Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber)

THE UPPER TRIBUNAL Appeal No.  Appeal No.  V /554/2011

 

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS CHAMBER

 

 

DECISION

 

1. The appeal is allowed.  The Tribunal finds that there are mistakes of law in ISA’s decision dated 3 December 2010 and sets it aside.

 

2. The Tribunal remits this matter to ISA to make a fresh decision in reliance on the facts as found by the Tribunal as set out below. 

 

3. The Tribunal directs that the Appellant must remain on both barred lists pending a fresh decision by ISA.

 

4.  The Tribunal directs that there is to be no publication of any matter likely to lead members of the public directly or indirectly to identify any witness or any person who was a child at the time of any of the allegations referred to in this decision (rule 14(1)(b) of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008 (SI 2008/2698)).

 

 

REASONS FOR DECISION

 

1     This is an appeal to the Upper Tribunal against a decision of the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) about the inclusion of B in both the vulnerable adults’ and the children’s barred lists, maintained by ISA under section 2 of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (“the 2006 Act”).

 

2     In making the decision to include B on the lists, ISA relied upon its discretionary powers under schedule 3 to the 2006 Act, being satisfied that B had engaged in “relevant conduct” so that it was appropriate to include him.  Relevant conduct includes conduct of a sexual nature if ISA regards that conduct as inappropriate.  ISA must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State about inappropriate conduct, which guidance recognises that such conduct may not always have resulted in a criminal prosecution or conviction. ISA may nevertheless consider whether certain alleged conduct is proven on the balance of probabilities and whether it was inappropriate.  ISA has a duty to seek representations on all the material on which it intends to rely before deciding whether to include a person on either of the lists, pursuant to paragraph 16 of schedule 3 to the 2006 Act.

 

3     Inclusion on the barred lists prevents a listed person from engaging in certain regulated activities, as defined in Schedule 4 to the 2006 Act.  A listed person has a right of appeal to the Upper Tribunal, as set out at paragraph 11 below.

 

 

 

 

 

Background

 

4     The decision in this case was made by ISA on 3 December 2010 under reference 09/36634W.  The facts concern a number of allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate sexual conduct by B, who is a vicar in the Church of England (although currently suspended from his ministry).  Complaints have been made by adult women in relation to conduct by B that they say occurred when they were children, also by women who have complained of B’s conduct towards them as adults.  There is a complaint by B’s former step-daughter involving conduct towards her when she was eight or nine years old.  The allegations span a period of some 30 years and relate to B’s ministry in three geographically separate parishes in England, and also to B’s time as an army padre in Germany.  B has not been convicted of any criminal offence.  He faced a court martial in Germany and was acquitted of all charges. The Tribunal understands that Church Disciplinary proceedings against B are pending.  We were told that the police force responsible for his current parish has entered B onto the Violent and Sex Offenders Register and that, having been identified as a Potentially Dangerous Person, he is currently subject to Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements.

 

5     B was given permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal by His Honour Judge Pearl on 7 March 2011.  There were subsequently a number of case management hearings at which directions were issued in respect of the final oral hearing, which took place in September 2012.  The Tribunal sat for 8 days over two weeks.  The hearing was tape-recorded but has not been transcribed.  The Tribunal heard live evidence from some of the complainants, considered documentary evidence only in relation to other complaints and watched the DVDs of the police interviews of two complainants.  B was able to test the evidence of the live witnesses (subject to appropriate safeguards for sensitive witnesses, as he was unrepresented), to give and to call evidence.  He was cross examined by counsel representing ISA. Both the Appellant and counsel for the Respondent made helpful submissions and we are grateful to them for their assistance.  At the close of the proceedings the Tribunal thanked the Appellant and his wife for the calm and considered manner in which they had handled what must have been a very difficult experience for them.

 

ISA’s Decision

 

6     The background to the making of the ISA decision of 3 December 2010 is as follows. 

 

7     Following a referral from a local authority, ISA sent the Appellant a letter dated 16 June 2009, informing him that it was considering placing him on both barred lists, that it was making further enquiries, and would revert to him in due course.  In January 2010, ISA wrote to B again, referring to its previous letter but to a referral from “Diocesan Safeguarding”.  The letter stated that ISA was “minded to” include him on the barred lists on the basis that he had engaged in “relevant conduct” involving a child and that he may harm a vulnerable adult.  The letter set out a list of allegations and invited him to make representations as to why he should not be placed on the barred lists.  It further stated that “if you wish you can also provide expert evidence as part of your representations”.  It informed B that if he provided “medical evidence” then he may be asked to attend a medical assessment by an expert appointed by ISA. 

 

8     Following consideration of the representations made by B’s representatives, ISA decided that four of the allegations referred to in the “minded to” letter were unsubstantiated but that seven allegations had been found proven on the balance of probabilities.  The Appellant’s name was therefore included on the two barred lists with effect from 3 December 2010. 

 

9     The decision to include B on the children’s barred list was stated to be on the basis that he had engaged in “inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature involving a child”.  The decision to include B on the adults’ barred list was stated to be on the basis that he may put a vulnerable adult at risk of harm because he had “commission [sic] sexualised behaviour towards adult females” during his “work within the ministry”.

 

10 The allegations found to be proven and relied upon by ISA in its 3 December 2010 decision were as follows:

 

“(1) You indecently assaulted a female child, from the age of 13 to 16, who had attended the church youth club from 1979 to 1981/2 [Allegation A1];

(2)  You indecently assaulted a female child, aged 14, who had attended your home to receive confirmation classes from 1988/9 to 1981/2[1] [Allegation A2];

(3)  You behaved inappropriately and abused a position of trust from 1980 to1984/5

[Allegation A4];

(4) You subjected two adult females to sexually inappropriate behaviour whilst a Padre in the Army in 1997 [Allegations A7 and A8];

(5)  You sexually harassed an adult female cleaner at the church in 2002 [Allegation A13];

(6) You sexually abused your youngest step-daughter, aged 8/9, and told her you would have sexual intercourse with her on her sixteenth birthday around 2004 [Allegation 14];

(7) You have behaved inappropriately with adult female parishioners in 2004 and 2005 [Allegations 15 and A16] ”.[2]

 

 

 

 

The Scope of the Appeal

 

11. The 2006 Act provides a right of appeal for persons included on the barred lists as follows:

 

“Appeals

 

4(1) An individual who is included in a barred list may appeal to the Tribunal against—

(a) a decision under paragraph 2 or 8 of Schedule 3 not to remove him from the list;

(b) a decision under paragraph 3, 5, 9 or 11 of that Schedule to include him in the list;

(c) a decision under paragraph 17 or 18 of that Schedule not to remove him from the list.

 

(2) An appeal under subsection (1) may be made only on the grounds that ISA has made a mistake—

(a) on any point of law;

(b) in any finding of fact which it has made and on which the decision mentioned in that subsection was based.

 

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2), the decision whether or not it is appropriate for an individual to be included in a barred list is not a question of law or fact.

 

(4) An appeal under subsection (1) may be made only with the permission of the Tribunal.

 

(5) Unless the Tribunal finds that ISA has made a mistake of law or fact, it must confirm the decision of ISA.

 

(6) If the Tribunal finds that ISA has made such a mistake it must—

(a) direct ISA to remove the person from the list, or

(b) remit the matter to ISA for a new decision.

 

(7) If the Tribunal remits a matter to ISA under subsection (6)(b)—

(a) the Tribunal may set out any findings of fact which it has made (on which ISA must base its new decision); and

(b) the person must be removed from the list until ISA makes its new decision, unless the Tribunal directs otherwise.

 

(8) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision as to the procedure of the Tribunal (including provision as to the award of costs by the Tribunal).

 

(9) A person may appeal on a point of law to the Court of Appeal against a decision of the Tribunal.

 

(10) An appeal under subsection (9) may be made only with the permission of the Court of Appeal”.

 

12. The combined effect of these provisions is that, whilst an appeal can be made to the Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) on the basis of an alleged mistake of law or fact, the ultimate decision as to the appropriateness of a person’s inclusion in the lists is one for the ISA and not the Tribunal.  The Tribunal, where it finds a mistake of law or fact has been made by ISA, may set aside ISA’s decision and, if appropriate, remit the matter to ISA for a new decision based on the facts as the Tribunal has found them.

 

13. Although the Appellant was unrepresented at the oral hearing, he had previously instructed counsel to draft grounds of appeal in support of his application for permission to appeal. In summary, these were that (i) ISA had erred in fact and law in reaching factual findings adverse to the Appellant and (ii) that the decision to confirm the Appellant on the barred lists was disproportionate, infringed the Appellant’s rights under Article 8 and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”), and was unlawful.  The Appellant’s grounds challenged both ISA’s decision-making process and its ultimate findings of fact by submitting that ISA had misdirected itself as to the standard of proof required in relation to each of the allegations in finding them proven.  In respect of the Article 8 ECHR challenge, the Appellant’s grounds argued that no other competent authority had found the allegations to be proven, and that the allegations were unreliable and insufficient to support the decision to include him on the barred lists.  They pointed to the fact that there was positive evidence before ISA supporting the value of B’s ministry, and argued that as the decision would have the effect of preventing B from carrying out his ministry, a particularly compelling case for including him on the lists had needed to be made. These arguments were reiterated in the Appellant’s skeleton argument, submitted to the Tribunal in advance of the oral hearing. The Tribunal also had before it a number of letters supportive of B and of B’s work in the church.

