BY : Staff writer Christian Today
Four priests have had their licence to practise suspended by the Church of England as it continues to deal with the fallout from a damning review into safeguarding failings.
The Diocese of London has withdrawn permission to officiate (PTO) pending investigation from Hugh Palmer, former rector at All Soul’s Church, Langham Place in London, and Christianity Explored founder Rico Tice, The Telegraph reports.
Sue Colman, associate minister at St Leonard’s Church in Oakley, Hampshire, has also had her PTO suspended pending investigation, while in the Diocese of Gloucester the licence of Cheltenham-based pastor Nick Stott has been withdrawn.
The measures have been taken following the publication of the Makin Review which accused the Church of England of carrying out a “cover-up” of horrific abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, the late organiser of Iwerne Christian youth camps.
The report led to the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but there have been calls for more clergy to go over their failure to act.
Palmer was cited in the report as having met with a badly beaten Smyth victim in 1982 the day after he had attempted to take his own life. Palmer said he did not realise at the time that the suicide attempt was linked to abuse by Smyth.
The report said: “Hugh Palmer visits victim [and] tells victim he was extremely sympathetic to abuse suffered at [the] hands of John Smyth.”
During the review, victims cast doubt over the motives behind such visits by clergy.
“Victims have told us that this contact was not requested by them, but that it was proactively made by the individual clergy, by letter or phone, at the time feeling surprised by this and recalled how this was an unusual step, not something they had previously experienced, except in terms of John Smyth’s approach to their grooming,” the report said.
“At the time they felt it was offered in a supportive way but with hindsight, they reflected this may have been offered more for reasons of oversight and monitoring.”
Palmer, a former chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II, told the review his visit had been motivated by “genuine concern”.
Tice left the Church of England earlier this year over its introduction of same-sex blessings but retained his PTO so that he could continue to speak in Church of England churches.
He told The Times that after becoming aware of the abuse in 1987, he made his concerns known “soon afterwards” and “reported what I knew to senior people in the Iwerne camp more than once”.
He said: “As a university student in the spring of 1987, I was told that boys at Iwerne camps had been beaten. At that time I was not aware of the dreadful severity of those beatings, certainly not that they amounted to criminal assault.”
Of Colman, the Makin Review said it was likely that she and her husband Jamie had “significant knowledge” of Smyth’s abuse in the UK and Africa as they were trustees of a ministry that funded his work in Africa.
Concerning Stott, he was described as among the first on the scene when a young boy died in suspicious circumstances at one of Smyth’s camps in Zimbabwe. Stott told the review he had had “a confidence that any matters would have been investigated and dealt with by people he trusted”.
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