it. How quick they were to condemn another. How slow they are to admit their own fault. Publish it now” ~ Peter Hitchens
George Bell House – 4 Canon Lane – Chichester Cathedral – before the name change [Picture: Alamy]
Nov 29 2017 – From The Archives [April 2 2016] – The Bell Petition opens – “Justice for Bishop George Bell of Chichester – To: Archbishop of Canterbury” – Petition closed in Oct 2016 with 2169 signatures, and delivered to The Rt. Rev’d Nigel Stock at Lambeth Palace by Richard Symonds & Marilyn Billingham on October 19 2016]
Comments
It’s naive to imagine that good people can’t do bad things, of course, but there has to be evidence. In cases like this, it seems impossible to even obtain evidence, let alone determine guilt or innocence. And yes, it’s a very dangerous situation if we get to the stage where people are assumed to be guilty unless proven innocent.
Posted by: Persephone | 30 November 2017 at 12:02 PM
I have signed the petition. The C of E’s horrible statement irritated me because it referred to ‘Carol’ as ‘the survivor’, and did so over ten times. This is deeply wrong, and isn’t much different from a barrister referring to a defendant as ‘the murderer’. If such a thing happened, the judge would have something to say about that kind of language. The problem with it is obvious.
I suggest that everyone now refers to Bell’s reputation ‘as if’ it has been restored.
The damage to his reputation should be written and spoken about in the past tense. Can’t we should just assume this, as if it’s a given, as in ‘Now that Bell’s reputation is restored we can relax until the next attack on the presumption of innocence comes along…’ or something like that….
Posted by: John Aspinall | 30 November 2017 at 08:53 AM
It’s very important that when an organisation decides that someone is guilty without a fair hearing they are held to account for that decision.
Posted by: Jacob Chase | 29 November 2017 at 05:43 PM
14. Mr Martin Sewell (Rochester) asked the Chair of the House of Bishops: The
Terms of Reference of the Carlile Review provide that: “The Church of England will
determine whether the full report can be sufficiently redacted or otherwise anonymised to
enable its publication without risking disclosure of the complainant’s identity.”
So that there may be complete confidence in our transparency, how will it be ensured that
those whose original judgements may be criticised are suitably distanced from the
redaction of the report, and will Lord Carlile be free (should he so choose) to indicate
whether he agrees or disagrees with the redacted format when published?
The Bishop of Bath & Wells (Rt Revd Peter Hancock) replied on behalf of the Chair of the
House of Bishops: The redaction of the Carlile Review will be undertaken solely by
reference to the normal principles, including where appropriate the need to honour
assurances of confidentiality and to comply with the Data Protection Act. The redaction
will be overseen by the Secretary General to the Archbishops’ Council [William Nye – Ed] who was not involved in the decisions being evaluated by the Carlile Review. It will of course be
62 entirely up to Lord Carlile to state whether he agrees or disagrees with the format upon
publication.
Mr Martin Sewell: The Carlile Review arose partly because the Church allegedly used
victim confidentiality to shield its own self from criticism. The answer that you have given
refers to confidentiality assurances having been given in the plural. Is that intended to
imply that the complainant to the Bishop Bell case will not be alone in the witness
protection programme?
The Bishop of Bath & Wells: By now General Synod is aware that Martin Sewell knows
a lot more about the Lord Carlile Review process than I do. It is right that I do not know
that level of detail. Where there is an independent review, it is very important that I stand
– and others stand – back from it. I am here to help the archbishops and the House of
Bishops respond to those reviews. So the answer, Martin, is that I do not know the
answer to that very detailed question, but I will get a written reply for you.
Mr David Lamming (St Edmundsbury & Ipswich): In the light of the answer referring to
the redaction of the report being overseen by the Secretary General to the Archbishops’
Council [William Nye – Ed], are you able to give Synod a timetable as to when that is going to happen and when the report is to be published, particularly bearing in mind your answer to the last
question that it is to be considered at the next full meeting of the House of Bishops?
The Bishop of Bath & Wells: You are talking about the Lord Carlile Review?
Mr David Lamming: Yes.
The Bishop of Bath & Wells: My understanding is that the work of the review itself will be
completed by the end of this month. It will then be down to Lord Carlile when he publishes
the report. At the meeting on Thursday of the National Safeguarding Steering Group, we
will already be giving consideration as to how and when we might consider the report
when it is made available to us in order that there may not be any delay once the report
is published.
Dec 2 2017 [Postponed until Church releases Carlile Review] – “Bishop Bell and Re-Building Bridges” – Venue: Dresden and Bonhoeffer Rooms – 4 Canon Lane – George Bell House – Chichester – Keynote Speaker: Martin Sewell [General Synod Member and Child Protection Lawyer – Retd]
George Bell, Bishop of Chichester
The Portrait is, at present, in storage within the Cathedral Library
The Plaque below the Portrait reads:
“Bishop Bell has a worldwide reputation for his tireless work for international reconciliation, the arts, education, and church unity. The House that bears his name provides a place where work in these areas can continue and prosper. The generosity of an Anglican Order, the Community of the Servants of the Cross (CSC) has enabled the purchase of the House. Canon Peter Kefford (Treasurer of Chichester Cathedral 2003-2009) was the prime initiator in establishing George Bell House as a centre for Education, Vocation and Reconciliation”
Comments
“The Church of England is expected to publish tomorrow a long-awaited report into the handling of a sex abuse case involving a former Bishop of Chichester. The Church accepts the late Bishop George Bell abused a girl during the 1940’s and 50’s and has paid her compensation, but he never faced criminal charges. Today, a 1000 signature petition was delivered to Lambeth Palace, calling on the Church to publish its review, of the way the case was handled, as soon as possible”
“Moral, legal and common sense appears to have deserted the Church of England. The Presumption of Innocence has been described as ‘the golden thread that runs through British justice’. That thread was broken by the October Statement, and replaced with the Presumption of Guilt. The Media – including the BBC – assumed Bishop Bell’s guilt on the basis of the Church’s Statement, and their subsequent headlines reflected that assumption. No attempt was made by the Church, immediately after the headlines, to correct the media interpretation of the Statement. This would strongly suggest a Presumption of Guilt on the Church’s part towards Bishop Bell” – Richard W. Symonds
“For Bishop Bell’s reputation to be catastrophically affected in the way that occurred was just wrong” ~ Lord Carlile
“I am appalled by the Church’s behaviour, particularly by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s statement ‘there is still a cloud over George Bell’s name’. They should admit entirely what they did was wrong. They dragged his reputation through the dirt, and they should now ‘make of penitential efforts’ – to use a term they will be familiar with – to put right what they have done” ~ Peter Hitchens
Dr Ruth Hildebrandt Grayson, the daughter of Bishop Bell’s friend Franz Hildebrandt, said Bishop Bell’s family deserved a personal apology from the Archbishop and the Bishop of Chichester.
“The Church can’t have its cake and eat it. Either he is innocent, in which case they must apologise, or he is guilty, which they can’t prove, and the report makes clear that they have not proved,” she told this newspaper.
Professor Andrew Chandler, Bell’s biographer, said the Archbishop’s statement was “wrong” and “illogical”.
“It fails a basic test of rational justice,”he said. “It lacks an understanding of all kinds of dimensions which require compassion, not least in Chichester, where people feel deeply upset by this.”
“Hung out to dry,” those are the words of Lord Carlile in his judgment on how the Church of England authorities treated Bishop George Bell
The Church operated a kangaroo court. Here are the facts…
Bishop George Bell (1883-1958), Bishop of Chichester, has been judged and condemned without any case brought for his defence. An elderly woman came forward in 1995 and claimed that Bishop Bell had sexually abused her fifty years earlier. The authorities took no action. The woman complained again in 2013, by which time Bishop Bell had been dead for fifty-five years. The police concluded that there was sufficient evidence to justify their questioning Bishop Bell, had he been still alive. Martin Warner, Bishop of Chichester, discussed the matter with Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and in 2015 the Church of England offered a formal apology to Bishop Bell’s accuser, paid her an undisclosed sum in compensation – now revealed to have been £31,000 – and allowed her to remain anonymous. Memorials to Bishop Bell were removed and institutions – such as the Bishop Bell School, Eastbourne – changed their names.
Unsurprisingly, there was outrage. On 13th November 2015, Judge Alan Pardoe QC described the way the allegations against Bishop Bell had been handled as “slipshod and muddled.” Judge Pardoe’s criticisms were followed by further censure from a group of historians and theologians led by Jeremy Morris, Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
The Bishop of Chichester replied with insouciance and a volley of jargon to these criticisms: “The Church is seeking to move on from a culture in which manipulation of power meant that victims were too afraid to make allegations, or allegations were easily dismissed. We must provide safeguards of truth and justice for all, victim and accused alike.”
But there were no “safeguards of truth and justice” for Bishop Bell who was condemned without a hearing.
The outrage did not subside and a committee of senior church people, distinguished lawyers and members of both the Lords and the Commons calling itself The George Bell Group was formed. On 20thMarch 2016, this group published a review in which they challenged the Church’s evidence against Bishop Bell and attacked it for failing to find or interview a key witness or examine Bell’s own extensive personal archive.
On 30th June 2016, the case formed a large part of a debate in the House of Lords on historical child sex abuse.
On 28th June 2016, the Church of England announced that it would hold an independent review of the procedure used. On 22nd November 2016 it announced that Lord Carlile QC would chair this review
Meanwhile, the George Bell Group declared that they had discovered in the Church’s initial case against Bishop Bell “…enough to establish its severe limitations which render it quite inadequate as a basis for assessing the probability of Bishop Bell’s guilt. The scope of the independent experts’ inquiries was limited to a degree that made a proper analysis of the complainant’s allegations virtually impossible. What is more, little or no respect seems to have been paid to the unheard interests of Bishop Bell or his surviving family – a serious breach of natural justice.”
“In view of the evidence that we have gathered and examined, we have concluded that the allegation made against Bishop Bell cannot be upheld in terms of actual evidence or historical probability.”
Lord Carlile’s report was handed to the Church authorities two months ago and they kicked it into the long grass until last Friday.
So much for Bishop Martin Warner’s vaunted “…safeguards of truth and justice for all, victim and accused alike.” All along, the only interests being safeguarded here were those of the Church’s highest authorities in Chichester and Canterbury. We know very well why these authorities leapt so precipitately to condemn Bishop Bell out of hand: it was because they had previously had to admit to the existence of so many perpetrators of sexual abuse among the senior clergy they wanted desperately to appear to be doing something.
Thus the reputation of Bishop George Bell was tarnished because the Church’s highest authorities are seeking to cover their own backs.
Let us be in no doubt as to the seriousness of the Church’s conduct so eloquently set out in Lord Carlile’s report. To that phrase “hung out to dry,” he adds that the Church’s procedures were “deficient, inappropriate and impermissible”; “obvious lines of enquiry were not followed” and there was “a rush to judgement.”
In the light of this scandalously incompetent behaviour, the least that might be expected from the Archbishop of Canterbury is a profuse apology to Bishop Bell’s descendants, family, friends and numerous supporters for the distress his decisions have caused them. Is such an apology forthcoming? It is not. Instead Justin Welby persists in his mood of arrogant vindictiveness, saying, “……..A significant cloud is left over George Bell’s name. No human being is entirely good or bad. Bishop Bell was in many ways a hero. He is also accused of great wickedness. Good acts do not diminish evil ones…”
This is outrageous. True, Bishop Bell was “accused of great wickedness” – but he was not found guilty of any wrongdoing. And there is no “significant cloud” over his name. There is, however, certainly a very dark cloud over Welby’s name after his lamentable performance in this matter.
Well, there is still time: a whole week in which Justin Welby has opportunity to make his Confession before he celebrates Christmas Holy Communion.
“I see the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has been complaining about ‘fake news’. As well he might, since ‘fake news’ is a good description of the statement which Archbishop Welby’s church put out to the media, insinuating incorrectly that the late George Bell was a child molester.
Lord Carlile has now produced a devastating report which shows that statement was full of false claims. It said Bishop Bell would have been arrested if he’d still been alive, when he wouldn’t have been. It said there had been a thorough investigation, when there hadn’t been.