 

14. The Respondent filed a response to the Appellant’s grounds of appeal dated 15 March 2011.  It included with it the “Barring Decision Process Document” (“BDPD”) which the Appellant had not previously seen. The Respondent’s case, in summary, was that there was no error of law in ISA’s application of the standard of proof to the allegations (although it was accepted that there had been a typographical error in the decision letter, referring to a “low” standard of proof, whereas it had been intended to refer to a “lower” standard of proof in civil proceedings than in criminal proceedings).  It was further submitted that the ISA’s approach to the burden of proof had been correct and that it had not taken the approach of “guilty until proven innocent” as had been suggested by the Appellant.  In her skeleton argument provided for the oral hearing, Ms Davies also submitted that the Tribunal should have regard to the totality of the evidence against B.  She accepted that the Tribunal should be mindful of the risk of contamination of evidence or collaboration by witnesses and assess the reliability and credibility of each complainant, but submitted that the allegations involved a pattern of conduct by the Appellant, which involved him offering pastoral support to a female in distress or difficulty, a progression from sexual innuendo to inappropriate physical contact and culminating in opportunistic sexual contact, attempted or actual.  She also relied upon admissions made by B to the Royal Military Police (“RMP”) (that he had routinely wolf-whistled at army wives, kissed them as a greeting or farewell and commented on their appearance) as evidence of his inappropriate attitude towards women.  

 

Mistake of Law or Fact?

 

15. The first question for the Tribunal under s. 4(5) of the 2006 Act is whether the ISA’s decision contains a mistake of fact or law. If it does not, then we must confirm the ISA’s decision.  We have considered here whether there is a mistake of law only, as (because we answer this question positively) we have proceeded to make our own findings of fact in any event. 

 

16. We note that ISA’s letter of 3 December 2010 included brief descriptions of each allegation, but without particularised references to the evidence relied upon in support of each allegation.  The letter did not include with it the BDPD which would have clarified which evidence supported which allegation.  The BDPD was not, as noted above, provided to the Appellant until after he had lodged his appeal with the Tribunal. 

 

17. Certain documentary evidence had of course previously been provided to the Appellant with the “minded to” letter sent to him previously in January 2010, inviting his representations.  That letter referred to a copy of all the documents being enclosed. However, that letter also failed to specify what the evidence relied upon was in support of each allegation.  It is not clear to the Tribunal how the documents were in fact presented to the Appellant with the “minded to” letter.  It appears that the bundle was not indexed or paginated because, following its receipt, the Appellant’s solicitors wrote to ISA on 29 January 2010 stating that there did not seem to be any evidence to support some of the allegations in the “substantial pack” of documents their client had received.  In ISA’s reply of 12 February it said that “…reference is made throughout the bundle of evidence to various allegations and we would advise your client to undertake a thorough review in order to address additional reference to the allegations that are made throughout the file”. The Tribunal later directed that a list of the documents then provided be produced to it. 

 

18. In sending the Appellant the documents relied upon, ISA had complied with the letter of paragraph 16 of Schedule 3 to the 2006 Act.  However, we note that this is an unusual case involving a high number of allegations and no prior findings of fact by a court.  ISA sent the Appellant a large pack of documents with the “minded to” letter which described the allegations in very broad terms and, it seems to us, essentially invited him to go through it himself and work out which documents supported which allegation.  Although ISA did, in the 12 February letter, provide some additional clarification by reference to named documents, it does not seem to us that ISA adopted an appropriate approach to its duty to provide the Appellant with the material on which it relied in seeking his representations.

 

19. The difficulty faced by Appellants in making representations on bulk material without sufficient particularisation was referred to in the Upper Tribunal’s decision in VT v ISA [2011] UKUT 427 (AAC) at [26] but there were relatively few documents in that case and the issue did not ultimately form part of the Tribunal’s decision. B’s case was of considerably greater complexity. In response to the Upper Tribunal’s directions, a helpful table setting out the relevant information underpinning each allegation was eventually produced by ISA and it seems to us that this would have been the appropriate approach for ISA to have taken when inviting B’s representations. The Appellant’s understandable failure in these circumstances to appreciate the details of each allegation caused significant procedural difficulties later on, as appears below.

 

20. At the case management conference chaired by Judge McKenna on 28 August 2012, the Appellant complained that he did not know how to prepare his case in relation to allegation A7 because it appeared to rely upon the complaints which had led to the court martial, at which he had been acquitted. Counsel appearing for the ISA responded that ISA relied only on the admitted conduct by the Appellant in relation to allegation A7, as shown in his transcribed interviews with RMP.  She did so with her instructing solicitor sitting beside her and representatives of ISA sitting behind her.  Her submission was recorded in Judge McKenna’s ruling on the issues and relied upon in by the Appellant in preparing his skeleton argument for the oral hearing.  Subsequently, in Ms Davies’ skeleton argument for the oral hearing, a completely different analysis of allegation A7 was put forward.  She apologised for the fact that the Tribunal and the Appellant had unfortunately been misled by the different member of the Bar who had stood in for her at the case management hearing. The Tribunal was most concerned by this turn of events and invited counsel to sit down with the Appellant and explain ISA’s case to him with reference to the papers, before returning to address the Tribunal on how we should now proceed. 

 

21.  Following those discussions, Ms Davies conceded that there was a difficulty in relation to allegation A7. The difficulty arose from the fact that the Appellant had provided his representations to ISA in response to the “minded to” letter, without sight of the BDPD.   The “minded to” letter had clearly stated that an allegation of sexual assault against a soldier’s wife whilst a padre in the army in 1977 had been found to be unsubstantiated.  However, it had also set out a provisional finding (on which representations were invited) that he had “subjected two adult females to sexually inappropriate behaviour whilst a padre in the army in 1977”.  Ms Davies accepted, therefore, that the Appellant had been misled by the “minded to” letter and had been unable to make representations in relation to allegation A7 in those circumstances.   

 

22.  We note that, in the absence of any formalised indication as to what evidence was relied upon in relation to which allegation, the Appellant had no way of knowing that the two allegations in the “minded to” letter - one unsubstantiated and one substantiated -  related to the same complainant.  He also had no way of knowing that ISA was relying on some but not other allegations made by the same complainant. (Ms Davies further conceded that the two statements in the “minded to” letter were in any event inconsistent with ISA’s concluded view in relation to allegation A7, as set out in the BDPD, because ISA had not in fact drawn the distinction that appeared in the “minded to” letter). 

 

23. In view of this difficulty, and in view of the desirability of proceeding with the oral hearing now that we were all present, Ms Davies confirmed that ISA no longer relied on the evidence in relation to allegation A7 which amounted to an allegation of sexual assault, but only on the complainants’ evidence relating to sexualised remarks and of conduct which fell short of an assault.  At the request of the Tribunal, she helpfully produced a written submission so as to make her client’s new position quite clear for the Tribunal and the Appellant, referring us to the particular evidence in the hearing bundle on which ISA relied in support of it.

 

24. Counsel’s primary submission was that the “procedural shortcoming” of the “minded to” letter did not amount to a material error of law because it had not tainted ISA’s final decision.  She submitted that, because allegation A7 did not involve “relevant conduct” in any event (the complainant not having been a vulnerable adult), it had not influenced ISA’s final assessment of the risk the Appellant presented.  We reject this argument for two reasons.  Firstly, we consider that a strict approach to matters of procedural fairness should be taken where the Appellant’s human rights are in issue (see paragraph 26 below).  Secondly, as noted above, ISA relied on the multiplicity of allegations in this case as supporting each other and we conclude that it would be wrong to proceed to take a global view of multiple allegations if any of the individual allegations are tainted by procedural unfairness.

 

25.  We note here Mr Justice Wyn Williams’ comments in R (Royal College of Nursing and Others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWHC 2761 (Admin) at [67] that “the denial of the right to make representations in advance of listing …is a denial of one of the fundamental elements of the right to a fair determination of a person’s civil rights, namely the right to be heard.”  We consider that the procedural error in relation to allegation A7 does constitute a material mistake of law because it denied B the right to make representations on allegation A7 and thus breached his rights under both the 2006 Act and Article 6 ECHR.

 

26. We also note that in R (Johnson) v Professional Conduct Committee of the Nursing and Midwifery Council [2008] EWHC 885 (Admin), Mr Justice Beatson considered that, in the (analogous) context of professional disciplinary proceedings, Article 6 ECHR required the allegations of misconduct to be sufficiently particularised to enable the person charged to know, with reasonable clarity, the case they had to meet and to prepare their defence.  We find that ISA’s approach of failing to particularise the evidence in support of each allegation in the “minded to” letter did not, in the circumstances of this case, meet the standard of clarity required by Article 6 ECHR and did not allow the Appellant to “prepare his defence” adequately.  This also constitutes a mistake of law.

 

27. Counsel’s secondary submission on this point was that, if the procedural failing in relation to allegation A7 did constitute a mistake of law, then the Tribunal should remit this matter to the ISA for a fresh decision.  This is the approach that we now take. 

 

28.  Before we do so, we wish also to refer briefly to another area of the ISA decision which we find contains a mistake of law.  This relates to ISA’s express reliance in the BDPD upon a risk assessment report prepared on behalf of the Church of England in 2005.  The BDPD refers to the report as “credible, appropriate and sound” and the opinions it contained was relied upon by ISA, with the BDPD referring to “the appropriate qualifications, professional registration as a social worker and relevant experience” of the author. 

 

29. The Appellant has provided us with extensive commentary upon the report, containing his trenchant criticisms of its methodology and its conclusions about his childhood, his personality and his attitudes.  We do not need to carry out a forensic dissection of it to reach the conclusion that ISA misdirected itself in failing to recognise that a report which purported to offer an expert opinion about the risk of future misconduct by B should be treated differently from the factual evidence it had gathered.  We note that ISA’s “minded to” letter referred to the possibility of it considering expert and/or medical evidence, yet it apparently failed to recognise that the Diocesan Child Protection Adviser’s report fell into this category and so to alert the Appellant to the possibility of obtaining his own expert opinion to counteract it.

