Louise Greentree, 27th July 2008
As we told you in the article A Cautionary Tale – the cover-up begins, at long last the diocese has formulated the actual ‘charges’ against Mr. A. and all the allegations of child sexual abuse have been abandoned as not sustainable. This in itself means that the diocese has had to accept that Harriet and her supporters are all unreliable. In that paper I asked the question: Is the Church big enough to say ‘sorry’? Is the church that preaches repentance to others going to repent of its own sin? Will we now see people who tried so hard to destroy the reputation and family life of Mr. A, who have sinned by being slanderers, and who have pastorally abused his wife and his children, and brought false and ridiculous complaints of child sex abuse and grooming against him repenting of their conduct and seeking forgiveness and reconciliation? As I said there, I do not think the A family are holding their breath for this to occur.
It is a good thing that the A family are not doing so. Far from repenting of sinful and abusive conduct the parish and diocesan leaderships have compounded the offence: in all services on Sunday 29th June the Assistant Bishop for the region Al Stewart, with the active cooperation of the Rector, addressed the congregations by videotape in which he read out the (ostensibly private) letter from the Professional Standards Committee to Mr. A. Unfortunately Bishop Stewart was not entirely frank with the congregations and he omitted to tell them that as Mr. A. denied the allegations, the matter now would be heard in a diocesan tribunal. Instead most of those who heard the presentation were left with the strong impression that Mr. A had been ‘tried and found guilty’ of the remaining few charges after due process, which is far from the case. Hence the title to the handout, referring to the title of the well-known film: ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape’
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‘Sex, Lies and Videotape’