It said experts had found no reason to doubt the charges, when one expert most definitely had found such a reason and clearly said so.
Yet despite this total demolition of a case that any court would have thrown out, Archbishop Welby continues to claim (more fake news?) that there is a ‘cloud’ over George Bell’s name, like some dim wiseacre in a pub, utterly defeated in an argument by facts and logic, intoning doggedly that ‘there’s no smoke without fire’.
The only cloud over Bishop Bell’s name hangs there because Justin Welby’s pride prevents him from admitting he got it wrong. He knows what he needs to do” – Peter Hitchens
“No doubt there will be people who are going to think there is no smoke without fire. I can do nothing about that except to say such an attitude would be wrong” – Judge David Clarke (on the David Jones case)
2018
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/5-january/comment/letters-to-the-editor/letters-to-the-editor
From Mr David Lamming – Lay Member of General Synod
Sir, — Lord Carlile’s report of his review of the handling by the Church of England of the claim by “Carol” that she was sexually abused by the late Bishop George Bell (News, 15 December) is devastating in its criticisms of the Core Group that agreed the settlement with the claimant (involving the payment of £16,800 damages plus £15,000 costs). Utterly demolishing the claim (made in the statement announcing the settlement on 22 October 2015) that “the settlement followed a thorough pre-litigation process,” he shows that it was anything but “thorough”. Moreover, the statement disingenuously claimed that this included the commissioning of expert independent reports “none of [which] found any reason to doubt the veracity of the claim”.
Although, as he is careful to point out, Lord Carlile’s terms of reference did not include making a finding as to the truth or otherwise of Carol’s claim, the extracts that he publishes from the report of Professor Maden (commissioned by the Core Group), far from showing no reason to doubt Carol’s claim, give every reason to doubt it.
The obvious conclusion (or it should have been obvious to the bishops who commented publicly on the Carlile report) ought to be that if the investigative process was so fundamentally flawed, any finding, explicit or implicit, that Bell committed the alleged abuse cannot stand, with the consequence that the important presumption of innocence (for some reason, pejoratively described as “emotive” by the Bishop of Chichester in his public statement) applies, in the same way as it would apply to a defendant whose criminal conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal on the basis of a finding that he had not had a fair trial.
According to the General Synod timetable issued on 14 December (the day before publication of the Carlile report), “Safeguarding” is to be the subject of a “Presentation under SO 107 — with Q&A” on the morning of Saturday 10 February. In the light of Lord Carlile’s report, that is not good enough. Time must be found for a proper debate when the issues arising from the report, and its implications for the Church and the National Safeguarding Team, can be properly discussed.
From the Revd Alan F. Jesson
Sir, — Shakespeare had Mark Antony say of Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interrèd with their bones.” Comments from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the current Bishop of Chichester ensure that this is also shamefully applied to Bishop Bell.
It also raises another important point, which seems to have been overlooked.
I have read Lord Carlile’s report, and the Annexes thereto, and, in the light of the botched inquiries of the Core Group (I cannot call them incomplete), it seems that, if Bishop Bell is innocent, as circumstances suggest, and if “Carol” is truthful, as the Core Group assume them to be, then clearly there must be somebody who has escaped any consequence of his actions.
The comments from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the current Bishop of Chichester render it imperative that a full independent investigation is urgently but thoroughly undertaken.
That tired cliché “Lessons learned” is too often an excuse for little further action. In justice to Bishop Bell, this must not happen.
The Seven Resolutions
1. Archbishop Justin Welby to apologise for his “significant cloud” comment concerning Bishop Bell. Any effective ‘rebuilding of bridges’ is almost impossible without this Apology.
2. Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner to invite Barbara Whitley, Bishop Bell’s niece, for a “face-to-face” meeting [she has already requested such a meeting]. The Bishop of Chichester has already met ‘Carol’.
3. Chichester Cathedral’s Dean and Chapter to restore 4 Canon Lane back to George Bell House – and to invite Lord Rowan Williams to re-dedicate the new plaque at George Bell House.
4. Chichester Cathedral’s Chancellor and Canon Librarian, Revd Dr Anthony Cane, to permit the display of Bishop Bell’s Portrait (in storage within the Cathedral Library) at Church House on Feb 1.
5. Chichester Cathedral’s Dean, The Very Reverend Stephen Waine, to correct Page 37 of the Cathedral Guide “Society and Faith”:
6. General Synod to undertake a Full Debate at the earliest opportunity, regarding the serious implications arising from Lord Carlile’s report.
7. Prayer
“Both Archbishop Welby and Bishop Hancock just don’t seem to get it, do they? There seems to be a moral blindspot in their ecclesiastical eyes. Is it a simple case of Matthew 7 v 5 about removing that mighty plank out of one’s own eye before taking that speck out of someone else’s? Can’t believe it’s just a simple case of a wilful ‘hardness of heart’. I’m all too aware about the dangers of pointing a finger when three are pointing back at me, but I’m really left scratching my head. Elton John was right: ‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word'” – Richard W. Symonds
“It was a real pleasure meeting you as I was making my way to Gatwick. I have registered on your forum although unsure of what I can do to help, but after listening to you and the carriage of injustice which befalls a man, George Bell who cannot defend himself and voice his innocence is a worthy and just cause…Very little the Archbishop of Canterbury can do now with the enormity of what has been released aside from perhaps do the right thing which is resign!“ – David to Richard
I have been angered this week to see the response of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to the George Bell case. Mr. Welby has long made it known that he does not wish to uphold the presumption of innocence and this mealy-mouthed statement to a group of leading historians and theologians only confirms this.
He seeks to right the wrongs of the past by digging in his heels against the finding of a report that he commissioned. Rather than do that which Our Lord commands of us, to repent of our sins, he has plunged his fingers into his ears and proceeded to shout over these seekers of justice.
I’ve written before about the anarchic state of justice in Britain and how this is failing to serve our society. But it should be a given that the leaders of the Established Church will do all in their power to uphold that which is right. Instead, his pride and arrogance have gotten in the way and Mr. Welby is unfit to sit on that ancient and hallowed throne.
The excellent Peter Hitchens has proved to be a great advocate for the George Bell Group, as has the wonderful Archbishop Cranmer. You should read their accounts of this disgraceful event. I urge you to do what you can to support this vital campaign, for one day it could be your memory that is trashed to provide an easy get-out for a cowardly, lifeless bureaucracy.
Mr. Welby can save what is left of his reputation if he does the right thing now and then resign, because in the end “people care more about the late, great George Bell than they probably ever will about Justin Welby.”
Why is that? Because Bell did good and was good. I’m sure that Welby is a decent and kind man, but he seems to be proud and unwilling to do what all of us must. His grey administration of the dying Church of England is leaving it mired in scandal. It should not end this way, but it might.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby
The importance of Bishop George Bell
Bishop George Bell (1883 – 1958) is famed for being one of the first to speak out against the dangers Hitler posed in the 1930s and for saving many lives during these years by guaranteeing refugees from Germany. He was one of the few to condemn our government’s obliteration bombing of German cities during the Second World War. He has been, and is, a revered and respected figure.
In 1995 (37 years after he had died) a complaint was made that Bell had abused a child in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The complaint was not passed to the police at the time but was passed to them when the complaint was repeated in 2013. The Church paid compensation to the complainant in 2015 and in 2016 the Church of England commissioned Lord Carlile to review their procedures concerning the investigation into the case. The resulting review was scathing in its criticism of the Church’s handling of the allegations against Bell. Lord Carlile concludes “The Core Group was set up in an unmethodical and unplanned way, with neither terms of reference nor any clear direction as to how it would operate. As a result, it became a confused and unstructured process, as several members confirmed” and “There was no organised or valuable inquiry or investigation into the merits of the allegations, and the standpoint of Bishop Bell was never given parity or proportionality.”
In spite of Carlile’s criticisms the Church remains undeterred in holding Bell responsible. Bell’s name stays removed from buildings, colleges and institutions and his reputation traduced. The problems inherent in a system, like the Church, concerning safeguarding and issues of justice affect all who work or are involved in a church. The case concerning Bishop George Bell has highlighted the flaws and gives no assurance that justice will be done for the accused as well as for the complainant.
As the George Bell Group writes, “Lord Carlile’s report has now left the Church with many searching questions, including how best to remedy the many defects in the current Practice Guidance so as to ensure that such an injustice can never recur.” Unfortunately this injustice is already happening to innocent people in the Church.
Lucy
Feb 1 2018 – ‘Rebuilding Bridges’ Morning Conference – Church House Westminster
http://rebuildingbridges.org.uk/
Speaker on Feb 1: Revd Dr Jules Gomes
Feb 2 2018 – “Bishops try to blow up bridge, as George Bell Conference tries to build bridge” – David W. Virtue, DD
View story at Medium.com
Feb 4 2018 – Events in Chichester to mark the 135th Anniversary of the birth of George Bell, Bishop of Chichester
Feb 12 2018 – “Church of England bullies George Bell’s elderly niece by denying her choice of lawyer” – Martin Sewell writes here.
“No doubt there will be people who are going to think there is no smoke without fire. I can do nothing about that except to say such an attitude would be wrong” – Judge David Clarke (on the David Jones case)
“We have to…be genuinely transparent and honest, and we have to be repentant”
– Archbishop Justin Welby
“I’m afraid this makes me reach for my ecclesiastical sick bowl – especially after reading Matthew 7 v 5 this morning…all about taking the log out of one’s own eye before taking the speck out of someone else’s. I am acutely aware when I point a finger there are three pointing back at me – but this is beyond hypocrisy”
~ Richard W. Symonds – The Bell Society
Page 129 -Paras. 2-19 – Fiona Scolding QC: “…this is not simply an issue of attitude but of competence too. This is a point which has been made powerfully by Martin Sewell, who is both a lay member of the General Synod and a retired child protection lawyer. He points out that diocesan staff are typically trained in theology and Canon law, not in safeguarding or child protection law. As a result, he says, many of those making a decision about safeguarding in the Church of England have no credible claim to expertise in this increasingly complex situation. Interestingly, Mr Sewell makes that point both in relation to the treatment of complainants of abuse, but also in regard to the mishandling, in his view, of the George Bell case. He sees the failings on both of those aspects as two sides of the same coin, a fundamental problem, in his view, being a lack of competence and specialist knowledge, particularly legal knowledge and experience gained in a practical safeguarding context”
“The Church of England considered itself above the law and only accountable to God…”
Page 154 – Paras 1-25 – Roger Meekings: There are one or two things I would like to say, chair. I think there have been a number of crises and difficulties that the Church of England have experienced, and I think it probably is time for some fairly radical action to be taken by the church, and I know they are thinking carefully about that, but I think my problem is the amount of time it does seem to be taking. I would like to ask a question, really, about whether they should be stripped of their exemption under the Equality Act to help stamp out a culture of abuse and homophobia and sexism, because under the 2010 Act, the church, as a religious institution, has special permission to insist that those it appoints are Christians, but it can also discriminate over sex, sexuality, marital history and gender identity if they conflict with strongly held religious convictions.
Secondly, I would probably support the development now of an independent safeguarding body. Operationally, I’m surprised that the church has not already set up a national database to record cases of concern and to upload case notes and allow a proper audit trail. I think I said in my witness statement I think that the Clergy Discipline Measure does require a complete overhaul to be able to hold people to account.