 

30. Even if ISA were mindful of the need to treat opinion evidence differently from factual evidence, it seems to us that there are a number of obvious inadequacies on the face of the report which required careful evaluation before deciding to rely on it.  Firstly, it fails to establish the author as a properly qualified person able to give an expert opinion as to B’s propensity to commit future sexual offences (the author is a social worker and not a forensic psychologist, psychiatrist or other professional specialising in work with sexual offenders whom we would expect to offer such an opinion).  Secondly, the author fails to set out the methodology she purportedly relied upon in giving a statistical analysis of B’s risk-level (such analyses are generally based on past proven offending behaviour which feature is of course absent from this case).  Thirdly, the report is plainly tainted by a partisan approach to the Church (“…woe indeed if B’s actions and attitudes have caused these children harm and to stumble in their faith”).  Fourthly, the BDPD refers to Lord Justice Mummery having found the report to be biased (we have not seen any correspondence to this effect) but ISA apparently decided to rely on its own assessment of the report without obtaining further information about that issue.

 

31. At the oral hearing, Ms Davies told us that ISA relied upon the truth of the facts contained in the report only and did not rely on the opinions or conclusions in the report as expert evidence.  She submitted that ISA, as the decision making body, was not required to differentiate (as a court would) between opinion and fact or to reject the opinion evidence of a non-expert witness and so could properly take the report into its considerations “in the round”. 

 

32. We accept that ISA is not bound by strict rules of evidence and we accept that the report was not prepared for the purpose of tribunal or court proceedings.  However, it seems to us that ISA was obliged, in fairness to the Appellant, to give careful consideration to the question of whether to rely on any opinion evidence it received.  If, as it appears to have done, ISA decided to rely on the opinions in the report as expert evidence it was, in our view, obliged to point this out to the Appellant so as to give him an opportunity to challenge it.  B cannot have been expected to realise that he could instruct his own expert unless he was told by ISA that it was relying upon the opinions contained in the report and that it therefore fell into the category of expert evidence mentioned in the “minded to” letter.  For these reasons we conclude that ISA misdirected itself in law in relying on the report without first considering whether it was appropriate to accept the opinion it contained as expert evidence, and second in failing to alert the Appellant to the possibility of challenging it with his own expert report.  We confirm that we have not considered the report in reaching our own findings on the facts. ISA will need to consider what weight, if any, to place on it in making a new decision, taking the Tribunal’s observations into account.

 

33. In conclusion, we find the mistakes of law outlined above in ISA’s decision.  In the circumstances, ISA must make a fresh decision in reliance upon our findings of fact.  We do not, therefore, comment upon the Appellant’s grounds of appeal as to burden and standard of proof.  We leave the question of proportionality he also raised for the ISA to consider in its new decision.  

 

 

 

 

 

The Tribunal’s Findings of Fact

 

Allegation A1

 

34. Allegation A1 concerns a complaint by L relating to a series of sexual encounters between herself and B.  She says these occurred when she was between the ages of about 14 and 16 (1979 to1982) when B was a youth worker in her parish.  L first made a statement to the police in 2007, after another witness D (see allegation A4 below), who said she had heard rumours about L and B when in the youth group herself, passed L’s name to the police.  Ms Davies referred the Tribunal to the witness statement of B’s first wife, who remembers a girl with L’s name visiting their home at the time “to the point where it became excessive”, sometimes popping by unannounced and at other times for “pre-booked counselling sessions with B”.  B’s first wife’s statement confirms a number of other details referred to by L, such as that the family were then living in a bungalow, but contradicts L in other ways, for example their floor-plans of the bungalow differ and she does not recall L staying overnight, although she does confirm that overnight visitors slept on a camp bed in the sitting room or the study.  

 

35. The Tribunal heard oral evidence from L.  She gave her evidence in chief in response to questions from Ms Davies. She did not require any special measures for giving her evidence and was content to be cross-examined by B.  After L’s evidence in chief, the Tribunal discussed with B (in L’s absence) the questions he wanted to ask her to ensure that they were relevant and appropriate before L returned to answer his questions.

 

36.  L is now of course an adult woman and works as a teaching assistant at a secondary school.  She told the Tribunal that she had an unhappy home life as a child after her parents separated and her mother began a relationship with a man who physically abused her and was excessively strict.  She had got into some trouble with the police as a teenager for receiving stolen make-up from a friend and had been fined.  At the age of 13 she became involved with the church through attending an evangelical event near her home town.  She estimated that she had been 13 at the time because it was in October 1979 when her grandfather died and she had been distressed.  She had then joined the youth club where B was the youth worker.  She told the Tribunal that she remembered B making her laugh when they first met and that she had initially thought him charming.  She then started to see him more regularly, including in his home, in her home, in the village hall, in his car and on a trip to Devon. Her evidence was that she had stayed in the home of B and his first wife for a few nights, sleeping on the couch, while her parents were away.  She had drawn a plan to show which room she had slept in but readily accepted that it might be wrong in view of the passage of time.  She produced some photos of B’s children which she had kept from around this time.  She told the Tribunal that B had kissed and “groped” her on the couch when she was staying at his home.  She described one church location in which B had taken her into a side room and kissed her.  She said that the kissing had been on the lips and that B had touched her breasts and between her legs over her clothes.  On another occasion, she remembered being on a couch or a chair with B and that he had touched her sexually under her clothes and that he had ejaculated.  She said that she remembered this particularly because it was the furthest she had gone sexually at the time.  She said that she had her first serious boyfriend at 16 or 17 and that the sexual activity with B had stopped by then.

 

37. She told the Tribunal that the sexual contact with B had occurred on a number of occasions over a period of 4 or 5 years but that it had certainly stopped before she left home (which was on the day after she turned eighteen).  She did not recall confiding in anyone about what was happening at the time and said she had not told her mother about it until much later.  She did not recall having told K about it (see allegation A4) and said she did not know why K had made a witness statement to that effect. 

 

38. L said she remembered B putting a stop to her step father’s volatile behaviour towards her one time.  She said that B would generally phone and ask her parents if she could come to the church or village hall to meet him.  She remembered him asking them if she could help him to move a pool table one time. 

 

39. L was cross-examined by B.  He told her that he did not remember her and she said she found this surprising.  She knew that D (see allegation A4) had given the police her name but said in answer to B’s question that she had not spoken to D about the allegations.  She said the contact from the police had been “out of the blue” and that they had told her that there was a child who was too traumatised to give evidence against B. She had given a witness statement to the police but when she had been shown it later she had disagreed with some of its contents, which she had corrected.  She referred to these corrections in her witness statement made in connection with this appeal and confirmed that its contents were true.

 

40.  L’s evidence was broadly supported by the witness statement of her mother, although there are significant differences between the mother’s and daughter’s accounts of events.  L had not seen her mother’s statement and told the Tribunal that her mother was a “narcissist” and “made everything about herself”.  She did not think her mother’s account of events should be relied upon for this reason. She did not think that she had ever confided in her mother or that she had told her that she had had sexual intercourse with B or that they had continued to see each other after she had left home, as the mother had suggested. 

 

41. L’s mother had doubted in her statement that L had ever stayed at B’s house, but L told the Tribunal that she would not have stayed with her grandmother while her parents were away (as her mother had suggested) because her grandmother had attempted suicide after the death of the grandfather and had then moved away.  L said that her mother had since told her she had been concerned about L’s relationship with B and had been to see people in the church about it at the time, but nothing had been done.  L said she had been unaware of this.  The Tribunal heard other evidence that questions had been asked within the Church about L’s relationship with B (see paragraph 64 below).

 

42. B’s own evidence was that he had been a successful youth worker in this parish.  He drew the Tribunal’s attention to a chapter in a book which described his youth work.  He had left this parish to undergo ordination training in 1985.  B’s case was that he did not know L.  He accepted that she may have been a member of the youth group but told the Tribunal he did not remember her. He denied that he would have had the opportunity to be alone with her. He relied on her erroneous plan of the bungalow as demonstrating that she was not really familiar with his home (although he relied in other respects upon the witness statement of his first wife, who remembered a girl with her name as a frequent visitor and attending for pre-booked counselling sessions).  B suggested to L that she had “hero-worshipped” him, and had fantasised about having a relationship with him.  She retorted that if that were the case then a youth worker should have known how to handle a girl with raging hormones.  B asked her about his first wife’s statement that she had visited excessively.  L was surprised by this statement.  She said it might be true but she wondered how she would have got to the bungalow as it was about 2 ½ miles from her then home and she said her parents never took her anywhere. B suggested in his closing submissions that L had manufactured the “relationship” with him as a stick to beat her mother with, in view of their difficult relationship.  The Tribunal noted that he had not put this particular suggestion to L when he had the chance. 

 

43. The Tribunal found L to be a thoroughly credible witness as to the allegations of sexual activity between herself and B.  B’s questioning of this witness did not undermine our assessment of her as extremely credible.  We accept her evidence that B had sexual contact with her when she was between the ages of 13 and 16 or 17, and at a time when B was in a position of trust in relation to her as a youth worker, and having initially provided counselling for her.  We accept K’s evidence and that of L’s mother that people had concerns about their relationship at the time, even though L was not aware of this.  We do not regard L’s mistaken drawing of the inside of B’s home as casting any significant doubt upon her evidence, especially as B’s then wife remembers her visiting their home regularly (which evidence was relied upon by B) and in view of the considerable passage of time since these events took place.   We conclude that L has simply forgotten talking to K about B.  K’s statement includes details such as that B’s wife was in the house and that L had been having counselling sessions with B, which it seems to us K could not have known unless L had confided in her.

