The Abbot's Latest Statement

In an article in the Ealing Gazette, we have Abbot Shipperlee providing yet another slightly different version of events.

In a statement, Abbot Martin Shipperlee blamed Pearce for the failure of the child protection measures.

"We accept the report in full," he said. "The trustees considered that adequate measures were put in place. However, David Pearce circumvented these measures and it's a matter of sincere regret. The trustees are determined to ensure that nothing like this can happen again. The Charity Commission report confirms we have in place the appropriate safeguarding policies and procedures."

If that is really the case, I have a few questions for the Abbot.

1. When are you going to make some public announcement about this "independent review" you keep claiming to be conducting but about which nobody seems to know anything?
   
   
2. When are you going to respond to the Open Letter citing a large number of shortcomings in St. Benedict's School's child protection policies.

The thing is, you can't simply say "The trustees are determined to ensure that nothing like this can happen again" and expect everyone simply to take you at your word. Not after you made precisely the same undertaking to the Charity Commission in response to their first Statutory Inquiry, were believed, and found to have failed to do so even before they managed to publish their report. Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, but in this cases there really isn't any doubt that you have failed to fulfil the undertakings you made.

And it isn't sufficient to say that Father David hoodwinked you. You're the Abbot and the chairman of the trust, and if you can be hoodwinked by one paedophile, then you can be hoodwinked by another. So your word isn't good enough any more on this subject. We need to see the procedures being changed and we need to see this independent review actually happening.

Tom Perry of www.questions4schools.org.uk has pointed me to the guidance issued by the Department of Education for Northern Ireland (DENI) Pastoral care in schools - Child protection
Sections 36-58 have a very comprehensive set of procedures for what a school must do in the event of a complaint against a member of staff. It covers cases ranging from where the complaint is without foundation to where a criminal conviction is ultimately obtained, and the school's role in each of these cases. Critically, it describes what should happen in the event that a case warranting a criminal investigation does not result in a conviction, but where the evidence is sufficiently strong to justify a genuine concern for the safety of pupils. The St. Benedict's procedures are entirely silent on this issue.

Of course, not all aspects of the DENI guidance are applicable to a single school. But Tom Perry has told me (and I have confirmed for myself by reading the document) that these guidelines are exceptionally thorough, and can be used as a model on which to base child protection procedures for any school in the UK. Anybody interested in the Child Protection procedures at St. Benedict's should read the DENI guidelines and compare them with what the school has as its present policy.

"Chosen"

When I read the Charity Commission Report into St Benedict's, one thing which puzzled me was the sending of a Serious Incident Report to the Charity Commission when Fr Pearce was arrested. If a Serious Incident Report was sent then, why not a similar report when Fr Stanislaus Hobbs was arrested? Why not a report when the complaint was originally made by 'C' to the Abbot? Why not a report when the civil case was brought, and why not a report when the civil case was lost? It seems that no such report had been sent by the Trust to the Charity Commission, otherwise their first statutory investigation would not have been prompted by an anonymous complaint, of matters which the Commission had clearly been unaware of up that point.

So I took a look at the Charity Commission website to see what their rules were. And I came across the page Reporting Serious Incidents - guidance for trustees. And sure enough, the page states:

As a matter of best practice, any serious incident that has resulted or could result in a significant loss of funds or a significant risk to a charity’s property, work, beneficiaries or reputation should be reported to us immediately, not just on completion of the Annual Return. This will enable us to offer you guidance as soon as possible and protect the charity and its beneficiaries.

Included in the list of circumstances which should be treated as "serious or significant" are "abuse of vulnerable beneficiaries".

But here is the curious thing. As far as I can tell from my reading of the Charity Commission guidance, there is no legal obligation to report cases or allegations of abuse of vulnerable beneficiaries of the charity. All the guidance for "best practice" is voluntary, and expressed in terms of "should" rather than "shall" or "must". So, the abuse that Fr Pearce committed could have been known about by the trustees for years - decades even - and there would have been no legal requirement for the trustees to make any report to the Charity Commission. So the Abbot can perfectly truthfully claim to have met all his legal obligations regarding Fr Pearce, and yet have known all about it for years. And this is what appears to have happened. Evidence given in the civil case by the Abbot suggested that he had known about problems with Fr Pearce dating back at least to 1993 when he was moved from the post of Junior School headteacher.