March 9 2018 – From The Archives – May 23 2016 – “Spotlight” DVD Film release in the UK [Boston Globe investigation of Child Sexual Abuse in Roman Catholic Church]
“A small team of investigative journalists at the Boston Globe (US) – known as ‘Spotlight’ – investigate allegations of sex abuse within the Catholic Church, and expose the scandal that the Archdiocese of Boston knew of the abuse, but did nothing – or not enough – to stop it. Disturbing parallels with the Church of England’s Diocese of Chichester” – Richard W. Symonds
March 10 2018 – Psychotherapist Anthony Stadlen on Bishop Bell and ‘Carol’: “It is not at all easy to find the right words to respect both the presumption of the Bishop’s innocence until proven guilty, and the presumption of Carol’s integrity of character and memory until proven otherwise”
Bishop George Bell and the Carlile Report
Mr David Lamming (St Edmundsbury and Ipswich) to move:
That this Synod,
(a) express its appreciation to Lord Carlile of Berriew CBE QC for his thorough review of the way the Church of England dealt with a complaint of sexual abuse made by a woman known as ‘Carol’ against the late Bishop George Bell;
(b) acknowledge and accept unreservedly the serious criticisms of the investigation carried out by the Core Group charged with investigating the complaint, as set out by Lord Carlile in his conclusions at paragraph 254 of his report, dated 15 December 2017 [GS Misc 1173];
(c) note that the effect of those conclusions can only be that the process was so fundamentally flawed that any finding, explicit or implicit, that Bishop Bell committed the alleged acts of sexual abuse, cannot stand or be sustained, regardless of the fact that determining the guilt or innocence of Bishop Bell was excluded from Lord Carlile’s terms of reference;
(d) accordingly, acknowledge that Bishop Bell’s reputation as one of the great bishops of the Church of England is restored untarnished;
(e) regret the distress caused both to Bishop Bell’s surviving relative and to ‘Carol’ by the Core Group’s inadequate investigation;
(f) regret that the statement made by the Church of England on 22 October 2015, announcing the settlement of a civil claim by Carol against the current Bishop of Chichester was, as is now revealed to be the case by Lord Carlile, both inaccurate (in stating that the settlement followed a “thorough” pre-litigation process) and disingenuous (in stating that none of the expert independent reports commissioned “found any reason to doubt the veracity of [Carol’s] claim”);
(g) regret that the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his public statement on 15 December 2017 following the publication of the Carlile report,
(i) failed to acknowledge expressly that the process was so fundamentally flawed;
(ii) failed to accept Lord Carlile’s recommendation that where, as in the case of Bishop Bell, a settlement is made without admission of liability, it should generally be with a confidentiality provision, and
(iii) stated that “a significant cloud” was left over Bishop Bell’s name, when the only basis for such statement was a single uncorroborated allegation, first made over 40 years after the alleged events, when Professor Anthony Maden (the expert instructed by the Core Group) had said that “memory is not reliable over such long periods of time” and that “after so many years there is no way of determining without reference to corroborating information whether or not recall is accurate”;
(h) accordingly, call upon the Archbishop to retract that particular statement; and
(i) call upon those institutions that responded to the Church’s statement of 22 October 2015 by writing Bishop Bell out of their history, to reinstate Bell’s name and restore him to their historical narrative.
February 2018
“…the damning extent of dysfunctionality and chaos in the diocese of Chichester was laid bare at the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse today” – Harry Farley
“The area which he [Lord Carlile] has rightly…identified is that there was nobody there [in the Core Group] to speak for Bishop Bell, and that, again…is something that I think was wrong…” ~ The Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner – Day 8 IICSA Inquiry – Chichester 14 March 2018 – Page 21 Paras 14-18
Fiona Scolding QC and Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner
Q. Can I turn now to the allegations made against
3 George Bell. An independent review was published
4 in December by Lord Carlile of Berriew. Paul, would you
5 mind getting that up? It is not in your bundle, chair
6 and panel, so we will get it up on screen. ANG000152,
7 Paul. Then we need page 64, which should be section K.
8 This is some conclusions that I am going to ask you
9 to comment upon that Lord Carlile made in respect of
10 the core group.
11 Maybe if I explain, what happened in respect of
12 the George Bell case is that something called a core
13 group was set up, which was a group of individuals. Did
14 that include you? I can’t actually remember?
15 A. I was present at some meetings, but not at others.
16 Q. So there were a number of people — so Colin Perkins was
17 involved, and we will hear some quite detailed evidence
18 from him about his view about the Carlile Report. So
19 I am not going to take you through it in any detail.
20 I just want to deal with this bit, as you were a member
21 of the core group at some point in time.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. They met regularly in order to, firstly, investigate,
24 and, secondly, to reach conclusions.
25 There is criticism of the core group. It is
Page 20
1 described by Lord Carlile as “unmethodical and
2 unplanned” and “it was a confused and unstructured
3 process at which members had no coherent notion of their
4 roles and what was expected of them”. Would you like to
5 comment upon that? Is that your understanding?
6 A. These are stringent and harsh observations which largely
7 we accept. We were in a situation here of breaking new
8 ground. The formation of a core group was something
9 which we were unfamiliar with, which has subsequently
10 been regulated for us, and we were also, of course, very
11 aware of working in the context of a serious criminal
12 allegation against a person of a massive international
13 and national reputation.
14 So I think the failures of consistency, of sense of
15 purpose and how we were to function, those
16 allegations — those criticisms are valid against us.
17 I don’t think, however, that that means we were
18 cavalier or unaware of the seriousness of
19 the responsibilities that we were trying to carry out.
20 Q. Paul, could we turn to the next page, because that’s in
21 fact where my quotation comes from. Yes. So we have
22 254(i). The other matter I want to put to you is, it
23 further comments down at (v):
24 “There was no organised or valuable enquiry or
25 investigation into the merits of the allegations, and
Day 8 IICSA Inquiry – Chichester 14 March 2018
6 (Pages 21 to 24)
Page 21
1 the standpoint of Bishop Bell was never given parity or
2 proportionality.”
3 What is your response to that?
4 A. The question of an organised or valuable inquiry is
5 something of a value judgment, I think, and we certainly
6 didn’t feel that there was no serious inquiry into that
7 which was undertaken through our insurers and their
8 legal representative in whom we had considerable trust
9 and regard and who Lord Carlile also recognises as
10 a responsible and able person.
11 I see him to say that the standpoint of Bishop Bell
12 was never given parity or proportionality. It was
13 certainly given proportionality. We understood
14 absolutely that was the case. I think the area which
15 he’s rightly also identified is that there was nobody
16 there to speak for Bishop Bell, and that, again, with
17 the benefit of hindsight, is something that I think was
18 wrong and we have welcomed —
19 Q. That’s (ix), chair and panel, just so that you know.
20 A. We would recognise it would represent best practice now
21 in the ways in which we have outlined our procedures.
22 Q. Can I ask, why was the decision taken to issue a public
23 statement about the George Bell case, because that’s
24 something that Lord Carlile does also critique?
25 A. Yes.
Page 22
1 Q. Perhaps you would like to explain?
2 A. We were very aware of working in the light of
3 the recommendations in the interim report of
4 the archbishop’s commissaries, which had been very clear
5 that no settlement with a survivor should include
6 a gagging clause. Of course you could say there’s
7 a difference between a gagging clause and making
8 a public statement, but it was very strongly felt that
9 to settle and to write a letter of apology and to make
10 no public statement, with no indication as to whether or
11 not those actions would become public, would look very
12 quickly like coverup. Therefore, we felt that there was
13 an obligation on us to be open about what it was that we
14 were proposing to do.
15 Q. If I can just identify that Lord Carlile at
16 paragraphs 267 and 268 of his report — ANG000152, Paul,
17 at page 68, says:
18 “I am sure that the archbishop does not think it
19 appropriate to support the publication of what may be an
20 unjustified and probably irreparable criticism of
21 anyone, whether a celebrated bishop or not.”
22 And at 268:
23 “I regard this as a case, perhaps a relatively rare
24 one, in which steps should and could have been taken to
25 retain full confidentiality, with a clear underlying
Page 23
1 basis for explaining why it was done. For Bishop Bell’s
2 reputation to be catastrophically affected in the way
3 that occurred was just wrong.”
4 Do you have any comment you wish to make about that?
5 A. The first comment I would want to make is that, I think
6 we have learnt a painful lesson about the difficulty of
7 communicating through the media a very fine legal
8 nuance, and it’s recognised by Lord Carlile that we
9 never asserted the guilt of Bishop Bell, but to
10 communicate that in terms that the general public are
11 going to understand through the media is a very
12 difficult thing to do. Therefore, I think he does raise
13 an important question here about dealing with posthumous
14 cases, but also about being fair, I think, and
15 recognising the legitimacy and substance to an
16 allegation which we certainly felt was necessary with
17 Carol, the name that’s used for the person who brought
18 the case.
19 Q. Can we turn now, if we may, to another topic
Q. Can I ask you now — I think begin to ask you — about
25 the situation in respect of Bishop George Bell. You
Page 184
1 have provided a — you provided some details about it
2 within your first witness statement. But you also have
3 a supplementary statement in which you comment upon your
4 views about the report of Lord Carlile of Berriew.
5 I want to mainly take you, because I will say again, as
6 I have said several times, we are not interested in the
7 truth or otherwise of the allegations concerning
8 George Bell. I also understand from information which
9 has been — which is in the public domain that there is
10 another allegation. I will not be asking you about
11 that.
12 So if I can just identify, what happened in respect
13 of the George Bell case is that there was a core group,
14 you were part of that core group, consistently, which
15 was set up. What was your understanding of the purpose
16 of the core group?
17 A. If I may, I should say that the core group first met
18 13 months after the first email from Carol came in. She
19 emailed initially to Lambeth Palace April 2013. That
20 was forwarded to me.
21 Q. I think you set out — I don’t think we need to turn it
22 up, but paragraphs 392 to 398, chair and panel, of
23 the statement deal with what steps were taken.
24 A. Exactly. So the steps were essentially to offer support
25 and Gemma Wordsworth was the person who was doing all of
Day 9 IICSA Inquiry – Chichester 15 March 2018
Page 185
1 that throughout the rest of 2013, and actually
2 throughout.
3 A civil claim was entered in I believe it was early
4 2014 and the core group was essentially — I think it
5 met in early — in May 2014, essentially to respond to
6 the matters arising from that. I don’t think we
7 initially called it a core group, because practice
8 guidance was still emerging at the time. So it was
9 effectively a meeting between key diocesan and national
10 personnel. It became called the core group because that
11 was the term in the emerging guidance. But I don’t
12 think it was initially called one.
13 Q. At paragraph 6 of your supplementary witness statement,
14 which is, just for the record, ACE0262843_003, chair and
15 panel, of that document, you refer to three documents:
16 a briefing note; a George Bell review timeline of key
17 decisions; and a safeguarding timeline overview.
18 Now, if we could get the first one of those up,
19 ACE026290. So this is the briefing note that took place
20 prior to the first core group meeting, which, as you
21 have said, wasn’t actually called that, in May 2014, and
22 this was just to inform everybody about the nature of
23 the case?
24 A. Yeah, myself and Gemma wrote this to make sure that
25 everyone in the meeting had an appraisal of where
Page 186
1 things — where we were at.
2 Q. Just to — I mean, I think everyone is familiar probably
3 in this room with the allegations in respect of
4 George Bell, but there was an allegation made by Carol
5 of inappropriate touching in the late 1950s. It would
6 appear that the complainant wrote to Eric Kemp in 1995.
7 That letter was on a file. That was then not
8 discovered. Then she then wrote again in 2013 to
9 Lambeth Palace and it was then discovered that the
10 letter had taken place in 1995 and that matters then
11 progressed from there. But it does appear that the file
12 had not been subject to the 2008/2009 past cases review.
13 A. That’s so.
14 Q. I understand there is some reference in one of
15 the documents — and I’m afraid I couldn’t find it —
16 that somebody called it — it was found in the “naughty
17 boys’ cabinet” or something like that. What is that?
18 A. Gosh, that’s an unfortunate phrase, isn’t it?
19 Q. Yes.
20 A. In the corridor in Bishop’s Palace, there is a cabinet
21 to the right which is effectively closed disciplinary
22 cases, so that’s — someone has called it the “naughty
23 boys’ cabinet”. So that’s what’s in there.
24 Q. I understand the reference, if we want to see it, is
25 ANG000030_017 to 018. Thank you, Mr Greenwood.
Page 187
1 A. Opposite that is a cabinet of largely administrative
2 files that are nothing to do with personnel; maybe to do
3 with a particular trust or a particular building. Upon
4 receiving Carol’s letter, Gemma and I went to the palace
5 to see if we could find, well, anything on George Bell,
6 and so we happened to look in that cabinet, not really
7 expecting —
8 Q. Is that the “naughty boys’ cabinet” or the trust deed
9 cabinet, so to speak?