 

44. We conclude that allegation A1 is proven on the balance of probabilities.

 

Allegation A2

 

45. Allegation A2 concerns a complaint by W that she was indecently assaulted by B when she was a teenager, in the parish where B was then a minister, between 1988 and 1991.  This was in a different parish in a distant location from that in Allegation A1.  L and W did not and do not know each other. W made her complaint to the police in 2007, after seeing B on the internet, realising that he was still a minister and, as she told us, feeling a moral obligation to come forward to protect other girls.  W is now of course an adult.  She has a masters degree and works as a senior social worker.  She has responsibility for child protection matters in her local authority, specialising in social work with children. She confirmed that the witness statement she made in these proceedings was true, making some corrections to her earlier witness statements for the police.

 

46. The Tribunal heard oral evidence from W.  She had previously asked not to be placed in the same room as B, stating that she was worried she would “fall apart”.  Judge McKenna had ruled that the Senior President’s Practice Direction on Child, Vulnerable and Sensitive Witnesses applied to W, and so directed that she could give her evidence by video-link from an adjoining room.  As B was unrepresented at the oral hearing and Judge McKenna had ruled that it was not appropriate for him to cross examine W himself (unlike in criminal proceedings the Judge had no power to appoint a lawyer to carry out the cross examination for him) it was therefore agreed that B could write down the questions he wanted to put to W and that Judge McKenna would put them to W on his behalf.  W’s video link was cut off while B’s questions were discussed with the Tribunal and again after W’s initial answers, so that B could consider if there were any follow up questions he wished the Judge to ask on his behalf. 

 

47. W told the Tribunal that she had first met B when he was appointed as a curate with responsibility for youth work in her parish.  She told the Tribunal that her family had been regular attendees at the church and her father had been a lay reader but had become unwell and attempted suicide when W was ten.  He had later been diagnosed as bi-polar.  She said he had disappeared from the family home in 1989 and that the family had been extremely worried about him.  In her witness statement to the police she described an incident around this time when B had hugged her and spoken to her about her father in a way that had made her cry, saying that he loved her even though her father did not.  She told the Tribunal that she had wished to be confirmed at age 14 but that the scheduled confirmation classes clashed with her violin lessons so B had offered her private instruction with him in 1989 or 1990.  She had wanted this to happen so that she could be confirmed with her friends at their own church in 1990, as if she left it until the following year she would have to be confirmed at a different church as they rotated the venue for confirmation annually.  She had in fact been confirmed at another church in 1991.

 

48. W had drawn a plan of B’s house for the police.  She said that she had attended three or four confirmation classes there, alone with B in the lounge.  They had both sat on the sofa and she remembered B joking about her not needing to sit so far away.  She remembered one time she had knelt down to put a video into the machine for them to watch and that B had either touched her bottom or made a comment about it which had caused her acute embarrassment so that she had sat bolt upright again.  She recalled that B had asked her intrusive questions about the sexual activities of her friends, asking her for details that she found inappropriate.  She described an occasion when she and B had been sitting next to each other praying and B had run his hand up her leg and stroked her inner thigh.  She said he had then put her hand onto his groin over his clothing.  With hindsight she now realised he had had an erection.  At the end of the session he had said “you enjoyed that didn’t you?” and she had not known what to say.  She said she remembered wearing navy tights and her school uniform so thought she must have come to see B straight from school on that occasion.  She said she remembered looking out of the window and wishing that her friends would hurry up and come to meet her. 

 

49. W described another occasion when B had reached his arm around her from behind and touched her breast under her clothes.  She said she had had her eyes closed at the time but that she had she felt him circle her breast under her jumper.  Nothing had been said about it.  She told the Tribunal she remembers feeling really confused because they had been praying together at the time.

 

50. W’s evidence about the arrangement of private confirmation classes was supported by the witness statement of her mother, who made a statement for the police.  W’s mother is a retired teacher, trainee counsellor and child protection adviser in the Church.  She remembers B as someone who was “silly and childish...he behaved inappropriately for someone in his position” and gives an example of him throwing peanuts at people at a social event.  She had had concerns about him inviting a former sex offender to speak to the youth group which her children attended.  She recalls that W described B as saying “funny things” to her but that she had not taken this seriously.  She confirms that B agreed to arrange private confirmation classes for W and that she thought it really nice of him at the time.  She recalls W attending three or four classes but stated that she then received a phone call from B’s first wife, saying that B was unwell and could not continue the classes.

 

51.  W told the Tribunal she did not recall B’s wife or children being around much when she attended the house, except on what she thinks was the last occasion, when B’s then wife had walked in on them hugging goodbye.  She said that in response to his wife’s question about what was going on B had made a comment about how W’s breasts were growing.   W thought that B’s wife had been angry.  She told us that it was after that incident that B’s wife had rung W’s mother and told her that B was unwell and could not hold the classes any more.

 

52. W had made a second witness statement for the police describing further incidents with B.  She described travelling to a youth camp alone with B and not being able to remember if anything had happened during the journey but feeling really unclean and upset on her arrival there and crying in the shower. 

 

53. W told the Tribunal that after the cessation of the private confirmation classes, she had been asked to go to the vicarage to familiarise herself with it prior to babysitting for B’s children.  She had been surprised to find B there alone and he had taken her on a tour of the house including the main bedroom.  She said he had persuaded her to sit on the bed with him and to remove her jumper so that she was just in her crop top.  She said that B had stoked her stomach and moved his hand up towards her breasts.  She had jumped up and shouted at him.  She said that he had then cried and asked her not to tell anyone and said that he had not been well. W said that she had later babysat for B’s children and remembered one of them falling and cutting its head while in her care. She said she remembered B leaving the parish quite quickly after these events. B’s first wife’s statement reported that they had had a regular babysitter at that time (who was not W) but that if she could not make it then “B generally arranged who would babysit as they would be members of the congregation”.   W’s mother’s statement says she recalls W babysitting for B and the child cutting its head. 

 

54. W said she had not confided in anyone about the incidents she had described.  She told the Tribunal that after the events at B’s home described in the previous paragraph she had run to the Rectory where the vicar lived  and had stood outside it in the rain, thinking about everything that had happened.  She did not go in and ultimately had not reported B to the church.  She said she had felt sorry for B and thought he would lose his job and his marriage if she told anyone.  She thought that she may have worried about suicide because of what had happened to her father. She said she had spoken to her mother about B some years later when B had appeared in the press due to the court martial.  She described having a “light-bulb moment” when reading about a complaint in the court martial that B had touched a woman’s breast, but took no action then.  She had discussed with her mother her decision to make a complaint to the police in 2007 when, after seeing B on the internet when looking for something else, she realised that he was still a minister and said she felt obliged to come forward to protect others.

 

55. B’s case in relation to allegation A2 was that he did not know W or her family.  He said he did not know that W’s father had been a lay reader in the parish. He denied that an attempted suicide by a lay reader would have been discussed and become known to him.  He said that he had never conducted private confirmation classes, with W or anyone else, and that it had always been his policy not to see women alone. 

 

56. The vicar of the parish at the time of these events, who had been responsible for supervising B, told police that he was “unaware” of B holding private confirmation classes.  B relied on this statement as support for his contention that they had never happened.  He said that as he had been training, his diary and commitments had been closely supervised so that it would not have been possible for him to have offered private classes without anyone in the church knowing of it. W told the Tribunal that when she wished to be confirmed the following year she had queried with the Church whether she had to repeat the confirmation classes she had already taken but that B had then denied that she had ever had any classes.  She had therefore had to start at the beginning again. B also relied on the fact that W had given the name of a particular church worker to the police as someone she had discussed this with, but that the name she gave the police was a man who had not in fact commenced working there until some 18 months later.  W told the Tribunal that she had “assumed” it was this man as he was someone she remembered but accepted that she may have given police the wrong name.  B also pointed to the fact that W had mis-described the layout of the rooms and furniture in his lounge in her police statement and drawing.  B relied on the fact that W had given wrong information to the police about the number of children he had had and even their genders.  He argued that this showed she had never babysat for him and his wife.  W readily accepted that some of these details could be wrong in view of the passage of time.  However, B submitted that these errors made W unreliable as a witness. 

 

57. B’s wife’s statement refers to B having had a “nervous breakdown” while in this parish and consequently having been unable to work for several months. The Tribunal noted that B had not mentioned having a nervous breakdown in his witness statement for the Tribunal about W.  When asked about this during his own evidence, B confirmed that he had experienced a breakdown for a few months in 1991, and had been signed off work from the July to the October.  He said it was due to pressure of work.  He said he had contemplated suicide and been to see his GP.  He described himself sweating and hiding behind the sofa if the phone rang at this time.  B said he had later flushed his anti-depressant medication down the toilet and simply returned to his ministry.  He had not had any psychological treatment.  He said the Church was aware of his breakdown but had allowed him to return to work.  B complained that the parish had not lightened his work load as he had asked it to do, but had hurried him back into full-time work when he had asked to work part-time. 

 

58. B left this parish shortly after his return to work.  He said he had had a difficult relationship with his supervising vicar at the time, who had announced in Church in January 1992 that B was leaving the parish, before B knew anything about it himself.  B said that God had then told him to work for the army so he had applied and been accepted as a padre in 1992.  He said he had not wanted to give the supervising vicar’s name as a referee when he applied to be an army padre in view of their difficulties, and he appears not to have been required to do so although he said he had told the army about his breakdown.  During his evidence, B told the Tribunal that he had kissed a female parishioner on the mouth whilst in this parish and that she had complained about him.  His supervisor had spoken to him about it but no further action seems to have been taken by the Church.  B told the Tribunal he thought he had kissed the woman because he had been unwell (due to the breakdown) at the time. 

