Diocese of Chichester UK Scandalous behiour. See Their website and Butler-Scloss addendum report.
This letter is written by our previous MACSAS Chair.Still on our committee!!
Joint Chair of the Joint Safeguarding Liaison Group
Thursday 1st March 2012
Dear Bishop Paul Butler
Re Letter issued 29th February 2012
it is with growing concern that we watch the unfolding of events in the Diocese of Chichester. Far from these concerns being situated firmly in the past as your letter issued yesterday stated, the ongoing concerns relate to the conduct of Bishops and other senior Church of England officials over the past year.
Whilst I appreciate that the letter published yesterday was actually drafted sometime in the autumn of 2011 it is very clear that the Addendum to the May 2011 Review Rport issued by Baroness Butler Sloss on 28th January 2012 is a damning indictment of both Bishops Nicholas Reade and Wallace Benn. The Addendum Report sets out how both men repeatedly misled the Baroness during her inquiry and in particular in connection with the handling of Cotton after his arrest in 1997. She actually stated that she very much regretted that she had accepted the information given by Nicholas Read and Wallace Benn. She also noted that the information she obtained by other sources was not made available to Roger Meekings when he wrote the first review in 2010.
It is utterly scandalous for two Bishops to have treated this serious inquiry with such disregard as to feel it is acceptable and appropriate to repeatedly mislead a senior and well respected member of the House of Lords in an attempt to avoid criticism and/or responsibility. The clear evidence now obtained by Baroness Butler-Sloss is that +Reade and +Benn together allowed Cotton to continue in active ministry within parishes where there were children after his arrest, after they knew he was a convicted child sex offender and after + Wallace accepted he knew him to be a guilty man.
Had the Joint Safeguarding Liaision Group been at all serious in the stated intention of ensuring that such appalling disegard for the welfare of children as exhibited by senior church officials up to and including a former Archbishop of Canterbury never happened again the letter issued yesterday would have condemned the ongoing attempts by senior church officials to avoid liability and responsibility for allowing a known and prolific paedophile to continue in ministry up to his death. The letter would have set out the Liaision Group's very serious concern that the institutional dynamics and conduct now revealed in the Addendum report to have being ongoing in 2011 reflected the conduct being apologised for in the 1960s. The letter would have set out the need for a wholly independent inquiry into the Diocese of Chichester and the handling of the many cases of abuse now known to have been reported over past decades concerning a disturbingly high number of vicars and more senior clergy. What else are senior clergy who served in the Diocese of Chichester over the past five decades still covering up?
Were the Joint Safeguarding Liaison Group sincere in the expression of 'unreserved apology' and the earnest desire for better responses, the letter would have expressed an appropriate level of outrage at the conduct of the Bishop of Blackburn, Nicholas Reade and the Bishop of Lewis, Wallace Benn during the Butler-Sloss review and would have made it clear to all Bishops and senior clergy within the Church of England and the Methodist Church that such conduct and such attitudes are wholly unacceptable where the welfare and safety of children are concerned, and will result in a full investigation by police and disciplinary measures being instigated by the Churches.
Instead we read yesterday morning that the Bishop of Blackburn Nicholas Reade is to take early retirement after his many years of dedicated service within the Church of England, and we already know that Bishop Wallace Benn is retiring this year. These men should be facing censure, investigation and serious questioning over their part in the covering up of abuse in the Diocese of Chichester which appears from the evidence now being gathered to have gone on for decades.
I sincerely hope that all those copied into this email letter reflect upon what has transpired over the past year in the Diocese of Chichester and consider how the Joint Safeguarding Liaison Group can ensure that such outrageous conduct is condemned both now and if it should ever occur again elsewhere in the future. Clearly with further actions being taken in Chichester in the coming weeks there will be further opportunities for the Liasion Group to respond appropriately.
Yours faithfully
Anne Lawrence
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