10 A. No, I would have already seen it if it was in the
11 disciplinary cabinet, because I’d gone through that when
12 I first arrived —
13 Q. Right.
14 A. — for obvious reasons. The administrative cabinet, we
15 found just a loose manila folder of — that contained
16 almost all correspondence about George Bell. It was
17 things to do with the 50th anniversary of his death. It
18 was largely people writing in, “I was visiting the
19 cathedral. I was thinking about George Bell and his
20 work in World War II”, et cetera, et cetera. It was
21 that kind of material. We really therefore had no
22 expectation of finding anything, and then we did find
23 this letter from 1995 and the associated material.
24 Q. So this briefing note was given to everyone. Could we
25 just look briefly through the briefing note. Can you
Page 188
1 just talk us through it. I don’t think you need to talk
2 us through — could we go to — is it just one page or
3 does it go over to the next page? It goes over to the
4 next page. Right. It sets out basically the
5 chronology, what’s happened when and the fact that there
6 have been some difficulties. Is that right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. There is then a timeline of key decisions. So this was
9 prepared in advance of a review meeting held
10 in June 2016. This is ACE026297, tab 50.
11 I’m assuming that this is prepared for
12 Lord Carlile’s benefit?
13 A. Not — sorry, not at that point, no. This was the
14 meeting at Lambeth Palace, as far as I remember, this
15 was the meeting at which it was decided to commission
16 a review which then was the review that Lord Carlile was
17 asked to do. So this was that meeting. He hadn’t been
18 asked.
19 Q. Do you mind, Paul, if we just switch forward slightly on
20 this. There is more than one page. In other words,
21 it’s a chronology which says what happened when. So
22 you’ve got “Email” and then “Detail and comment” and
23 then where it comes from; is that right?
24 A. Exactly.
25 Q. Thank you very much. The third document is
Page 189
1 “Safeguarding timeline overview”, which is, again,
2 another summary also produced for the June 2016 meeting.
3 That’s ACE026288, please, Paul. Again, what’s this?
4 A. I think it — I believe it was a summary of the previous
5 documents.
6 Q. So this is kind of, “We know that some people are not
7 going to read the entire document, so I’m going to give
8 you the headlines”?
9 A. Essentially.
10 Q. An executive summary, I believe is the word that’s
11 usually used?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. That’s fine. Can you describe the approach that you
14 considered what then became known as the core group were
15 taking when they were looking at the situation in
16 respect of Carol? I mean, you detail this in your
17 submission to Lord Carlile in July 2017, but it would be
18 useful to have that precised, really?
19 A. Yes, I’m trying to think how to precis it. The approach
20 of the core group was — it was effectively to — or the
21 approach of the meeting that became the core group was
22 effectively to decide how to respond to the perhaps
23 fairly unique situation we were presented with. As
24 I said, by that point, support to Carol had been offered
25 for over a year. She’d spoken to the police. There’d
Page 190
1 been some counselling provided, and so on and so forth.
2 But I suppose it was the situation that really arose
3 from the receipt of the civil claim, and it was — we
4 were very mindful of —
5 Q. Can I just check. In fact, the civil claim — one of
6 the difficulties with the Carol situation is the fact
7 that the church is not insured in claims against
8 bishops — well, I think it probably is now but it
9 wouldn’t have been at the relevant time that the
10 insurance arose?
11 A. Yes, and that was, I think, one of the prompts for that
12 meeting. I think that for me that is an essential part
13 of understanding what happened here, that we were in
14 a very unusual situation of a civil claim coming in that
15 was uninsured, and, therefore, it wasn’t clear to whom
16 that effectively — to whom the liability belonged.
17 I should say, as I think I allude to in my
18 supplementary statement, there was a backdrop here, and
19 the backdrop was that we would also — well, the church,
20 that any civil claim with regards to Peter Ball would
21 have been in that same position.
22 I wasn’t involved in any of the discussions around
23 this, but I was aware that discussions were taking
24 place, that there could have been a very —
25 a potentially large number of civil claims coming in
Page 191
1 from around Peter Ball that would have also been
2 uninsured. So I think — as I said, I wasn’t involved
3 in any of those conversations, but there was an
4 awareness that any decision made around the George Bell
5 claim, there was a wider context.
6 Q. The approach that you have taken may — some people may
7 perceive it as a “believe anyone” approach. What were
8 you trying to do, or what do you think the core group
9 was trying to do? Because obviously Lord Carlile
10 thought that you were approaching it in the same way as
11 you would approach any other civil claim, so you were
12 trying to make a decision, you know, “Should this
13 individual be believed on the balance of probabilities
14 or shouldn’t they?” Was that the aim and objective of
15 the core group?
16 A. If I could just take those points in order?
17 Q. Of course.
18 A. In terms of the “believe anyone” approach, that’s
19 actually never been the approach that — I can only
20 speak for my team, but that — said in those terms, it
21 sounds quite pejorative. It sounds quite —
22 Q. That’s —
23 A. No, no —
24 Q. I’m saying it to challenge you.
25 A. I understand.
Page 192
1 Q. Because that’s what critics of it would say?
2 A. Exactly. So I understand the caricaturing of that kind
3 of approach is a sort of naive, believing anyone no
4 matter how fantastical the allegation, that has never
5 been the approach of my team. But the approach of my
6 team has very much been a willingness to take very
7 seriously anyone making an allegation and to offer the
8 support that would be offered essentially if the
9 allegation is true. So it’s not assessing the
10 allegation before support is offered, but it’s
11 essentially offering the support on the assumption that
12 it could be true. I’m probably articulating that quite
13 badly, but that’s the approach of my team.
14 In terms of, by the time the core group met, we were
15 aware that the civil claim would have to be assessed, so
16 almost by definition, the core group didn’t meet with
17 that kind of “believe anyone” approach because it was
18 meeting to start thinking about how were we going to
19 assess that claim.
20 Q. But was it meant to be an investigative process, kind of
21 a way of saying — or was it — I mean, please explain?
22 A. Yes. The first meeting, May 2014, was essentially, how
23 are we going to proceed? The second meeting, I believe
24 it was in July 2014, was — the advice received from the
25 lawyer who — the lawyer who was acting in the civil
Page 193
1 claim, although by that point it wasn’t entirely clear
2 who was instructing her because of this concern about
3 with whom did liability rest, but the lawyer acting in
4 that situation effectively — we were quite soon getting
5 into conversations about, should there be some kind of
6 publicity, should there be some kind of, you know,
7 acknowledgement that this claim or this allegation has
8 been made against this huge historical figure, and her
9 advice was very clear: you don’t have much ability to
10 test the claim, because it’s so old, but you do have —
11 sorry, to test the allegation, but you do have a civil
12 claim, so if you were to go public in any way before you
13 have tested that claim, before that claim is settled or
14 resolved, then you will be open to, you know, exactly
15 the kind of allegation of, “Well, you just — you know,
16 you jumped the gun”. So her advice was, allow this
17 claim to run, effectively; let’s do all of the things we
18 normally do in civil claims, instruct psychiatrists and
19 verify what can be verified and so on and so forth.
20 Once that is done, if the claim is settled, then
21 consider what to do about publicity.
22 So that’s what happened.
Really, looking back, we’d
23 all acknowledge that I think this was where the problem
24 arose, that at that point, very unusually indeed, the
25 core group became quite intricately involved with the
1 civil claim and the response to the civil claim —
2 perhaps not quite that they became synonymous, but it
3 was getting there. I think we’d all look back and say
4 that should have been held much more separately.
Page 94
5 MS SCOLDING: I don’t know whether, chair, this might be an
6 appropriate moment to break, because I’m about to start
7 on the response to the Carlile Report which I think will
8 take us past a reasonable hour. So I don’t know whether
9 now might be an appropriate moment?
10 THE CHAIR: Yes, thank you very much. Thank you very much,
11 Mr Perkins.
12 MS SCOLDING: Don’t forget, Mr Perkins, you are under oath.
13 Thank you.
14 (4.24 pm)
15 (The hearing was adjourned until
16 Friday, 16 March 2018 at 10.00 am)
March 15 2018 – Letter submission to the Daily Telegraph from Richard W. Symonds of the Bell Society
Dear Editor
Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner states (IICSA hearing, March 14):
“The area which he [Lord Carlile] has rightly…identified is that there was nobody there [in the C of E Core Group] to speak for Bishop Bell, and that, again…is something that I think was wrong”
Then right the wrong which was unthinkable at the time.
This is the time to ensure the long-dead Bishop of Chichester George Bell is represented by a lawyer in the new Core Group – such as Desmond Browne QC – and someone known to Bishop Bell’s long-living niece.
Richard W. Symonds – The Bell Society
Page 129 -Paras. 2-19 – Fiona Scolding QC: “…this is not simply an issue of attitude but of competence too. This is a point which has been made powerfully by Martin Sewell, who is both a lay member of the General Synod and a retired child protection lawyer. He points out that diocesan staff are typically trained in theology and Canon law, not in safeguarding or child protection law. As a result, he says, many of those making a decision about safeguarding in the Church of England have no credible claim to expertise in this increasingly complex situation. Interestingly, Mr Sewell makes that point both in relation to the treatment of complainants of abuse, but also in regard to the mishandling, in his view, of the George Bell case. He sees the failings on both of those aspects as two sides of the same coin, a fundamental problem, in his view, being a lack of competence and specialist knowledge, particularly legal knowledge and experience gained in a practical safeguarding context”
Page 30
Fiona Scolding QC – Q. He [Lord Carlile] identifies that one of the other issues is that
24 there wasn’t adequate engagement and involvement of
25 Bishop Bell’s family or people speaking on Bishop Bell’s
Page 31
1 behalf. I think you accept that critique, don’t you?
Perkins – 2 A. I accept that critique,
Page 24
15 Q. Was it the situation that there was scant, if any,
16 regard to Bishop Bell’s good character? Because that
17 comes out of this at various other points in his
18 conclusions? Paragraph 56 of Lord Carlile’s conclusion,
19 he says:
20 “… scant, if any, regard to … Bishop Bell’s good
21 character [was paid].”
22 Again, he also argued that there was deliberate
23 destruction of the reputation of George Bell. What do
24 you say to those two things?
25 A. In terms of the regard given to his good character, the
Page 25
1 esteem, he also talks about that —
2 Q. You deal with this at paragraph 70 and onwards of your
3 witness statement. Maybe if you would like to turn that
4 up for your own benefit. Chair and panel, that’s
5 page 25 of Mr Perkins’ supplementary witness statement?
6 A. We were very mindful indeed of the reputation of
7 George Bell, and in many ways the reputation of
8 George Bell is why we were holding the core group in the
9 first place. I have just mentioned a number of other
10 allegations we’d received about deceased clergy. Most
11 of those are obscure clergy, and didn’t generate this
12 level of action. Because we were aware of the weight of
13 his reputation and the likely impact of people reacting
14 to any actions we took, to some extent that was the
15 reason that we were having this nationally chaired
16 meeting involving staff from both the national church
17 and Chichester.
18 But I am very surprised at the extent to which,
19 certainly throughout the last two and a half years,
20 there have been many calls, and I am concerned that some
21 of those calls have correctly or otherwise perceived
22 a high level of support from within Lord Carlile’s
23 report for the suggestion that a great man such as Bell
24 cannot possibly have also been an abuser.
25 As I outlined in my statement, that runs against
Page 26
1 a lot of the evidence that I’m aware of internationally
2 with regards to child sexual offenders within
3 institutions. If I may, I think there’s one other point
4 that I particularly want to make on that, and for me
5 this is quite an important point: Carol gave an
6 interview to the Brighton Argus in February 2016 —
7 sorry, 2014 — no, I’m getting my dates wrong, it was
8 2016, in response to the controversy. In that interview
9 she said, “I know that George Bell was a man of peace,
10 but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do these things to me”.