 

59. B told the Tribunal that his heart sank when W gave her evidence because he could see she was a credible witness who was well-presented and well-educated.  He said he had no idea as to her motivation in saying these things against him but that she was not telling the truth. 

 

60.  The Tribunal found W to be a truthful witness and her account of events to be credible.  We conclude that her mistakes as to some peripheral details (the lay-out of the furniture and house, the name of the church worker she spoke to) are understandable in the light of the passage of time but we do not find that, as B suggests, they make her story unbelievable.  She readily accepted that some of these details might be wrong whilst maintaining her account of the main allegations.  It seems to us more likely than not that B had contrived to see W alone on a few occasions when his wife and children were out and to conceal these meetings from the Church.  We find W’s mother’s witness statement credible in supporting her daughter’s account of the commencement of the classes and their abrupt cessation following the call from B’s then wife.  We do not accept B’s assertion that he would never have seen a young woman alone in view of the repeated evidence we have received to the contrary (see, for examples, paragraphs 34, 68 and 72). We express our concern that the Church allowed B to return to work of his own volition following his admitted inappropriate conduct with a parishioner and apparent breakdown.

 

61. We conclude that allegation A2 is proven on the balance of probabilities.

 

Allegation A4

 

62.  Allegation A4 concerns B’s conduct towards female members of a church youth group between 1980 and 1985.  This was in the same parish as the events in Allegation A1 so it was accepted that the witnesses L, M, K and D knew each other.  It was not suggested by B that their evidence had been jointly concocted, although he did put to D that her perception had been affected by the rumours about him.  Several former members of that group had been contacted in 2007 when an investigation into B’s earlier career took place, following W’s complaint to the police in allegation A2. None of these witnesses knew W.

63. The conduct complained of in allegation A4 includes sexual innuendo and remarks by B, reported by several members of the group, and of repeated lone contact with D.  The Tribunal read M’s witness statement to the police. She describes staying the night at B’s home as a teenager aged 15 or 16. She was the daughter of the new vicar in the parish and said that she slept for a few nights on a camp bed in B’s lounge while her parents were away.  She describes how B’s wife went to bed early, having just had their first baby, and that one night B kept looking at her before asking if he could kiss her and she had replied “no” firmly.  She said that the next day B had asked her not to tell anyone about it as he would lose his job.  She said she had only told her family about it years later.

 

64. The Tribunal also read K’s witness statement to the police.  She was a member of the youth group run by B.  She describes L’s disclosure to her, when they were both about 15, of sexual intimacy with B.  She describes how L said it had all begun when she was having counselling sessions with B.  She reports L as saying that B had called out “Jesus help me stop” whilst engaged in sexual activity with L and that L had been worried that B’s wife would hear him as she was in the house at the time.  K had promised not to tell anyone and had kept her promise to L.  She said she had, shortly afterwards, been asked by another youth leader if anything had been “going on” between B and L but had denied it. 

 

65. All three witnesses (M, K and D) describe B’s sexualised banter at the youth group.  M says that when his wife was not around B would “constantly talk about sex and make sexual innuendoes” which became “sickening and uncomfortable” and that when he gave her a lift in the van he would say “lets jump into the back for a quick one.” K comments that B “would turn an innocent remark or observation into something of a sexual nature”. D states that he used to tell the girls in the group “if I were younger I’d marry you”, that he was “rough and ready” and “suggestive”. She said he had asked her questions about her first sexual relationship.  B’s evidence to the Tribunal was that he was a working class northerner in a middle/upper class area and they had not appreciated his northern humour.  He said that “Not The Nine O’Clock News” was all the rage at the time and that it influenced how people joked with each other. 

 

66. D described in her witness statement to the police how she had been “warned” about B by some girls in the youth group (including K), who had mentioned B having behaved towards L (see allegation A1) in a similar way to the way he was now behaving towards her.  She had not taken them seriously at the time. D also reported in her statement that the vicar’s wife (M’s mother) had asked her about B’s conduct after he had left the parish but that she had denied that there was anything wrong as she hadn’t wanted to get him into trouble. 

 

67. The Tribunal heard oral evidence from D, who was content to give her evidence in chief with B in the room and to answer his questions (which were approved in advance by the Tribunal).  She is now of course an adult woman and told us she works for a charity.  She has a degree in applied theology and hopes to be ordained. She confirmed the truthfulness of the contents of her witness statements to the police and in connection with these proceedings.  She described how she had been working in the church where these events took place in 2007 when a vicar from another parish had rung asking questions about B.  She said it was by chance that she had answered the phone and that she had told him of her own experience with B.  The police had then come to see her.  She had given the vicar L’s details as someone the police might like to talk to about B, but said she had not known any details of what had happened between L and B.  She told the Tribunal that she has had safeguarding training in her work and that, whilst she accepted that attitudes have changed over the years, with the benefit of hindsight she now considers that B breached the boundaries of appropriate behaviour with her. 

 

68. D described how she had moved to B’s parish with her family in 1978 when she was twelve.  She had joined the youth club in about 1980.  She said she had drifted away from the church aged about sixteen, but had gone back in distress when her first serious relationship had ended when she was aged 18.  This would have been about 1984.  She said that B and his then wife had supported her, but that she had also spent time alone with B in his study whilst his wife was elsewhere in the house. He also used to give her lifts home alone and would put her moped in the back of the van. B had helped her get a job working for a dentist, after which B had dropped by the surgery or phoned to suggest that they had lunch.  She described how, on one occasion, she had been home alone and B had dropped by.  She said she had felt that he was about to kiss her and moved away from him.  She also described a trip to a youth conference when she had travelled alone with B and had driven his car while he slept.  She said that when B awoke he had said he had had a dream about her, but did not give details, and said that he loved her.  She said she had felt very uncomfortable.  She said that B had also sent her a letter saying that he loved her but was glad nothing had happened between them but partly wished it had.  She said that the letter made her feel “physically sick”.  She said that B had made several telephone calls to her after he had moved away to theological college. 

 

69. D told the Tribunal that at B’s leaving party in the parish he had commented on how good she looked and had kissed her in an extravagant way that had caused his then wife to kick him and storm off.  B’s first wife’s statement says that B never behaved inappropriately or offended her during their marriage, but accepts that B was a “flirt” with women of all ages and would “do it openly in front of everyone including me”. We note, however, that she is quoted in a national newspaper story published during the court martial as saying that B had put her through mental and emotional torture during their marriage, that he had embarrassed her in public and had pressured her into having sex with him by getting angry with her if she resisted.  We also note that in her statement to the police, made in connection with the police investigation in 2008, she did not mention having previously spoken to the press about B.  There is a police report in the Tribunal’s papers which records that B’s first wife denied that she had ever made serious allegations against B or spoken to the newspapers about him.  The police report notes that this statement about their marriage is contradicted by the court martial file.

 

70. D said she had received the letter from B saying he loved her the day after he had moved away.   She told the Tribunal she had kept the letter for twelve years in a box with other things but that later, when B’s court martial was in the news, she had dug it out and discussed it with someone senior in her Church who had suggested they burn it, which they had.  We express our concern that a senior figure in her Church could have advised D to destroy a letter that indicated inappropriate conduct towards her by B.  D said she thought in hindsight that the advice to burn the letter had been inappropriate but she said that she had accepted it at the time because she had not wanted to get involved in what was happening to B.

 

71. B denied all of the allegations in allegation A4. He denied that any individual teenagers had ever stayed the night on a sofa or camp bed.  He said that he had moved into the bungalow with his wife and child at a time when they were a new family and needed their own space, so would not have invited guests to stay.  He said it was inconceivable that the vicar would have let his daughter sleep on a camp bed rather than arranging for her to stay in comfort in one of the lovely homes in the wealthy parish.  He described himself as having been happily married to his first wife at the time.  (Ms Davies drew the Tribunal’s attention to an apparently inconsistent account of his marriage at this time, which is described at paragraph 82 below).

 

72. B’s evidence was that he remembered D well, they had been friends, but that he had done nothing inappropriate towards her.  He denied her story about his wife kicking him and storming off at the party.  He said that if he had ever told D that he loved her it would have been in a Christian way (“agape”) or that it was just a northern saying that he uses even now to address both men and women.  He remembered that D had been vulnerable when she first came to visit him, and that he and his wife had spoken to her together.  He remembered visiting D with his wife after she had had an accident and fallen off her moped.  After that, he accepted that had been alone with her in the car and had taken her to lunch after he had helped her find a job.  He saw nothing wrong in this, said that she was an adult then (nearly 19) and that she had become a friend.  He said she was no longer vulnerable or distressed by this time. He denied writing a letter to D, saying that he had not been in the habit of writing letters due to his dyslexia.  He denied phoning her after he had moved away. 

 

73. He suggested to D in cross examination that she had been mistaken about him wanting to kiss her and that he had probably just been reaching for his coffee but that she had been over-suspicious, having been told of the rumours by other girls. D denied this and maintained her story.

 

74. B submitted to the Tribunal that D’s story of keeping a letter for twelve years and then destroying it was inherently incredible.  He said that if the letter had made D feel as uncomfortable as she had described, she would not have kept it at all.  If she had kept it, he said that it defied belief that she had not shown it to anyone at the time. He said that if the rumours about him had been circulating as D had suggested, he would simply not have been allowed to undertake ordination training.  B submitted to the Tribunal that D had clearly heard rumours about him and had come forward with this story, after having told the police about L.  He said that some people just want to give him a good kicking when he is down.

