Safeguarding: why policies,training,lessons learned reviews and even good intentions are not enough

safeguarding is very much at the top of our priorities now as the Church of England … we don’t take these matters lightly, even if they have an impact on ourselves. ¹

Over the last 20 years there has been much talk of change, with improvements in safeguarding policies and guidelines, positive developments in the different levels of training offered, and numerous ‘lessons learned’ reviews, but many of these ‘seasons’ have also been ‘difficult’ in terms of bad publicity for the Church. The latest IICSA report, published in October 2020, concluded, as expected, that for decades the Anglican Church has failed to protect children and young people under its care, failed to respond appropriately to abuse allegations, and failed to provide adequate safeguarding policies and practices. Instead, excessive attention has been paid to the well-being and reputation of perpetrators rather than to the traumatized victims. The issues of clericalism, deference to the institutional Church and its reputation, and taboos around discussing the issues realistically and with appropriately qualified people have all contributed to the neglect, humiliation and further abuse of victims. ³

The publication of this recent IICSA report was followed by the inevitable apologies and expressions of regret. Archbishop Welby commented that the report acted as a reminder of the many times when survivors have been failed, and that, while apologies were important, there needed to be better listening, learning and action. All good intentions, but this has been said many times before, so what is going wrong? Why, despite all the attempts, can’t the Church respond appropriately, empathically and quickly to allegations. Rosie Harper describes how everyone ‘is working very hard to produce new systems and more training and issue more apologies. It is hard to see this as anything other than moving the chairs around on the deck of the Titanic.’ ⁴ This is because the underlying culture holds sway no matter how many new initiatives and promises of change are made.

Whether implicitly or explicitly, the underlying culture defines the collective ethos of any institution, and anything that threatens the institution is responded to defensively in order to preserve the status quo. ‘Institutional dilemmas like personal ones, are anxiety-provoking, and regularly give rise to … defensive projective processes.’ ⁵ Allegations against members of clergy are a special threat to the integrity and identity of the Church and how the Church sees itself, and deception and defensive processes have been the default response of the church hierarchy for a long time. Interestingly, in many ways the Church’s response to abuse by priests replicates the dynamic of power and control between the perpetrator of child sexual abuse and their victim, where the solipsism and self-justification of the perpetrator takes precedence over any needs of the child or young person, and where the self-serving sense of entitlement and renunciation of responsibility by the perpetrator in denial of what has happened is frequently mirrored by the institution.

The inadequacy of the Church’s response stems from what I have called a spiritual sickness linked to institutional narcissism. All organizations and institutions are to a certain extent healthily narcissistic – they have to be to survive and to thrive. However, the Church has become unhealthily stuck at the level of survival to the detriment of thriving, often complacently dominated by its own internal self-preoccupations (usually to do with sex, gender and power), to the extent that it is increasingly out of touch with society and reliant on self-generating authoritarian structures. In the recently published book Sex, Power, Control: responding to abuse in the institutional Church, I research what that means and why such an ethos still predominates in the response to survivors, despite the advances in safeguarding procedures and training. My research has its foundation in my professional working experiences: from 2004 to 2010 I worked as diocesan safeguarding adviser (DSA) for the Church of England in Bath and Wells. I thought I would have something to offer from my previous training and work as a social worker and as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Once in the work, I began to realize that below the veneer of pleasantries were levels of complexity, deception and anxiety that made the NHS adolescent psychiatric unit where I had previously worked seem like a vicar’s tea party. My experiences were confirmed by colleagues from other Church of England dioceses and by the nearby safeguarding adviser for the Catholic Church. I was especially taken aback at the general lack of empathy towards survivors, in contrast to support for the alleged perpetrators, and where the Church’s reputation took precedence over best practice and guidelines.

In the Church, one defence has been to act secretly. Secrecy is not only a central dynamic between the sexual abuser and the child; this same dynamic has permeated the way in which the Church has responded over decades to disclosures, especially those involving clergy and priests and those in religious orders. For many years, the secrecy and deception in the response were pursued efficiently within the organization of the Church through internal and arcane legal systems, such as canon law, or managed discreetly within the church hierarchy. Secrecy was one of the central aspects to emerge from the case of the Reverend David Smith from Clevedon in Somerset, who first came to the attention of the public in 2007; it later emerged that his paedophilic interest had been well known for a number of years, but only to the church hierarchy. This case is significant because, as a result of what came out at his trial in 2007, the Church of England instituted the Past Cases Review (PCR), where all old files were to be assessed for safeguarding concerns. While later findings would reveal that this review was inadequate and in itself a ‘cover-up’, it was still an important moment of recognition that situations had always been managed with scant regard for victims and survivors.