11 It always struck me as very powerful that, of all of
12 the people in this narrative, she has managed to keep
13 the balance and she has managed to articulate very
14 powerfully that it’s possible that he was both.
15 Q. I think at paragraph 70 of your witness statement you
16 identify some research that the NSPCC did in educational
17 settings which often found that those who sexually
18 abused students are often the most competent and popular
19 of staff and are often — I think the word used by the
20 NSPCC is “adored”?
21 A. Yes. The evidence — much of the evidence this inquiry
22 has heard, much of the academic evidence throughout the
23 world, suggests, again, going back to Nigel Speight’s
24 quote, that people find it extremely difficult to
25 believe that especially their admired leaders, or
Page 27
1 admired teachers within that educational setting,
2 sometimes the teachers that are the most popular could
3 also be guilty of abuse. We know that’s worldwide
4 research.
5 Q. There are two technical issues I want to raise.
6 Lord Carlile criticises the core group, and this is at
7 paragraph 167 of his report, page 044, chair and panel,
8 if you want to get it up, B47. He identifies — he says
9 that one of the things that you got wrong was not
10 understanding that he wouldn’t — had he been alive, he
11 wouldn’t have satisfied the arrest conditions, is what
12 he says.
13 So you mistakenly — what I think he indicates is,
14 having read the minutes, he believes that what happened
15 was, you all thought he would be arrested, he would have
16 been arrested, and therefore that was something which
17 fed into your consideration of whether or not the civil
18 claim should be settled?
19 A. Firstly, I’m not sure that he’s correct about that,
20 having worked with Sussex Police on a large number of
21 cases. I’m actually just not sure that he’s correct.
22 I think he may well have been.
23 But he largely suggested that we were so
24 inexperienced within the criminal justice system that we
25 conflated arrest with charge with conviction. As I say
Page 28
1 in my statement, that is simply not the case. There
2 were plenty of very experienced safeguarding
3 professionals with, between us, decades of experience
4 within the criminal justice system who were perfectly
5 capable of separating those things out.
6 Q. Thank you. He also identifies that you hadn’t followed
7 the basic prosecutorial process of looking at whether or
8 not something had happened and whether or not — you
9 know, the two-stage test which the CPS identified. Do
10 you have any comment that you wish to make about that?
11 A. Well, he specifically criticises that Sussex Police
12 hadn’t communicated properly to us that process. He
13 identifies Detective Inspector EF as the person who
14 should have, but didn’t, correctly communicate that to
15 us. He identifies that from one email exchange in 2013,
16 right at the start, when we were arranging Carol’s
17 interview with Sussex Police.
18 As I say in my statement, between certainly myself
19 and Gemma, we probably had weekly contacts with DI EF
20 across a five-year period between Operation Perry and
21 Operation Dunhill, and I think it highlights my point
22 that making that conclusion based on one email exchange
23 rather than discussing that with us, where we could have
24 explained that level of contact, is one of my concerns
25 about the process of the report.
Day 10 IICSA Inquiry – Chichester 16 March 2018
Page 29
1 Q. He also recommends, Lord Carlile, at paragraph 170, that
2 there should have been specialist criminal law advice
3 provided to the group. What’s your view about that?
4 A. If I can just —
5 Q. It is page 44 of B47, chair and panel. Thank you very
6 much, Paul.
7 A. I’m just trying to find within my own statement —
8 Q. Oh, you deal with it at paragraph 57, Mr Perkins.
9 A. Thank you.
10 Q. Paragraphs 56, 57 and 58.
11 A. Thank you. Firstly, this was a civil claim, so tested
12 to the civil standard. So it’s still not clear, and
13 I believe not clear to others who are responding to
14 this, why a comment about whether or not it could have
15 been proved to the criminal standard would necessarily
16 help us in deciding whether it could have been proved to
17 the civil standard.
18 But, again, that comment seems to have ignored my
19 submission from July 2016, where I make really clear,
20 and the minutes make really clear, and the legal advice
21 provided to the core group makes really clear, we were
22 making a choice to believe.
23 There was — never at any point, in my recollection,
24 at any point in the core group, did anyone say, “He
25 would have been convicted for this, so we have no
Page 30
1 choice”. That just wasn’t part of the discussion, which
2 I say in that paragraph.
3 Q. Which, again, Lord Carlile in his report at
4 paragraph 171 seems to identify that one of
5 the criticisms of the core group is they didn’t think
6 about whether or not he would have been prosecuted had
7 he been alive, and he identifies that the prospects of
8 successful prosecution were low. I think at
9 paragraph 57, you say —
10 A. Thank you.
11 Q. — “Well, we wouldn’t necessarily have asked ourselves
12 that question”?
13 A. We were fully aware that the chances of a conviction,
14 were he alive, were low, and, as I say at the end of
15 paragraph 57, external advice on that particular point,
16 was a criminal conviction likely, was not sought, not
17 because it never occurred to us to ask, but because the
18 answer was relatively obvious.
19 Q. Can I ask you just about two further points that he
20 raises at paragraph 155, if we can go back to that,
21 please, chair and panel, 038, please, Paul. Page 38,
22 chair and panel, of B47.
23 He identifies that one of the other issues is that
24 there wasn’t adequate engagement and involvement of
25 Bishop Bell’s family or people speaking on Bishop Bell’s
Page 31
1 behalf. I think you accept that critique, don’t you?
2 A. I accept that critique, although in the submission from
3 the National Safeguarding Steering Group, I would also
4 emphasise the separation in that submission from the
5 action — between the actions of the core group, the
6 work of the core group, and the work of — I think it’s
7 called — a group — a body thinking about the
8 litigation. I am not sure that there should be within
9 the core group a person doing that, because the core
10 group is really managing a different situation. I think
11 that obviously and clearly should happen, but perhaps
12 within that different body. I think that’s the advice
13 from — or that’s the response from the National
14 Safeguarding Steering Group, which I would agree with.
15 Q. Two further issues: one about limitation; the second
16 about non-disclosure agreements. Obviously you are not
17 a lawyer, so I’m not going to ask you this. One of
18 the points that Lord Carlile raises is that nobody
19 seriously considered the limitation issue and/or that
20 the limitation issue should have been considered. Just
21 for the public, the usual rule is that such claims have
22 to be brought within — well, actually, in cases of
23 sexual violence, it is six years, but in cases of breach
24 of duty, ie negligence, it’s three years but with an
25 equitable time limit under section 33 of the Limitation
Page 32
1 Act, which involves, in effect, looking at all the
2 circumstances and saying, is it there or isn’t it there.
3 Now, we understand from the Ecclesiastical Insurance
4 Office’s guiding principles that in an insured claim —
5 we dealt with this with Professor Macfarlane earlier in
6 the week — they only raise limitation exceptionally, so
7 to speak?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Was limitation something which was considered and
10 discussed within the context of the group?
11 A. It was —
12 Q. Just to say, “It was just too long ago. We can’t
13 possibly settle a claim on this basis”?
14 A. It was considered and discussed extensively in the
15 second core group, July 2014. The minutes make that
16 very clear. In fact, the explanation you’ve just given
17 is possibly almost verbatim the explanation that was
18 given to that core group, and, as the minutes show,
19 there was then an extensive discussion.
20 I think, again, that goes back to my problem about
21 the process of the Lord Carlile review.
22 What the minutes do not say is, “The purpose of
23 limitation was clearly explained”, largely because
24 everyone was fully aware. They were clearly explained
25 but the minutes don’t clearly say that.
Day 10 IICSA Inquiry – Chichester 16 March 2018
9 (Pages 33 to 36)
Page 33
1 Q. Of course, the issues of vicarious liability have
2 changed markedly over the past 10 years in respect of
3 cases of sexual violence against individuals?
4 A. Exactly.
5 Q. To make them a lot more generous than they were, shall
6 I put it that way?
7 A. Yes. But, as I say, the very fact that we had an
8 extensive discussion suggests that that — the point of
9 limitation was fully understood. That is certainly the
10 case: it was fully understood.
11 Q. Non-disclosure agreement. The other significant
12 criticism that Lord Carlile makes is, why wasn’t there
13 a confidentiality agreement put to this in order to
14 avoid what he considers to be unfair besmirching of
15 Bishop Bell’s reputation. I mean, that’s probably
16 putting it slightly higher than Lord Carlile puts it in
17 his report, so I’m slightly overegging that, but he
18 considers that it’s unfair. I think the church has
19 responded and said, “We think it was right that there
20 wasn’t a non-confidentiality agreement and we don’t
21 agree to — confidentiality agreements, I think, rather
22 than non-confidentiality agreements — think about NDA,
23 the US word for them. What’s your view about that, if
24 you have any?
25 A. As you said, the church has already rejected that
Page 34
1 proposal. I was very glad to see that. As you said,
2 I’m not a lawyer, so I possibly shouldn’t stray into
3 this, but my understanding of —
4 Q. Well, from the perspective of somebody — you’ve
5 identified that you started this process trying to work
6 from the perspective of providing compassionate support
7 to victims and survivors?
8 A. Exactly.
9 Q. From that perspective, that’s your view?
10 A. From that perspective, my understanding of
11 Lord Carlile’s recommendation with regards to the
12 non-disclosure agreement or the confidentiality
13 agreement, he also suggests — my understanding of his
14 report is — that we should have settled the claim
15 with —
16 Q. Sort of no admission of liability?
17 A. No admission of liability. From my point of view, from
18 the perspective you just described, that would have
19 effectively been saying, “We are not accepting your
20 claim. We are not going to apologise. We are going to
21 perhaps provide some monetary settlement and we are
22 going to require you to sign a non-disclosure
23 agreement”. That is exactly the opposite of where
24 I think the church should be on this issue, from my
25 perspective.
Page 35
1 Q. Can we now — that’s been very helpful, and I think we
2 have got a very clear view from you of your critique of
3 that, which I know you were very clear that you wanted
4 to give to this inquiry.
5 Can we now turn to the more mundane topic, or maybe
6 more exciting topic, of what you actually do on
7 a day-to-day basis?….
March 19 2018 – IICSA Reflections – Richard W. Symonds
Page 25
“…I am concerned that some
21 of those calls have correctly or otherwise perceived
22 a high level of support from within Lord Carlile’s
23 report for the suggestion that a great man such as Bell
24 cannot possibly have also been an abuser.
25 As I outlined in my statement, that runs against
Page 26
1 a lot of the evidence that I’m aware of internationally
2 with regards to child sexual offenders within
3 institutions. If I may, I think there’s one other point
4 that I particularly want to make on that, and for me
5 this is quite an important point: Carol gave an
6 interview to the Brighton Argus in February 2016 —
7 sorry, 2014 — no, I’m getting my dates wrong, it was
8 2016, in response to the controversy. In that interview
9 she said, “I know that George Bell was a man of peace,
10 but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do these things to me”.
11 It always struck me as very powerful that, of all of
12 the people in this narrative, she has managed to keep
13 the balance and she has managed to articulate very
14 powerfully that it’s possible that he was both.
Ignoring the fact Mr Perkins was mistaken on the Argus dates – it was December 16 2017 when ‘Carol’ made that statement – how could he say she “has managed to keep the balance…”! Incredible. ‘Carol’ was five years old at the time! How could she have known it was definitely Bishop Bell at that age!
May I also suggest Mr Perkins reads the book “Catholic Priests Falsely Accused” by David F. Pierre, Jr. – especially page 150 – before pontificating about the John Jay Report [Page 11 & 12 IICSA March 16].
CORRECTION
I stand corrected on the Argus dates – my apologies:
The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood reported this on February 3 2016:
“Because he did good things, they automatically assume that he couldn’t do anything wrong, which was rather hurtful because a lot of men who have done good things have also done very evil things. He might be a man of peace but that doesn’t take away the fact of what he did to me,” said the woman, using the pseudonym ‘Carol’.
I confused this quote above with the quote made by ‘Carol’ on December 16 2017:
“He (Lord Carlile) can say Bishop Bell wouldn’t be found guilty, it doesn’t change the facts”
But neither quote helps the Diocesan Safeguarder Colin Perkins. It just confirms he might be seriously mistaken about the “balance” of ‘Carol’.