 

75. The Tribunal found D to be a reliable and credible witness.  We conclude that if she had been motivated to make up a story about B it is unlikely that she would have made such restrained allegations.  It does not seem to us that her evidence of keeping the letter for twelve years is incredible and we note that it does not actually strengthen her account of having received it, given that it no longer exists.  We accept that she did receive it and keep it and subsequently destroyed it.  We accept that B told D that he loved her, had had a dream about her, and that he kissed her at the party as she described.  We also accept K, D and M’s evidence that B behaved inappropriately with young women in the youth group at the time that he was a youth worker, making sexualised remarks to them.  We accept K’s evidence that when she stayed at B’s house he asked to kiss her. We do not accept B’s wife’s evidence that B never behaved in a way that offended her during their marriage in view of her later, highly-publicised, statements to the contrary.

 

76. We conclude that allegation A4 is proven on the balance of probabilities.

 

Allegations A7 and A8

 

77.  Allegations A7 and A8 concern B’s behaviour whilst serving as an army padre in Germany in 1997.  A and C were army wives who complained that B had repeatedly behaved in a sexualised manner towards them.  B was interviewed by RMP and it appears from the papers before the Tribunal that ten charges were subsequently brought against him at a court martial, to which B pleaded not guilty.

 

78. The court martial papers record that B’s first wife had been quoted speaking about her marriage to B in tabloid news stories at the time.  We have seen a copy of the press story.  There was an application by B’s lawyer (refused by the Judge Advocate) to withdraw the entire case from the panel in view of the risk of prejudice to a fair hearing arising from the publication of that story.

 

79. During the court martial, issues also came to light concerning the conduct of A, who had reportedly negotiated to sell her story about B to a tabloid newspaper.  She was re-called two weeks after her initial testimony to give evidence about this.  The transcript shows that A dissembled when asked about the extent of her discussions with the newspaper and she did not at first admit to having sold her story.  We note that her evidence shifted perceptibly under cross examination and that she eventually accepted that she had been out for a meal with journalists, discussed money with them and had her photo taken by them.  She finally admitted to having signed an exclusivity agreement with one tabloid paper.

 

80. A’s complaint had involved a series of incidents where she says appropriate boundaries had been breached by B through comments on her figure, hugging, kissing her on the lips and giving her excessive attention.  She said she had been made to feel uncomfortable and had tried to avoid being alone with B.  She referred to him sending her a letter of apology after he had behaved inappropriately at a party. The charges based on A’s complaints went to the court martial panel for determination and B was acquitted of those charges. 

 

81. In his evidence to the Tribunal, B said that he had bought A (and her friend)  flowers and a card to apologise for his emotional behaviour at a party and to thank A for putting him up for the night but that they were not an apology for sexualised behaviour. B told us his understanding was that A had been involved with the newspapers before she had made her complaint about him but that in any event the panel had not believed her evidence.  Ms Davies submitted that A’s evidence could safely be relied upon by the Tribunal because she had made her complaints about B prior to any discussions with the tabloid newspaper.  She relied on the fact that A’s complaints of B’s conduct were supported by other witnesses. 

 

82. Ms Davies also drew the Tribunal’s attention to B’s reported comments at the party (for which he said he had apologised) and to the recorded comments in his RMP interview about the state of his first marriage after the birth of his first child.  These contrasted with his evidence to the Tribunal about the couple having been happy together at the time (see paragraph 71 above). Several witnesses had described to RMP how B had said that his first wife had accused him of violence towards her and of forcing her to have sex with him after the birth of their first child in order to get her back into the habit of having sex again.  RMP had in fact contacted B’s first wife about this, but she had confirmed that she did not wish to take any proceedings against him. B had accepted in his RMP interview that it was “probably inappropriate” to have discussed these matters with the wife of a soldier.

 

83. C’s complaint concerned B wolf-whistling at her and the use of sexual innuendo to herself and her husband.  She complained that B had said she looked pretty, that he liked red-heads, and had asked her to write to him when he went to Bosnia.  She reported that B had been upset about the end of his marriage and said “if I had a wife like you everything would be ok”. C’s complaint was supported by her husband’s statement to RMP that, while serving in Bosnia together, B had asked to see photos of C in a bikini and in her underwear and asked questions about her which were sexual in nature. 

 

84. C’s statement to RMP included a complaint that, when B and C’s husband returned from Bosnia, B had kissed her while she was still waiting for her husband and said “tell your husband I had you first”.  Also that when B had seen them the next day he had made an inappropriate comment about their first night back together. B told the Tribunal he had written to C to apologise for wolf-whistling at her in the street (this letter was included in the Tribunal’s papers) when she had given him a dirty look and then C’s husband had told him she didn’t like it.

 

85. The Tribunal had evidence before it that C and her husband had taken steps to withdraw their complaints after C had given her evidence.  They had informed a senior officer of their wish to withdraw, and he had flown to England and reported the withdrawal to the Judge Advocate.  The charges in relation to C were then dropped by the prosecuting authority and did not go to the panel for determination.  The papers before the Tribunal are not clear on the question of whether C and her husband withdrew all or only some of their complaints of B’s behaviour.  They had apparently maintained the view that his behaviour was not befitting for a padre, although they did not want him proceeded against.  There had been no subsequent clarification of their evidence and, as noted above, the charges which relied on their evidence were withdrawn from the panel at the direction of the Judge Advocate.

 

86. During the course of interviews by RMP, B had admitted wolf-whistling at, kissing and complimenting the army wives to whom he ministered.  He said he would compliment women in front of their husbands.  He said that kissing women on the cheek in a social situation was a “normal thing to do”. He explained that in his work in the army he was often alone as he had no one to work with him but denied any inappropriate behaviour in these circumstances. With regard to wolf-whistling, he said that he wolf-whistled at “three or four wives a day” and that it was in his nature to flirt.  B told the Tribunal that whilst he had told RMP that he wolf-whistled, he had never done so again because he had learned that it was wrong. He pointed out that he had left the army of his own volition with a clean record and had received very positive testimonials from officers, which were before the Tribunal.

 

87. Ms Davies, on behalf of ISA, had referred the Tribunal to Mr Justice Pitchford’s decision in Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families v J [2008] EWHC 524 in relation to the predecessor scheme to the 2006 Act, and in particular his consideration of multiple allegations against one alleged perpetrator. Pitchford J considered that the Secretary of State was entitled in that case to ask the Tribunal to consider “what was the likelihood of three separate teenagers making similar but untrue allegations of sexual misconduct on separate and unconnected occasions” and concluded that, in assessing the probative force of such evidence, the Tribunal would need to consider firstly, the risk of collaboration between the witnesses or contamination of their evidence; secondly, the degree of similarity between the allegations and the period of time over which they were made; and thirdly, any other factors which might affect the credibility or reliability of the complainant.  In relation to the third factor he commented that “it may be that a witness is so unreliable that nothing said by that witness should be treated as probative of anything”. 

 

88. The Tribunal did not hear any oral evidence in relation to allegations A7 and A8.  The Tribunal notes that A’s evidence about B went to the court martial panel and that he was acquitted. The evidence before the panel presumably included the supporting witness statements in addition to A’s own evidence.  We note the civil standard of proof in the proceedings before us compared with the higher standard which the court martial panel would have been obliged to apply.  However, we are faced with a situation in which there are serious concerns about the credibility of A following the court martial.  We consider that in all the circumstances, A’s complaints about B must be placed into Pitchford J’s category of so unreliable that they cannot be treated as probative of anything, even in view of the lower standard of proof applicable in these proceedings.  We conclude that we cannot properly have regard to the multiplicity of allegations to support A’s complaint in circumstances where her credibility is so much at issue.

 

89.  In relation to C, the complaints were withdrawn so that the court martial panel did not even consider the allegations.  In the absence of oral testimony from C we are unable to form a view as to why the allegations were withdrawn and whether any aspects of her complaints about B’s behaviour were maintained by her. It would appear not, given that the charges were withdrawn on the direction of the Judge Advocate rather than lesser charges being preferred.  Without hearing from C as to the circumstances of her withdrawal of her complaint, we cannot properly find C to be a reliable witness.  Once again, we find that we may not invoke Pitchford J’s approach to the multiplicity of complaints about B where there is such uncertainty as to C’s reliability.

 

90. We note that B made some admissions to RMP of behaviour such as wolf-whistling, compliments and kissing.  Whilst we do not excuse such behaviour, especially in a padre, it will be for ISA to consider whether that behaviour is relevant to the question of listing, given that it was not carried out in relation to vulnerable adults.  ISA will also need to consider B’s evidence to the Tribunal, which we accept, that wolf-whistling was generally accepted in that place at that time but that having learned that it was wrong he has not repeated it since.

 

91. We do not find allegations A7 and A8 proven on the balance of probabilities in all these circumstances.

 

Allegation A13

 

92.  Allegation A13 concerned a complaint by X that, when she was working as a church cleaner, B had sexually harassed her with inappropriate comments, jokes and innuendo, that he had hugged her in a sexualised way and then tried to kiss her in the vestry.  These events took place in a different parish from all the previous allegations, in 2002.  X does not know the other complainants.

 

93. X was interviewed by the police in 2005 and the Tribunal watched the DVD of that interview in private session. X was invited to give oral evidence to the Tribunal but declined to do so.

 

94. X explained in her police interview that she had been experiencing personal problems following the end of her marriage and had initially gone to B for support.  She had been offered the job of Church cleaner and had thereafter come into contact with B on a number of occasions.  She described him making a sexist joke in her presence and says she complained to churchwarden F about it.  She says that on another occasion she had mentioned to B that she had given her cousin a massage and B had said that he could do with one of those himself.  She described him hugging her on one occasion on which she felt that his lower body had been pushed too close to her.  Finally she described him taking her into the vestry to show her where there had been a leak above a cupboard and that she had felt he was going to kiss her while she was looking up at the leak.