I had first-hand experience of this secrecy. The first I knew of the Reverend David Smith was when the then bishop’s chaplain came to my house on a Saturday in May 2005 to tell me that ‘the worst has happened’. I was told that a vicar from Clevedon had been taken in for questioning and then arrested, following the disclosure of sexual abuse by a 13-year-old altar boy, who had spoken to a trusted female member of the congregation, who, to her credit, then took this further by informing the police. The bishop’s chaplain explained to me what action had been taken and, as this was to do with clergy, seemed to assume that it would be handled centrally and that my role would be limited to support and the offer of resources. For me, there was immediately a sense that the hierarchy was closing ranks by rallying around one another to minimize the damage that this might cause in the diocese. The hierarchy clearly did not include me as the safeguarding adviser, despite the fact that it was a child protection issue; I was seen as peripheral – not ordained and female and not, as it turned out, ‘in the know’ about what had been going on. Here was the ‘closed system’ in operation, for I then found out that there was a long history to this case and that Smith had been under the pastoral care of the then Bishop of Taunton because of previous allegations. This pastoral care consisted of infrequent meetings that did not touch on safeguarding concerns other than in the most superficial of ways. In other words, it was already centrally known within the hierarchy that Smith was a sexual predator, but this had been handled internally as a pastoral, not a safeguarding, issue. Despite being the safeguarding adviser, I had not been told about Smith’s history and knew nothing about past allegations. Indeed, I learned only at this point (about 18 months into my work) that there was indeed a ‘special’ file that contained details of clergy who had in one way or another ‘transgressed’. I was not permitted to see this file, apparently because I was outside the closed system. In fact, it was only once the PCR got well under way sometime later that I was allowed to view the file. Only the church hierarchy within the diocese, and presumably beyond, could have access to and know about this file. The dynamic of secrecy and obfuscation held sway.

I learned Smith’s full history of sexual predation only once it came out at the trial in 2007; luckily, this was reported extensively, so I could find out more. ⁶ It turned out that concerns about Smith had been raised with the Church of England in 1983 and again in 2001; on both occasions, the complainants said that they had been assured that their concerns had been ‘dealt with’. However, clearly, as it emerged, Smith was able to continue to abuse boys, despite allegations being raised by victims and parents, and a court case dropped on a legal technicality. There was a refusal to see the vicar as a risk to children.

You could call this wilful blindness or a denial of awareness towards the victims (and, indeed, the perpetrator), where there was no sense of concern, empathy or understanding about the damage inflicted on these boys. The Church had no interest in them, only in turning away and blocking action that might cause difficulties. The Church also demonstrated here total ignorance about abusive behaviour, about grooming by the perpetrator and the way in which Smith could manipulate and ‘normalize’ his activities. It showed not only disregard, but an abdication of responsibility by not following its own procedures, and refusing to involve outside professional authorities. The then Bishop of Bath and Wells said after the trial that he was ‘shocked and horrified’ by the crimes and he apologized to the victims and their families. He made an unequivocal apology for the failure of the Church to follow its own guidelines on sexual abuse and declared: ‘We’re very sorry that these offences were committed by a man in a position of trust. We have taken all necessary steps to do all in our power to ensure there is no repetition of this situation.’ ⁷

After the media coverage the bishop said that he never wanted to be put in that position again. My response was that I was not personally able to stop the abuse, but better safeguarding measures might help. I had been asked to do my job but with one hand tied behind my back; I had been placed in an impossible position in that I was excluded from knowing what was going on. Interestingly, and somewhat inevitably, despite this, it still seemed somehow to be ‘my fault’: first, for the bad publicity; and second, for not being able to extricate the bishop from being confronted by some uncomfortable truths – and this was from a bishop who positively supported safeguarding.

There is in the Church a tension between wanting and not wanting to know, and between open transparent processes and discreet, more deceptive ways of managing. The difficulty is that not resolving the tension results in a ‘fudge’. The reluctance to find out the truth might expose shadow aspects of the institution and uncover deeper malaise, and so one way of managing and avoiding this discovery is repeatedly to reframe the presenting problem by commissioning reports, inquiries and reviews as if some new insight or plan might solve the problem. This is then just another form of deception.

Power and control are the starting points for understanding the psychodynamics of what goes on in the Church’s response to allegations against clergy, for power and control are characteristic of unhealthy institutional narcissism not dissimilar to the narcissism and solipsism that characterize the self-justification of most perpetrators. In both the individual abuser and in the institutional Church, the psychodynamics present involve an abuse of power and an abuse of trust. In both there is the isolation of some and the elevation of others. In both there are issues of control.

Situational dynamics in some parts of the institutional Church still include sexism and homophobia, the elevation of clergy, non-inclusive language, and the collective objectification of children. All these contribute to an environment where victims are easily silenced and remain silent. There is a more or less closed hierarchic grouping, which, due to its explicit structures and implicit male public-school type of ethos, nurtures a culture of almost unchallengeable authority. There can also be a veneration for the charismatic. This is what the victims of Peter Ball, the disgraced Bishop of Gloucester, were exposed to. This case has been well documented by IICSA and others, ⁸ but it is worth noting that by the time of Ball’s arrest in 1992 at least three senior bishops and other clergy knew of the allegations made against Ball. None of them told the police because the reputation of Ball and the Church was given a higher priority than a distressed young man – it could not be accepted that such a ‘holy’ man had transgressed. A campaign of intimidation and pressure on witnesses began, evidence about other victims suppressed, and a false narrative of the wronged good Christian by a lying mentally ill young man was peddled – a narrative that I discovered was still to be found in 2010 in Somerset. Once again, I only found out about Ball’s past caution by the Gloucestershire police initially through a personal contact, and then from searching old news reports. His file was not included in the clergy files – it was kept at Lambeth Palace – and it seemed that his behaviour, if believed at all, had been largely deemed by the hierarchy as an aberration, a foolish mistake, and any ongoing risk therefore minimized. Ball’s then current contacts with other known abusers were seen as merely coincidence.