Also, Mr Perkins shows a serious lack of understanding of False Memory Syndrome (FMS) – “One of the features is that over a period of time – in this case a considerable time – the false accuser has convinced herself that her memory was correct”
Personally, I have little to no doubt ‘Carol’ was sexually abused. What I seriously doubt is that it was Bishop Bell. In other words, a case of mistaken identity.
‘Carol’ is an unreliable witness, and for Colin Perkins to put such faith in her recollections is not just seriously unprofessional for someone in his position, it is also seriously misplaced.
~ Richard W. Symonds
March 19 2018 – IICSA Reflections – David Lamming
“While IICSA should be given full marks for the production of the daily transcript (available to download from about 6 pm each day), the website is both woeful and impenetrable. There is no easy way to find a document, since they are indexed only by the URN allocated to them by the Inquiry. More seriously, witness statements and documents referred to by witnesses (and appended to their statements) are not uploaded in advance, which makes it difficult to follow the oral evidence.
A prime example is the evidence given on 15th-16th March by Colin Perkins. At the beginning of his evidence last Thursday, counsel to the inquiry, Fiona Scolding QC, asked that Mr Perkins’s three witness statements be “placed upon the website at a convenient and appropriate moment.” (Transcript, 15 March 2018, page 82). That moment should have been no later than when Mr Perkins took the oath, yet now, Sunday lunchtime, 18th March, they are still not available for the public to read.
“An illustration of the need for the statements to be published in advance is in the evidence Colin Perkins gave to the Inquiry about the Carlile report on Friday morning (Transcript, 16 March 2018, pages 1-34). Ms Scolding refers to certain passages in Mr Perkins’s witness statement in which he criticises aspects of Lord Carlile’s review. Those criticisms (at least so far as they appear from the extracts set out and commented on in the transcript) are selective and self-serving. One must ask whether Lord Carlile was done the courtesy of bring provided with a copy of the statement, or even being warned that he would be criticised at a public inquiry where he is not represented. One sentence in Mr Perkins’s evidence is telling: “… it is my job to try and articulate these things from the perspective of the victim.” (Transcript, 16 March 2018, pages 15-16) Where is the necessary objectivity, when Carol is regarded as victim, not complainant? No wonder one of Lord Carlile’s conclusions was “… the clear impression left is that the process was predicated on [Bell’s] guilt of what Carol alleged.” (Carlile Review, para 254(vi), page 65.)
~ David Lamming
“The Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, admitted last week it had been a mistake not to give the late Bishop George Bell a defending counsel at the kangaroo court which wrongly convicted him of child abuse. When will he admit that he has made a similar mistake by refusing to allow Bell’s niece, Barbara Whitley, to pick a lawyer to defend him against the mysterious second allegation now levelled against him in secret? Too late, for sure”
Graham Tilby (National Safeguarding Adviser)
Page 98
6 Q. Do you agree with the conclusion that Lord Carlile
7 reached that you put the reputation of the church as
8 a whole above the untarnished reputation of Bishop Bell?
9 A. I don’t agree with that. I think this was always about
10 trying to come to a process with objectivity. When
11 I arrived, I didn’t actually know who George Bell was,
12 and that’s actually important on one level because that
13 brings an objectivity to the process, but also it is
14 about gathering evidence and making — and forming
15 a judgment based on a balance of probabilities.
Archbishop Justin Welby
Page 119-120 [Paras 21-25]
and at the heart of this has to be justice, and justice is a very, very difficult thing to find, as you know much better than I do, but we have to have a system that delivers justice. That is so important. And if it doesn’t, it’s not good enough.
Fiona Scolding QC
Page 123 [Paras 14-25] Page 124 [Paras 1-8]
One of the points that Lord Carlile makes is that the church didn’t take a good enough account of…George Bell’s reputation. Now, we have heard from several individuals about their views about that. But what he seems to suggest is, you have to start — you know, this was such a Titanic figure that one must assume that his reputation is unblemished and, therefore, that has to be weighed very heavily in the balance. Do you have any response to that?
Archbishop Justin Welby
I think the greatest tragedy of all these cases is that people have trusted, very often, those who were locally, in diocesan terms, or nationally Titanic figures, and have then found that they were not worthy of their trust. The fact that someone is a titanic figure doesn’t tell you anything at all, except that they have done remarkable things in one area. It doesn’t tell you about the rest of their lives. And it is not something that we can take into account.
‘If Bishop Bell’s good reputation ‘is not something that we (The Church of England) can take into account’, then the Church of England [and Archbishop Welby as its leader] are breaking the law. As Lord Carlile has said, taking someone’s good reputation into account “is the law. In criminal cases especially, but also in civil cases, where the character of an alleged perpetrator is impugned by the allegation made, the court takes into account evidence of his good character. It does not mean that he can do no wrong. It is a factor to be weighed in the balance”‘
~ Richard W. Symonds
March 22 2018 – From The Archives [1988 – “Rumpole of the Bailey” with Leo McKern – Episode: ‘Rumpole and the Age of Miracles’ [Series 5 Disc 2) – Filmed on location at Chichester Cathedral [‘The Diocese of Lawnchester’ – Ecclesiastical Court]
Rumpole: “I happen to have a good deal of faith”
Ballard: “Yes, in what precisely?”
Rumpole: “The health-giving properties of Claret. The presumption of innocence…that golden thread running through British justice”
“Archbishop Welby, the leader of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion – who himself has come under some criticism for his handling of abuse cases – told the commission Wednesday that the church needs new powers to safeguard children…
“The decision by IICSA to turn the spotlight on Chichester Diocese comes amid controversy over the way Archbishop Welby had handled a case that involved a former bishop of Chichester, George Bell, who was accused of abuse. Bishop Bell’s supporters and others say the accusations against him lacked proof.
“Another inquiry last year, specifically into Chichester and chaired by Lord (Alex) Carlile, said the Church of England had rushed to judgement against Bishop Bell, who had died in 1958. But Archbishop Welby has refused to retract his statement that Bishop Bell, who was a leading churchman during World War II, had a cloud over his name because of the allegations. Lord Carlile warned that the Church of England’s processes were deficient and that it did not give proper consideration to the rights of the accused.
“But at the IICSA hearing Wednesday, Archbishop Welby focused on the victims…
“David Greenwood, a lawyer representing victims at the inquiry, claimed that Church of England officials had covered up abuse. ‘There is a strong suspicion of an organised conspiracy between clergy and bishops in the Diocese of Chichester to enable children to be abused,’ he said.
~ Catherine Pepinster – ‘Sight’ Magazine
Page 129 -Paras. 2-19 – Fiona Scolding QC: “…this is not simply an issue of attitude but of competence too. This is a point which has been made powerfully by Martin Sewell, who is both a lay member of the General Synod and a retired child protection lawyer. He points out that diocesan staff are typically trained in theology and Canon law, not in safeguarding or child protection law. As a result, he says, many of those making a decision about safeguarding in the Church of England have no credible claim to expertise in this increasingly complex situation. Interestingly, Mr Sewell makes that point both in relation to the treatment of complainants of abuse, but also in regard to the mishandling, in his view, of the George Bell case. He sees the failings on both of those aspects as two sides of the same coin, a fundamental problem, in his view, being a lack of competence and specialist knowledge, particularly legal knowledge and experience gained in a practical safeguarding context”
Dear Mark Woods – Editor (Christian Today)( mwoods@christiantoday.co.uk )
Please register this as a formal complaint.
I think your headline – “George Bell was ‘fond’ of paedophile bishop Peter Ball and sponsored him through ordination” – is one of the most disgraceful I have ever read.
Shame on you.
If this unbalanced article by Harry Farley is not corrected by 16.00 this Monday – 26th March 2018 – a formal complaint will be made to IPSO at 9am the following day (27th).
Richard W. Symonds ~ The Bell Society
Case for Bishop Bell
Sir – The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, is not alone in being ashamed of the Church in its handling of child abuse cases in the Diocese of Chichester (report, March 22). So are quite a few others. And some of us would add that we are ashamed of Archbishop Welby too.
At the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse hearing on Wednesday, the Archbishop was questioned about his continuing attack on the late Bishop George Bell, whose reputation has been besmirched by what Lord Carlile, the Church’s own eminent appointee to examine its legal processes, has described as a very misguided rush to judgement on a single accusation of historic child sexual abuse.
The continued anger that the case has aroused has nothing to do with Bishop Bell’s eminent reputation. It has everything to do with the fact that no one has ever been allowed to present a case in his defence.
The recent effort by the family to appoint its own lawyer in a new investigation has been turned down by the Chichester authorities. And once again, the Archbishop missed a chance to affirm his belief in Bishop Bell’s innocence as presumed by the law.
When will the Archbishop have the grace to admit that the Church leaders responsible for handling the George Bell case – including himself – have made the most colossal error of judgement in this instance?
Dr Ruth Hildebrandt Grayson
Sheffield, South Yorkshire
March 25 2018 – From The Archives [March 10 2018 – Psychotherapist Anthony Stadlen on Bishop Bell and ‘Carol’: “It is not at all easy to find the right words to respect both the presumption of the Bishop’s innocence until proven guilty, and the presumption of Carol’s integrity of character and memory until proven otherwise”]
March 25 2018 – “If Archbishops and Bishops don’t have enough wisdom and prudence to discern justice from injustice, who the hell does? Thank God for the law and the philosophy of jurisprudence” ~ Richard W. Symonds
“Everyone knew a little, but no-one chose to do enough. It seems that the cultures of abuse were ultimately no-one’s fault. So no-one did anything [Or not enough – Ed]. Everyone else was to blame” – Martyn Percy
“Everyone was to blame so no-one was to blame. Everyone was responsible so no-one was
responsible. The ultimate cop-out. So Bishop Bell’s reputation remains destroyed”
– Richard W. Symonds
March 30 2018 – Unpublished Letter – Daily Telegraph – Richard W. Symonds
Sir – It is right for the the Justice Secretary to be called upon to resign in his “attempt to divert blame…” (‘Worboys victims accuse minister…’, DT Front Page, 29 March).
More so the Archbishop of Canterbury in his attempt to divert blame on to Bishop George Bell for his own shortcomings (‘Presumption of guilt’, Letters, 29 March).
Richard W. Symonds
The Bell Society
April 1 2018 – Submitted Letter – Daily Telegraph – Richard W. Symonds
Sir – Contributors to your letters pages last week repeatedly questioned how it was possible for the late George Bell to prove his innocence when he is no longer with us (“Bishop Bell not guilty”, Letters, March 31).
Of course it is not possible.
Therefore, it is our responsibility to speak up for those who cannot, and to demand of Archbishop Justin Welby complete exoneration for this wartime Bishop of Chichester.
Richard W. Symonds
The Bell Society
“The horror of what we learnt in the three weeks of the hearing is that the Church is run by the sort of people who are prepared to cover up and lie…” ~ Revd Canon Rosie Harper
And what of his position on George Bell, the former bishop of Chichester? Bell, who died in 1958, was, and still is, a heroic figure, for his support of the German resistance during the war, and for his opposition to area bombing by the allies. But in 1995, an allegation of child sexual abuse was made against him – a complaint that was not passed to the police by the church until 2013 (after a second complaint was made to what was now Welby’s office). The police concluded that, had Bell been alive, he would have been arrested, and the diocese went on to pay compensation to the victim. But the church’s handling of the case was widely criticised, mostly for its lack of due process. Last year, an
independent review of the case by Lord Carlile said that the church had rushed to judgment, perhaps because it wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. The church then announced that it had passed new evidence about Bell to the police.
The row, however, rumbles on. In January, a group of leading historians, among them Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, urged Welby to withdraw comments he made following the publication of Carlile’s report, in which he said “a significant cloud” still hung over Bell. The archbishop’s comments were “indefensible”, they said; the allegation against Bell is uncorroborated, and in their eyes contradicted by considerable circumstantial material. Welby has so far refused to do so. Is he likely to shift his position?
“Not for the moment. Following Lord Carlile’s report on what was a badly handled inquiry, we had further information which is being investigated, and that will take a long time. Nothing could be better for the church, and for Chichester, than if we were able to say there was nothing to it, but you can’t do that until it is properly investigated. We say that if someone makes an allegation, we always take it seriously.”