 

95. The Tribunal notes that X is vague about the timing of the events she describes.  She cannot recall when she first went to the Church or how long she worked there.  She refers in the interview to other people who could give the police evidence supportive of her own, but we did not have this evidence put before us.  She refers to having made complaints about B to F, who had said to ignore him. At the end of her interview, X appears confused and to cast doubt on her own account of events in the vestry by saying that “I don’t want to admit that he’s tried to kiss me for some reason, that he’s probably physically kissed me because I’ve blocked it out my head.  I mean, to think about someone, their lips might have tried to touch yours, I can’t say it because my mind’s so mush.  I don’t want to say it unless I know its real but I know he will have come close enough and might have tried kissing me but for some reason I must just be very honest and I can’t admit.”  

 

96.  X states in the police interview that she is receiving hospital treatment for depression.  She describes having discussed her complaint about B during an audition for the “Big Brother” television programme, saying that she cannot get it out of her mind.  She was clearly aware at the time of her police interview of the allegations made by Q as she says that this is why she came forward to the police.  She recounts having made a complaint of sexual harassment against her boss at work but says that he was subsequently dismissed for sexually harassing someone else.  She describes being in dispute with college about her assessment. She repeatedly describes how upset she feels that no one takes her seriously or stands up for her and that whilst other people were able to accept that B was a trendy vicar and make excuses for him, she felt he had acted inappropriately for someone in his position. 

 

97. X was interviewed by the Archdeacon in 2005, after writing to him.  The Tribunal saw her letter which does not make any specific allegations about B.  The letter is somewhat confusing.  It complains that “B hid away in my upset and feelings of ugliness and hurt” and adds “…the problems I went to the vicar for, he added more to my life.  I feel like a piece of muck and have done for years now”.   In the record of the interview with the Archdeacon, X stated that B had tried to kiss her in the vestry.

 

98. B was also provided with a copy of the DVD of X’s police interview prior to the oral hearing.  Facilities were made available for him to play the DVD in the Tribunal’s presence so as to point to any particular issues such as the demeanour of X in the interview, but he did not ask the Tribunal to play any of the DVD in his presence. B’s case was that X had psychiatric problems and that in view of this her evidence simply could not be relied upon.  He said that she had made false complaints about other men before and that the police had not found her to be a credible witness.

 

99. In his oral testimony, B told the Tribunal that he remembered X turning up on his doorstep crying and with her mascara running and wearing a leather jacket and leggings.  He had then refused to see her alone and had arranged for her to return when another female could be present.  He had seen X with the female churchwarden F present on two more occasions and reminded the Tribunal that it was his policy not to see women alone.  However, he also accepted that he had been to X’s house alone on a number of occasions and had been alone with her in the church occasionally when she had been cleaning it and he had needed to be there.  The Tribunal notes that in his police interview B had said that there would be no reason for him to have visited X on his own, but he told the Tribunal that he had gone there alone to drop keys off although he had not intended to go in until he realised X had someone with her.  B denied that he had ever told X a rude joke, or tried to kiss her. He said that it would have been impossible for him to have tried to kiss her in the vestry because they were not alone and could be seen by witness Z and the workmen in the church at the time.

 

100.   B called evidence from Z , who told the Tribunal that B had not been out of sight with X in the vestry and said that he had been able to see them at all times when they went to look at the leak. He said that X had not been distressed that day but had gone off to get the workmen milk for their tea.

 

 

101.   The following week B received a note from X saying that B’s second wife and her friend had been looking at X and laughing and that “if she knew what you did to me she wouldn’t be laughing”.  She referred to having contacted a solicitor.  B told the Tribunal that he had been to see the Archdeacon “in floods of tears” when he received the letter from X because he was afraid that his traumatic experience of the court martial might be repeated.  He told the Tribunal that the Archdeacon had suggested that the Church should dismiss X from her cleaning job on “trumped up charges” of inadequate work and on this basis B had written X a letter of warning and then a letter accepting her assumed resignation.  X produced these letters to the police and the Tribunal had copies.  B said he was disappointed the Archdeacon had not mentioned this in his statement but he knows these things are on the Archdeacon’s file which had not been produced to the Tribunal.  

 

102.   As noted above, the Tribunal had no opportunity to test X’s evidence.  An officer from ISA filed a witness statement for the oral hearing, stating that X was unwilling to give evidence but that he had found her credible.  We did not find this persuasive and questioned the appropriateness of an ISA officer giving opinion evidence as to credibility, which is an issue for the Tribunal. 

 

103.   We have considered whether X’s complaints are bolstered by their similarity to other stories of B’s opportunism in relation to vulnerable females.  There is no suggestion that X knew of the other complainants or even of the much-publicised court martial, although she was aware of Q’s allegations from local gossip.  We note that her account of B’s inappropriate comments and jokes and of his lone visits to her home presents a similar pattern of conduct to that of some other allegations, but that this could lend weight to her evidence only if we did not have concerns about her reliability.  We did not find X, from her police interview, an easy witness to assess and we did have doubts as to her reliability.  We heard directly opposing accounts of events in the vestry on the day of the leak.  B and Z say that B was never alone with X.  X says that they were alone and that she thought that B was going to kiss her but later questions her own judgement.  We were unable to evaluate X’s reliability in person in view of her refusal to attend the hearing but we did hear directly from Z, whom we found to be a truthful witness.

 

104.   In all these circumstances, we take the view that we cannot be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that allegation A13 is proven. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Allegation A14

 

105. Allegation A14 concerned the complaint made by B’s then step-daughter Q (the child of B’s second wife from her first marriage) in 2004, when she was nine.  The Tribunal watched the DVDs of the two police interviews with Q in private session.  In the interview she alleges that B had told her he would have sex with her on her sixteenth birthday and had asked her to “say yes, say yes”.  She had replied “I don’t know”.  She says that she had first reported this conversation to her friends at school and then, at their suggestion, to her teacher (social services had then become involved).  Q says that she did not know what sex was but that she had not been able to put the conversation with B out of her mind or look at B after it had taken place.  She had later made a second disclosure, which she confirmed in her  police interview, that B had on an earlier occasion put his finger into her vagina and had made her suck his penis.  She said she did not have a word for penis or for the activity described, but demonstrated by gestures what a penis was, pointed into her own mouth and also made a gesture of putting both hands onto the back of her own head and pressing it downwards.  She says “he made me do it”.

 

106.   B was provided with a copy of the DVDs of Q’s interviews shortly before the oral hearing.  Facilities were made available for him to play the DVDs in the Tribunal’s presence so as to point to any particular issues such as the demeanour of Q in her interview, but he did not ask the Tribunal to play any of the DVDs in his presence. In his interview by the police and in his witness statement for the Tribunal, B stated that Q had previously displayed concerning sexualised behaviour, which consisted of her touching his penis with her hands and her mouth while he was naked and asleep in bed, and that he had then formed the view that she was being abused by her maternal grandfather.  He said he had not reported this to the relevant Church or secular authorities at the time.  In answer to a question from the Tribunal, he said that he had not discussed the matter with his Archdeacon (as he had discussed X’s complaint in allegation A13) because the Archdeacon would have had a duty to report the matter to social services.  He said he now realised that that duty also applied to him but he had not realised this at the time.  The Tribunal notes that when asked in his police interview why he had not reported to anyone that he believed a child was being sexually abused, he had asserted that he had reported it – to the child’s mother and to a “child psychologist” of his acquaintance.  The child psychologist gave a witness statement to the police in which he confirms that B discussed Q’s sexualised behaviour with him.  He says that Q’s mother was there for the early part of the conversation but not all of it.  He says that he emphasised the importance of seeking professional help such as from Q’s school.  The Tribunal notes that the psychologist does not appear to have regarded this as an allegation that Q was being sexually abused as he did not take any action to report it.

 

107.   B stated that he had told Q’s mother of his concerns about Q’s behaviour but that she had not said anything and had refused to discuss the matter further.  In the record of his police interview he is reported as saying that he shared his concerns with a “senior child psychologist” although this was in fact the psychologist in his congregation, referred to above. The Tribunal notes that when Q made her allegation about B at school, Q’s mother was summoned to the school that day and that she never returned to B thereafter.  B was not informed of the allegations until some time later, but on the night that Q’s mother had been summoned to the school and did not return, B took an overdose and was taken to hospital.  B told the Tribunal this was because it had occurred to him that Q might have implicated him.

 

108.In Q’s second police interview, she is asked numerous questions about her extended family and confirms that no one in her family has done anything to hurt or upset her but finally adds the comment: “…except B”.

 

109.B repeated (and expanded upon) the accusation against Q’s grandfather in his evidence to the Tribunal, also expressing the view that Q’s mother had herself been abused by her father when a child.  He said that Q’s grandfather had a sexual interest in children, had joked with witness Z about abusing Q, and had deliberately chosen to live near a school.  B said he thought Q had in fact wanted to report the abuse by her grandfather but, for reasons of “transference”, had told the police that B had abused her instead.  In his police interview B had said that he had no idea why Q would have reported that he wanted to have sex with her when she was sixteen.  In evidence to the Tribunal he suggested that there might have been a misunderstanding by Q of a joke he used to make to his older daughters about how he could “marry them” when they were sixteen (being a vicar).  He said his adult daughters had suggested this to him as an explanation for Q having said that he wanted to have sex with her when she was sixteen.