My attempts, first, to have a professional risk assessment made on Ball and, second, to remove his permission to officiate led to my experiencing the determination of the Church to resist transparency and avoid responsibility. On one occasion I was ‘invited’ to walk round the bishop’s palace grounds by a senior diocesan cleric and asked (or was it told?) to stop harassing Ball. He spoke of Ball’s great spirituality and goodness, and my findings about his past were dismissed as of less importance. This stance was confirmed by a second member of the bishop’s staff who criticized my approach, accusing me of being over-zealous. The third approach came from an official in Lambeth Palace, who rang to tell me that I could be seen as persecuting an elderly man inappropriately. This ran alongside Ball’s own campaign and attempts at coercive control by letter (sometimes I received three or four a week) and telephone calls both from him and from his influential friends, including a warning to me that Prince Charles could get involved. It is hard to hold onto one’s convictions under this sort of powerful pressure. Ball’s risk assessment and the eventual removal of his PTO (Permission to Officiate) was seen in some way as outside the expectations of the organization (and this despite the conscious affirmation of the action taken being in line with agreed policy). It needs to be said that, of course, this pressure was as nothing compared to what one of Ball’s victims, Neil Todd, underwent, and when criminal investigations were reopened in 2012, Neil Todd took his own life. One can only surmise that he was simply unable to face a repetition of the isolating and destructive treatment he had received from the Church over the previous 20 years – it had taken that long for the Church to believe him.

The concept of unhealthy institutional narcissism includes infatuation with the institution’s sense of its identity, of how it sees itself and how it is seen by others; it becomes preoccupied with this and about how events and people fit with this identity. There can then be an arrogant or dismissive response when asked to engage with issues outside the institution’s immediate preoccupations. The institutional preoccupation also diminishes any capacity for empathy or concern for those who might interfere with this identity or cause anxiety or disturbance. For the Church, power and control based on a collective ethos to promote the Church’s mission and religious and social purpose limit other insights and reflections (misogyny and homophobia plus the cultivation of elites also play a part here). This ethos based on tradition, and thus hard to shift, is largely influenced by male public-school types of education where emotion is suspect (girly or gay), bullying and abuse seen as facts of life, and a dismissive-avoidant style of relating to others employed. Many in the church hierarchy, in the past and the present, are themselves survivors of such an early stunted educational environment, which is replicated in an institutional work setting where feelings have to be hidden, emotion is seen as suspect, and trouble has to be avoided at all costs. This ethos has become normalized and has characterized much of the response to survivors over decades, which becomes fundamentally a matter of damage limitation, parsimony and risk management. The way in which the Church has responded to survivors is a spiritual sickness.

There is the powerful assumption that the Church offers something ‘special’ (a word sadly tainted from its overuse by some abusers), something sacred – priests are ‘called’ by God – something loving, and something superior to the secular. The Church prides itself on being about love, compassion and kindness, but this is a spurious assumption, for no one gets love from an institution – it is a contradiction in terms. Clearly, there are many individuals in it capable of love, kindness and compassion, but the institutional collective is greater than the sum of its parts and it seems as a body not to have the capacity for this. It is almost as if there has not been a choice in the way it responds. The awareness that the Church has further spiritually abused already abused victims is a challenge to its very identity.

A number of people in the diocesan hierarchy whom I came across in my work as safeguarding adviser would ask, ‘How can you stand it?’ At the time I thought the ‘it’ they referred to was the suffering of children and the complexities of working with those who might pose a risk of harm, or the difficulties of the lack of a good management and professional support structure. Since leaving this work I have reinterpreted this comment in the light of the spiritual sickness of the institution. In other words, there was something that I was able to stand in my role that other parts of the institutional Church could not, something that seemed to be unthinkable or unbearable to the hierarchy. Initially I thought that this ‘it’ that could not be stood was something to do with the unwanted emergence of sexuality in a perverted manifestation. However, on further reflection, the ‘it’ was what was being seen as an attack on the assumption that the Church is a special place of sanctity and love, somewhere holy and different from the sinful world – an illusory ‘it’ that had become too difficult to think about. When someone responsible for safeguarding is employed, the institution is able to profit by the association of having them in this role, so ‘it’ is being taken care of and nobody else need think about ‘it’. However, the appearance that the problem is being tackled is another dynamic of deception. This is the arrogance of the institutional narcissism, that it is then possible to put not only the unthinkable aspects of the institution into the person of the safeguarding adviser (so that ‘it’ can be rendered generally more tolerable), but also an accompanying patronising idealization of the person (‘we don’t know how you do it’). ⁹