April 2 2018 – “It would appear Archbishop Welby is playing God, considering himself above the law regarding Bishop Bell acting both as judge, jury and executioner, and making decisions ‘above his pay grade’. Others might consider the Archbishop more an April Fool of the Church of England who has brought this centuries-old institution into disrepute” ~ Richard W. Symonds
April 2 2018 – Submitted Letter – Daily Telegraph – Richard W. Symonds
Sir – In a recent interview*, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was asked whether or not he would change his opinion regarding the late Bishop of Chichester George Bell.
“Not for the moment” he replied.
Since when have Archbishops been allowed to ride roughshod over British justice – not least the Presumption of Innocence – and become a law unto themselves?
This Archbishop appears to be ‘playing God’ and passing judgement above his ecclesiastical pay grade.
Richard W. Symonds
The Bell Society
London police are ditching guidelines to automatically believe sexual assault complaints, the Met Police Commissioner has said.
After heavy criticism over a series of failed sex crimes cases, the force will now put their role as investigators first, Met Commissioner Cressida Dick said.
Ms Dick said: “I arrived saying very clearly that we should have an open mind when a person walks in and we should treat them with dignity and respect and we should listen to them and we should record what they say.
“From that moment on, we are investigators,” she added…….”our job is not all about victims. Our job in investigations is to be fair, to be impartial and when appropriate to bring things to justice.
In 2016, Sir Richard Henriques, a retired judge, remarked on failings in Operation Midland and said that “the presumption of innocence appears to have been set aside”.
“Guilty until proven innocent. The tenure of Alison Saunders at the Crown Prosecution Service [2013-2018 – Ed] will be remembered for a monstrous inversion of that fundamental principle of British justice…Let her passing see an end to cruel zealotry and a return to the first principle of justice. You may remember it: innocent until proven guilty” ~ Allison Pearson
“In 2016, Sir Richard Henriques, a retired judge, remarked on failings in Operation Midland and said that “the presumption of innocence appears to have been set aside” [See above – April 2]
April 3 2018 – Archbishop Cranmer/VirtueOnLine
“So the Archbishop of Canterbury is clear when it comes to allegations of child (sexual) abuse and safeguarding: passing the buck by insisting ‘It’s not my job, mate’ evidences a lack of humanity and leadership — deficiencies in integrity and gifting which certainly ought to disqualify someone from holding a senior ministerial office in the Church of England” – ‘Archbishop Cranmer’ (Source: VirtueOnline – March 30 2018)
April 4 2018 – Submitted Letter – Daily Telegraph – Richard W. Symonds
Sir: As Rowan Pelling rightly says (‘She told me he’d coerced her into sex. But did she lie?’, Opinion, 4 April):
“…there’s no doubt we must cling to the central tenet of justice: guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt”
Pity the Church of England hierarchy has let go of this obvious truth in the case of Bishop George Bell.
Richard W. Symonds – The Bell Society
April 5 2018 – Submitted Letter – Daily Telegraph – Richard W. Symonds
Ed: Spanish ‘Zorro’ actor recalls (‘Antonio Banderas: his Grey Period’, DT Arts, 5 April):
“When Franco died…I remember running in front of the police and fighting for our first democratic government to prove the fact that we were innocent until proven guilty”
Perhaps we should consider doing the same in front of Lambeth Palace in the fight against the Archbishop’s ‘presumption of guilt’ regarding Bishop George Bell?
Richard W. Symonds – The Bell Society
Linda Woodhead reflects on deeper problems revealed by the IICSA hearings
“LISTENING to the evidence of abuse and cover-up in Chichester diocese has been a miserable experience. The experiences recounted by survivors were harrowing, the explanations offered by senior clergy were shocking, and the juxtaposition of the two was a lesson in inhumanity”
~ Linda Woodhead
April 7 2018 – Safeguarding – The Next Steps
Leader comment: Safeguarding: the next steps
…These pages contain a range of different perspectives on how to tackle sexual abuse; and yet there is a common desire to make safeguarding comprehensive and effective. This sounds like stating the obvious. There is a danger, however, pointed out most clearly by Josephine Anne Stein, that the type of safeguarding being promoted throughout the Church is modelled on a pattern designed to protect institutions from prosecution. A Christian organisation must do better than this…
Martin Warner Safeguarding: what we got wrong, and the steps we are taking to put it right, Church Times – April 7 2018
“Bishop Martin, you got it wrong safeguarding clergy falsely accused, such as Bishop George Bell. What steps are you taking to put that right ?” ~ Richard W. Symonds ~ The Bell Society
Josephine Anne Stein: The safeguarding overhaul that’s needed
…Safeguarding in the Church of England has burgeoned into a procedural, bureaucratic, and bloated industry that does not appear to be effective either in responding to abuse or in preventing further abuse. When checked earlier this year, the C of E’s safeguarding policy posted on the National Safeguarding Team’s website consisted of 364 separate pages…
…THERE are alternative approaches to safeguarding within the healthcare sector, grounded in the development of professional ethics, the regular assessment of fitness to practise, and professional discipline.
There are also alternatives to formal safeguarding complaints procedures that combine knowledge and experience from occupational psychology, specialist social work, and restorative justice, much of which is unfamiliar within the Church.
Furthermore, there are inexpensive and empowering ways to improve knowledge and understanding of both the causes of and responses to abuse in different constituencies within the Church — a bottom-up approach in contrast to current centralised, top-down training. If everyone in the Church is responsible for safeguarding, everyone is also responsible for ownership of safeguarding…
April 8 2018 – “It’s always easier to see the plank in someone else’s eye than the log in your own” ~
The Church of England has just been through a traumatic fortnight of the Independent Investigation into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). Those who are responsible for safeguarding are apparently devoid of compassion: “The cruel and inhuman treatment I have received from the National Safeguarding Team in Church House, and others in the Church of England hierarchy, makes what Peter Ball did to me pale into insignificance,” said one victim. It is impossible not to read some pronouncements and not conclude that the Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team is either untruthful or incompetent (or quite possibly both).
And the consequent headlines bring shame upon us all: ‘Church of England put reputation first, child abuse inquiry told‘; ‘Church may have “conspired to enable child sex abuse”‘; ‘Church of England faces “deep shame” at child abuse inquiry‘; ‘Clergy resign from Church of England rather than face criminal records checks, abuse inquiry told‘; ‘Church “facing two years of abuse revelations”‘, and on and on…
The failings aren’t just historic; they are present and ongoing.
So who at Lambeth Palace thought it was a good idea to honour the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev’d Paul Butler, with the Hubert Walter Award “for his outstanding service to the church as Lead Bishop on Safeguarding”?
Bishop Paul might be a lovely, faithful, compassionate and pious man, but why this citation now? Why honour a bishop for his safeguarding genius just a few weeks after the appalling IICSA revelations? Isn’t it rather like awarding Captain Smith the Blue Riband for Outstanding Service as a Merchant Navy Officer in April 1912? It isn’t merely bizarrely inopportune; it is crassly insensitive for the Church of England to be blowing its own trumpet over safeguarding at all.
If the Archbishop of Canterbury is to make awards (as indeed he ought), might he not reflect on the fact that in some spheres of church life – such as safeguarding – that the last shall be first? Might he not perhaps consider honouring one or two representative survivors for their contributions to truth and services to reform? If the world can see the very obvious virtue in honouring the victims before indulging in self-congratulation, why couldn’t those advising the Archbishop?
April 9 2018 – “Church investigations” – Daily Telegraph – Letters – Gabrielle Higgins – Chichester Diocesan Secretary
“Nor does the Church routinely investigate allegations itself; they are reported to the police or local authorities as appropriate. However, if no one else will investigate fully – for example, if a civil claim is brought in respect of a deceased person – the Church has no option but to investigate as it must answer the claim” – Gabrielle Higgins (Diocesan Secretary. Diocesan Fund and Board of Finance, Hove, East Sussex
“Investigations are useless if investigated by a bunch of amateurs with little understanding of the law. They simply become ‘kangaroo courts’ (“Church investigations”, Telegraph Letters, April 9). Chichester Diocesan Secretary Gabrielle Higgins seeks to assure correspondents: “Nor does the Church routinely investigate allegations itself; they are reported to the police or local authorities as appropriate”. In 1995 – 37 years after George Bell Bishop of Chichester had died – one complaint was made by ‘Carol’ that he had abused her as a child. The complaint was not passed to the Sussex Police or West Sussex County Council at the time. It is beyond a disgrace to see a Church of England representative – in the form of a Chichester Diocesan Secretary – accept the unacceptable, defend the indefensible, and justify the unjustifiable”.
~ Richard W. Symonds
April 10 2018 – “Proving innocence” – Daily Telegraph – Letters – Ruth Hildebrandt Grayson
April 11 2018 – IICSA Letter to Richard W. Symonds
April 22 2018 – “The significant failure of Archbishop Welby’s ‘Smear No. 2’ against Bishop Bell” – Peter Hitchens – Mail on Sunday
Wicked Welby smear No2 fails
Peter Hitchens
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5643095/PETER-HITCHENS-real-villain-Windrush-scandal-BLAIR.html
Bad news for Archbishop Welby’s continuing attempt to smear the name of the great Bishop George Bell, whose self-sacrificing courage in standing up for truth when it was unpopular utterly overshadows today’s trivial bishops.
Just after its kangaroo court condemnation of Bishop Bell was torn to pieces in a report in January, the Church proclaimed that new accusations against him had emerged.
What were they? Nobody would say.
To make these look important, the Church reported them to Sussex Police.
Justin Welby, pictured is continuing to try to smear the name of Bishop George Bell +5
Justin Welby, pictured is continuing to try to smear the name of Bishop George Bell
But Sussex Police, who made fools of themselves by getting too deeply involved in the first, discredited allegation, now tell me that they have finished their inquiries and the matter is closed.
Could this be because there is nothing to say?
Mr Welby’s spokesman cowers behind a wall of silence.
It would be bad if this were an oil company. But it is worse when it is a Christian church.
Poor Barbara Whitley, 93, the Bishop’s surviving niece, has had enough of this…
April 22 2018 – Reaction of ‘L’ to the Mail on Sunday article by Peter Hitchens (above)
“That mendacious spiritual and intellectual pygmy Welby …are there no depths to which he will not sink? How long has he known that the Sussex police have closed their inquiry into Smear 2? Why the **** has he not made a grovelling apology to Barbara Whitley for his vile behaviour and that of the cabal which supports him in the hierarchy?
Do we infer that if Peter Hitchens had not approached the police we should never have learned the truth? Surely there must be some kind of legal action Mrs Whitley can take – and I hope that she does” ~ ‘L’
April 23 2018 – “Police drop investigation into bishop besmirched by Church / Archbishop urged to retract statement smearing bishop” – Olivia Rudgard – Daily Telegraph
APRIL 23 2018 – “Police close Bishop Bell abuse inquiry” – Charlie Parker – The Times
“If they (the Church Heads – Ed) are determined to persevere in their own private investigations and processes, many people will wonder what they can possibly be worth. The church caused deliberate, calamitous damage to George Bell’s reputation in October 15 by deliberately inciting a public judgement that he was a paedophile” – Andrew Chandler – Bishop Bell’s biographer
April 27 2018 – Bishop Bell cleared – Daily Telegraph – Letter 1 – Tim Hudson – April 24 2018
April 27 2018 – “Bishop Bell cleared” – Daily Telegraph – Letter 2 – Christopher Hoare – April 24 2018
Charles Moore
29 April 2018 8:00 AM
In January, the Church of England announced a new child abuse accusation against the late Bishop George Bell. They handed it to the police. This weekend, the police said that the case is now closed. Their spokesman added, ‘Of course further police investigation or action is not possible as Bishop Bell died 60 years ago.’ Indeed so. The date of his death was known to the police when they received the information. Why did they not at once tell the church authorities to go away, on the grounds that it is not their job to investigate crimes allegedly committed by people who, being dead, cannot be tried? Three months have been wasted. The police involvement allowed the church to refuse to say anything further. Now that this cloak has fallen away, we may find out if anything lies beneath. We do not yet know what the accusation is, nor what process is being used to establish its truth. Lord Carlile’s report about the first accusation revealed that the process was utterly inadequate. The church says it has learnt its lesson, though the logical conclusion is that it must exonerate Bell. If this second process is to be credible, it must not be conducted by any bishop or official who was involved in the first. Yet the authorities still will not say what is happening. Justice for Bell is delayed and denied.