 

110. B told the Tribunal he believed Q’s mother had fabricated Q’s allegations against him and coached Q into making a disclosure.  He pointed to the fact that after Q had made her initial allegation (about sex on her sixteenth birthday) at school, she had then left with her mother and sister. The duty social worker had been contacted later that evening about Q’s further allegations about digital penetration and oral sex.  B thought that this time frame was suspicious, although it is not entirely clear to the Tribunal why he thought this.  Q appears to describe the second disclosure in her interview, saying that she told her older sister and cousin, who wrote it down on a piece of paper which they showed to Q’s mother. B accepted that Q’s mother would have understood (as a health care professional and a volunteer in a children’s organisation) that the making of a false complaint of sexual abuse would have meant subjecting her daughter to an unnecessary intimate examination by a police doctor, but he thought that she would have proceeded to make it nonetheless because she wanted to end their marriage in circumstances which ensured that she would obtain financial support from the Church.  He accused her of having had numerous affairs during the marriage.  B also relied on the indication in the Tribunal’s papers that Q’s mother had not co-operated with the police or the Church authorities and that she had not arranged counselling for Q, as supporting his case. We note that Q was examined by a police doctor who found no physical signs of abuse.

 

111. Q’s mother gave a witness statement to the police in which she describes Q as having been “attention-seeking” in recent months.  She states that there was a conversation about this with an educational psychologist and others on a social occasion over some wine.  She says that prior to Q’s disclosure at school she had no idea that there had been any sexual contact between Q and B and that she left him immediately she found out.  She describes B as having been drinking heavily and taking anti depressants for about six months prior to Q’s disclosure.

 

112. B called witness Z, who described Q’s mother’s dress and behaviour on nights out as unsuitable for a vicar’s wife.  Z also described attending the vicarage in December 2005 or January 2006, after B had left, and finding a party in full swing.   A witness statement from F also described this event.  Z and F both alleged that the children had been drunk at the party. Z also described a conversation with Q’s maternal grandfather when he had said he could not get any sleep when Q was there as Q was always fiddling with him in the bed. Z had not reported this to B or to anyone else until after Q’s disclosure, when he wrote it down for B and included it in his witness statement to the police.  The Tribunal notes that Z, who is a churchwarden, had not reacted to the comment at the time as if it were a disclosure by an adult that they were abusing a child, as he had taken no action in relation to it. 

 

113. As noted above, B’s case at the oral hearing was that Q’s mother, from whom he is now divorced, had fabricated these allegations and coached Q to repeat them.  The Tribunal notes that B suggested this to the Diocesan Child Protection Adviser in 2005 but that he does not seem to have repeated the suggestion since then (it is not made in his police interviews, his witness statement for the Tribunal or in his written submissions).   At the hearing he said he had only recently realised that she had done this so as to obtain financial advantage in the form of re-housing and support from the Church.  He pointed to the fact that Q’s mother’s lack of co-operation appears to have been a significant factor in the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute him for assaulting Q.  Q’s mother was not called to give evidence or tendered for cross examination at the Tribunal hearing and so far as we are aware B’s serious allegations have never been put to her.

 

114. In his closing submissions to the Tribunal, B complained that he had been denied an opportunity to cross examine Q’s mother.  The Tribunal was concerned about this complaint because he had not made an application for her to be called at the case management hearing before Judge McKenna or during the oral hearing itself.   B stated that Judge Wikeley had refused his application to call her some months previously and that he had not known that he could have renewed it on another occasion.  After the hearing, B sent to the Tribunal a copy of Judge Wikeley’s case management directions and the accompanying ruling of 6 February 2012 (which were of course already on file) in which Judge Wikeley had commented that “I am not persuaded that it is necessary to hear live evidence from [Q’s mother] as it is unclear how far she would be able to give evidence directly relating to the allegation in question”.  This comment was, of course, made in the context of B’s stated case at that time and Judge Wikeley could not have known that a different case would emerge during B’s sworn testimony.  The Tribunal notes that in his ruling of 6 February 2012, Judge Wikeley also refers (in the same paragraph as the above quotation) to the need to reconsider at a future date whether Q should called be to give live evidence (in the event that her police interviews are not made available), thus making it clear that such matters could be re-considered by the Tribunal.  The Tribunal also notes that, although Judge Wikeley had ruled on that occasion that A and C need not be called, the Appellant then renewed his applications for them to be traced or their evidence struck out in his written submissions for the case management hearing before Judge McKenna.   This suggests that, although he was representing himself, B did have an understanding that the earlier case management directions regarding witness evidence could be varied at a later date. We conclude that the reason that the attendance of Q’s mother was not pursued by the Appellant was that he only decided to allege that she had fabricated her daughter’s complaint at the hearing itself, and not because he had misunderstood the Tribunal’s procedure to his disadvantage.   

 

115. When asked about Q’s alleged sexualised behaviour when she was still living with him at the vicarage, B described how he had always slept naked and had not thought it appropriate to wear any clothing in bed even after Q started getting in with him and her mother and had touched his penis.  He said he had threatened to put a lock on the bedroom door but had never actually done it.  He described each occasion when Q had touched him as involving him ejecting Q from the room before waking her mother.  He did not say why he had not woken her while Q was still there. B also described his conversation with the psychologist as having taken place in Q’s mother’s absence because he says she walked off. It follows that B’s account of Q’s sexualised behaviour is entirely without corroboration in circumstances where he could have taken action to prevent it re-occurring or to ensure that his account of events was corroborated.  We conclude in these circumstances that B’s account of Q’s earlier sexualised behaviour was either made up by him or exaggerated in order to cover himself in the event of a disclosure by Q.  We find that Q’s mother, in separating from B immediately after Q’s disclosure had been made at school and in contacting social services immediately when further allegations were made, behaved as one would expect a mother to behave when faced with the allegation for the first time.  We do not believe B’s account of having discussed Q’s behaviour with her mother previously.  The mother’s behaviour when faced with the disclosure ran contrary to B’s descriptions of her earlier indifference.  We have no basis for accepting, as B suggested to us, that Q’s mother was the sort of person who would put her child through a sexual abuse investigation merely to gain financial advantage.  We did not find Z’s evidence of her wild ways on a night out indicative of a mother who was capable of such abuse.

 

116. We found Q to be a credible witness on the basis of her police interviews.  She did not appear to us to be a child who had been coached to repeat fabricated allegations.  Indeed, she did not have the words for some of the things she described and instead used gestures.  This would not appear to support the suggestion that she had been coached by an adult, who – it seems to us – would have given her the relevant words. The gesture Q used of placing her own hands on the back of her head was, in our view, a particularly knowing gesture for a nine year old, and combined with her description, we found it compellingly supportive of her account of being forced to give oral sex to B. 

 

117.We find allegation A14 to be proven on the balance of probabilities.

 

118. We are conscious, however, that B’s allegations against Q’s mother and grandfather have not been put directly to them due to the fact that B did not give advance notice of his allegations in this regard.  In making a fresh decision in relation to allegation A14, it seems to us that ISA could consider asking Q’s mother for her comments on the allegation of fabrication.  It may be that as Q and her sister are now so much older, they should now be given the opportunity to make statements to ISA about these events.  We also note that Q describes in her police interview an incident of violence by B to her sister which ISA may wish to consider further when making its new decision. 

 

 

Allegations 15 and 16

 

119.  Allegations 15 and 16 concern allegations of inappropriate behaviour by B in the parish where he lived with his second (now ex) wife (the same parish as allegations A13 and A14).  The dates of these events are unspecified by ISA but they are said probably to have occurred in 2005.  The victims of these allegations are also unidentified by ISA.  The allegations are based on, firstly, comments made by X in her police interview that she had seen B performing a “sexy dance” in the post office and, secondly, comments by Q’s mother to the effect that B had sent sexually suggestive texts to her friend.

 

120.   B’s case was that there had indeed been some sexualised banter between Q’s mother, himself and her friend when the two women were on a night out but that there had been a shared joke between adults about whether all three of them could sleep in the same bed later.  There has been no complaint by Q’s mother’s friend.

 

121.   B denied ever having performed a sexy dance anywhere and especially not in the local post office, pointing to the fact that he was rather overweight.  X refers to other witnesses being present on this occasion (including her own father) but no evidence from other sources has been placed before us.   

 

122.   In the absence of more specific details or additional direct evidence from those affected by these two allegations, it does not seem to us that we can be satisfied of these events so as to meet the standard of proof required.  On the basis of the evidence presented to the Tribunal, we are not satisfied that these allegations are proven.

 

  Conclusion

 

123. B told the Tribunal that he had now been suspended from his ministry for two years and that he is not allowed even to answer the phone in the vicarage.  He said that if he is successful in his appeal he will resume his ministry “when the Bishop says I can”.   He explained that in addition to his inclusion on the barring lists he is currently unable to work because he is unfit due to panic attacks, for which he is being treated with anti-depressants.  He said he would first have to be assessed as fit to work again, but that he intended to resume his ministry if removed from the barred lists and when he is well.

 

124. As noted above, the Tribunal finds allegations A1, A2, A4 and A14 proven on the balance of probabilities. We note the similarity of the allegations in allegations A1, A2 and A4, involving a familiar course of conduct by B in relation to teenage girls who were for varying reasons vulnerable, his habit of seeing young women alone (despite his reported policy to the contrary) and the abuse of his position of trust in relation to each of them.  The similarities in the allegations made by women in relation to whom there is no suggestion of collaboration is an important feature of this case, especially in view of the Appellant’s reliance on the inherent improbability of him having acted as alleged.  We express our thanks to the complainants who attended the oral hearing of their own volition.  The similarity of their stories lends weight to each other’s, but the evidence of each of the women we heard from was both credible and cogent when considered alone.

 

  125. We now remit this matter to the ISA to make a fresh decision as to the appropriateness of including B on the barred lists on the basis of these findings.  In the interim, we direct that B remain on both lists in view of the seriousness of the findings we have made and the likelihood that he would present a risk to children and vulnerable adults with whom he would come into contact if he resumed his ministry.

 

 

 

Signed on the original: Dated: 13 November 2012

 

Alison McKenna

John Hutchinson

Margaret Diamond