This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Spectator’s Notes, which appears in this week’s magazine
Comments
May you continue to ask the important questions Martin, but may I suggest there are six, not five questions to ask. Kipling put it like this: “I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who” [From the “Elephant’s Child” 1899]
It seems to me and I’m sure to you, the “Who” question is rather important in Safeguarding, even if the “Who” is an Archbishop. Please keep pressing for the answers to these questions and thank you for all you are doing to ensure the truth is revealed.
~ Athestan
“BISHOP BELL”
I raise my glass to Bishop Bell
Is he really now in hell?
And if it be so then I pray,
That I may join him there one day!
For then eternity would pass
Much quicker, and we’d raise a glass
And raise it to the place
Where those who never sinned
Sit smug and never look within.
Does his life’s work now count for nought?
It seems this now is what we’re taught.
God bless the Bishop now I say
I’ll sing his praises every day.
May 11 2018 – From The Archives [May 19 2016]
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/church_of_england
May 13 2018 – Freedom of Information Request to Sussex Police – Peter Hitchens
Dear Sussex Police,
Can you please supply details of the allegations made against the late Bishop George Bell, which were passed to you by the Church of England on January 2018, specifically what the allegations were, and where and when the alleged crime was said to have been committed. As your enquiries are complete and the Bishop has been dead for 60 years, I can see no legal or procedural bar to releasing this information.
Yours faithfully,
Peter Hitchens
Date: 19.04.2018
Your Ref: Details of the allegation made against the late Bishop George Bell
Our Ref: FOI 400.18
Contact Name: Roger Brace FOI Officer
Contact number: 101 ext 545251
Dear Peter,
Thank you for your request which has been received by Sussex Police.
This request will be dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and you will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Act, from the date of receipt. In some circumstances Sussex Police may be unable to achieve this deadline. If this is likely you will be informed and given a revised time-scale at the earliest opportunity.
Some requests may also require either full or partial transference to another public authority in order to answer your query in the fullest possible way. Again, you will be informed if this is the case.
Please Note:
Sussex Police are currently receiving a high volume of FOI requests at a time of reduced staffing levels to process them. Every effort is being made to comply with the statutory 20 working day response deadline but on occasions this may not be possible – we apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.
Yours sincerely
D Hilton sent on behalf of the FOI Officer
Sussex Police HQ
Lewes
BN7 2DZ
May 16 2018 – Freedom of Information Request – Delay by Church of England
Dear Church of England,
On January 31st you announced that there had been new allegations against the late Bishop George Bell. Could you please give an outline of these allegations, and state when and where the alleged actions are supposed to have taken place.
Yours faithfully,
Peter Hitchens
Link to this
Peter Hitchens 16 May 2018
Dear Church of England,
You should by law have responded by now to my request for information about your inquiry into new allegations against the late Bishop George Bell. Please can you respond to this? If you do not do so within seven days, I shall refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.
Yours faithfully,
Peter Hitchens
May 18 2018 – Arcbishop Welby Interview
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/18/justin-welby-nervous-dropping-rings-royal-wedding-harry-meghan
The way to protect the church’s reputation, he says, is by “being utterly truthful and transparent and honest. No cover-up. Justice for complainants and justice for those who are complained against. We have to love and care for those who are the vulnerable and weak in this. We have to find – and, of course, we haven’t got there yet – ways of acting rightly on it”
His determination that there should be no cover-up has led to an acrimonious confrontation with those who feel Welby unjustifiably trashed the heroic reputation of bishop George Bell, a revered figure in the 20th century, after allegations were made of sexual abuse dating back six decades. Lord Carlile, who last year carried out an independent review of the church’s handling of the claims, concluded that Bell had been “hung out to dry” and the church had “rushed to judgment”. Welby refused to back down, however, saying a “significant cloud” was left over Bell’s name. The poisonous row shows no sign of going away, and may yet cause Welby real difficulty.
May 17 2018 – Letter – Sunday Herald – Scotland
“The morality of “terror bombing” had been questioned in Britain in early 1944. The Rev George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, and probably the greatest Christian prophet to speak to the British people in the last 100 years, stood up in the House of Lords and said that if we allowed the RAF to continue carpet bombing German cities we were no better than the Nazis”
Dan McPhail, Secretary, the Phoenix Friendship Club, 1 Rockmount Avenue, Thornliebank, Glasgow.
May 19 2018 – Spartacus
http://spartacus-educational.com/GERbellG.htm
May 20 2018 – Church Times Letters
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/18-may/comment/letters-to-the-editor/letters-to-the-editor
May 20 2018 – Resignation of Bishops … in Chile
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/18/chilean-bishops-offer-their-resignation-over-sexual-abuse-cover-up
The bishops’ move came after Francis said the Chilean church hierarchy was collectively responsible for “grave defects” in handling sexual abuse cases and the resulting loss of credibility suffered by the church.
He accused them of destroying evidence of sexual crimes, putting pressure on investigators to downplay abuse accusations and showing “grave negligence” in protecting children from paedophile priests.
May 20 2018 – The George Bell Group
http://www.georgebellgroup.org
George Bell Group
We are an independent group whose members represent a concentration of experience in public life, in the fields of law, policing, politics, journalism, academic research and church affairs. This group began to meet in response to the 22 October 2015 statement issued by the Church of England about Bishop George Bell. See this BBC report for the original story.
On 15 December 2017 the Church of England published the independent review of Lord Carlile and issued three statements made in response by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Chichester and the Bishop of Bath & Wells. On the same day the George Bell Group issued the following statement:
The George Bell Group, together with admirers of the Bishop worldwide, heartily welcomes Lord Carlile’s independent review of the process which led to the statement by the Church in October 2015 painting Bell as a paedophile. Lord Carlile deserves congratulations for producing such a comprehensive and authoritative report.
In his response to the report Archbishop Welby has chosen to emphasise that Lord Carlile has not sought to say whether George Bell was in fact responsible for the alleged assaults. That is not surprising, it was no part of Lord Carlile’s terms of reference from the Church to say whether Bell was innocent or not. But his devastating criticism of the Church’s process shows that Archbishop Welby was wrong in 2016 when he described the investigation as ‘very thorough’ and the finding of abuse as clearly correct on the balance of probabilities. A close reading of the detail of Lord Carlile’s report can only lead to the conclusion that he has thoroughly vindicated the reputation of man revered for his integrity across the Christian Church.
It is no wonder that the Church’s investigation has been compared by Lord Carlile to the discredited police investigation of Lords Brittan and Bramall. The Safeguarding Group appear to have gone about their work looking for reason to doubt the veracity of the complainant. A proper investigation would have looked to see whether they could find independent corroboration of the complaint. That Bishop Bell had been dead for over half a century did not justify depriving him of the presumption of innocence or of due process. As Sir Richard Henriques pointed out in his report for the Metropolitan Police on historic sex offence investigations, the policy of believing victims shifts the burden of proof onto the suspect and ‘has and will generate miscarriages of justice on a considerable scale’.
The misconceived approach of the Safeguarding Group, described by Lord Carlile as neither fair nor equitable, was aggravated by the failure of their investigation to reveal easily discoverable evidence:
They failed to speak to Bell’s domestic chaplain during two of the four relevant years, who lived with the Bells in the Bishop’s Palace. He could have explained to them precisely why the complainant’s account did not add up; nor did they speak to Bell’s biographer, the historian Professor Andrew Chandler, who has studied the layout of the Bishop’s Palace at the relevant time; they did not interview former choristers of Chichester Cathedral who might be thought to have been aware if Bell had been a paedophile. Eleven of them wrote to The Times complaining that the Bishop had been smeared to suit a public relations need.
Lord Carlile’s report has now left the Church with many searching questions, including how best to remedy the many defects in the current Practice Guidance so as to ensure that such an injustice can never recur. But most important of all, the time has now come for the Church of England to redress, without hesitation or qualification, the immense damage done to the fine reputation of a man who served it for so long and with such courage and devotion. Those institutions which summarily removed Bell’s name from their titles should now fully restore it.
Archbishop Welby, who has said in his response to Lord Carlile that he realises that ‘a significant cloud’ is left over Bell’s name, should join with the Bishop of Chichester in removing that cloud. The Church deprived the Bishop of due process, they should not deprive him of the presumption of innocence. There is not just no fire, there is no smoke. We share Lord Carlile’s disappointment that the Church has rejected the protection of innocence as a clear and general principle.
As Bishop Bell said in a broadcast to the German people in December 1945, now engraved in the Bell Chapel at Christ Church in Oxford: ‘Without repentance and without forgiveness, there can be no regeneration.’
May 20 2018 – From The Archives – May 5 2016
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2016/05/a-good-new-independent-account-of-the-george-bell-controversy.html
BISHOP GEORGE BELL AND THE CARLILE REPORT
Mr David Lamming (St Edmundsbury and Ipswich) to move:
That this Synod,
(a) express its appreciation to Lord Carlile of Berriew CBE QC
for his thorough review of the way the Church of England
dealt with a complaint of sexual abuse made by a woman
known as ‘Carol’ against the late Bishop George Bell;
(b) acknowledge and accept unreservedly the serious
criticisms of the investigation carried out by the Core Group
charged with investigating the complaint, as set out by Lord
Carlile in his conclusions at paragraph 254 of his report,
dated 15 December 2017 [GS Misc 1173];
(c) note that the effect of those conclusions can only be that
the process was so fundamentally flawed that any finding,
explicit or implicit, that Bishop Bell committed the alleged
acts of sexual abuse, cannot stand or be sustained,
regardless of the fact that determining the guilt or
innocence of Bishop Bell was excluded from Lord Carlile’s
terms of reference;
(d) accordingly, acknowledge that Bishop Bell’s reputation as
one of the great bishops of the Church of England is
restored untarnished;
(e) regret the distress caused both to Bishop Bell’s surviving
relative and to ‘Carol’ by the Core Group’s inadequate
investigation;
(f) regret that the statement made by the Church of England
on 22 October 2015, announcing the settlement of a civil
claim by Carol against the current Bishop of Chichester
was, as is now revealed to be the case by Lord Carlile,
both inaccurate (in stating that the settlement followed a
“thorough” pre-litigation process) and disingenuous (in
stating that none of the expert independent reports
commissioned “found any reason to doubt the veracity of
[Carol’s] claim”);
(g) regret that the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his public
statement on 15 December 2017 following the publication
of the Carlile report,
(i) failed to acknowledge expressly that the process was
so fundamentally flawed;
(ii) failed to accept Lord Carlile’s recommendation that
where, as in the case of Bishop Bell, a settlement is
made without admission of liability, it should generally
be with a confidentiality provision, and
(iii) stated that “a significant cloud” was left over Bishop
Bell’s name, when the only basis for such statement
was a single uncorroborated allegation, first made over
40 years after the alleged events, when Professor
Anthony Maden (the expert instructed by the Core
Group) had said that “memory is not reliable over such
long periods of time” and that “after so many years
there is no way of determining without reference to
corroborating information whether or not recall is
accurate”;
(h) accordingly, call upon the Archbishop to retract that
particular statement; and
(i) call upon those institutions that responded to the Church’s
statement of 22 October 2015 by writing Bishop Bell out of
their history, to reinstate Bell’s name and restore him to
their historical narrative.
Oct 3-10 2018 – Bishop Bell Week – to mark the 60th Anniversary of the death of George Bell, Bishop of Chichester
2023
Feb 4 2023 – Bishop Bell Week to mark the 140th Anniversary of the birth of Bishop George Bell of Chichester
2083
The Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised the BBC over its response to Jimmy Savile