I guess what has happened is this. The Abbot knew that the Trust was already under investigation by the Charity Commission. He knew that he had made assurances to them that Fr Pearce would be kept away from children, and he knew that those assurances had failed to be kept. I guess that in the course of the discussions with the Charity Commission's investigators during the first inquiry, the investigators had impressed on the Abbot and other trustees the need to be scrupulous in following the "best practice" guidelines in future, and not merely the legal obligations. If this is so, then the Abbot would have had to send in a Serious Incident Report, or risk being required to resign as a trustee. It is one thing to have abjectly failed to fulfill undertakings to the Commission, quite another to attempt to cover up that failure by not reporting the arrest.

Once Fr Pearce was arrested, the Charity Commission reported:

There was no immediate risk to the Charity’s beneficiaries as Individual A left the Charity at the request of the trustees following his arrest in January 2008.

But in the Guardian report, the Abbot justified the decision not to remove Fr Pearce immediately after the civil case by saying "Where else is he going to go? If I sent him anywhere else I would have had no idea of what he was up to."

In fact, the Abbot, in placing Fr Pearce under a restricted ministry, wrote a letter to staff stating that these measures were "to protect Fr David from unfounded allegations". This almost certainly had the effect of making everyone aware of the letter inclined to believe that some injustice had been done in the adverse outcome of the civil case, and that the restrictions on Fr Pearce were really there in name only and not to be taken seriously. In other words, the way that the restrictions were implemented meant that the Abbot ended up having no idea what Fr Pearce was up to even when on the Abbey premises!

I've been contacted by Tom Perry, of www.questions4schools.org.uk. He and two other pupils of Caldicot school have made a BAFTA award-winning documentary Chosen about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hand of teachers there. It is available online at the link above.

If you watch this film, you will understand what has been going on at St Benedict's School. You will understand how paedophiles cut out and isolate children for grooming, how they escalate their attentions very slowly, how the child is made to believe he is being offered special attention, how he believes he has been specially chosen. You will learn how paedophiles are careful to maintain a close social relationship with the victim's parents so as to make a complaint unthinkable for the child, and how the complaint is often not believed by the parents in the relatively rare cases where the child does complain.

And if you think that it is unlikely that a paedophile could successfully be so controlling, be aware that at least one victim of Fr Pearce was disowned by his mother when he reported the abuse - she found it utterly impossible to believe that Fr Pearce could have done such a thing.

I have viewed the whole film. I have also viewed the transcript of the judgement in the case of 'C' against St Benedict's school and Fr Pearce, and in the hearing at which Fr Pearce was sentenced I have heard what his tactics were. The details of the precise abuse are a bit different, but the tactics used to suppress the will of the victim are exactly the same. Look at the video, and you will hear how it is done, and what effect it has on the victims. Their childhood is poisoned, part of it is taken away from them and those years can never be returned. The effects are felt far into adulthood.

If you are a parent of a past or present pupil at the school, you cannot assume that your child will tell you about any abuse they suffer. The child is so drawn into the secret world of the paedophile that even when asked a direct question about whether he or she has been abused, the child is likely to deny it. The child has been made to feel complicit in the abuse - to speak up would be to cause untold damage to their abuser, and the child believes this damage would be all the child's fault, a responsibility he would have to carry for the rest of his life.

The three victims who speak in the film have all reached middle age. Telling their parents was unthinkable for 20 years or more following the events. Some victims never manage to speak of it until after their parents are dead - they cannot bear to cause their parents the pain involved in realising that in their choice of school they gave their child into the hands of a paedophile abuser.

Unless other measures are in place to prevent abuse, or rapidly detect it and put a stop to it, an abuser can operate in a school for decades, and the children will in many cases never summon the will to speak out about it. It is beyond credulity that the 5 boys about whom Fr Pearce pleaded guilty are his only victims. There must be many more - probably dozens, perhaps even a hundred. We will probably never know how many. Pearce is not going to say, and many of the victims will never throw off their shame to the point of being able to speak up.

So, you cannot rely on your child to tell you about problems of this kind. So what can you rely on? Surely you can rely on the legal obligations of a school to report complaints of abuse against a member of staff?

In fact, you cannot, because incredible as it may seem, there is no such legal obligation. Not to report to the Charity Commission, not to report to OFTSED, not to report to the DCSF, nor to the police or Social Services. Tom Perry wrote an article for The Times in connection with Chosen. Why a child today is no safer from sexual abuse than I was (Please read the whole article, it will make your hair stand on end.) Here is what he has to say on the subject of the legal framework.

You may encounter something that looks and smells like a statute but it does not bark like a statute. It is related to Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 for maintained schools, and Section 157 of the same Act for independent schools. These statutory duties are supported by “guidance” contained within Working Together to Safeguard Children, issued by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) in April 2006, and Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education, which was also issued by the DfES in November 2006 and took effect in January 2007.

All you will find at the cornerstone of child protection in English classrooms is that schools should report alleged abuse to the LADO. If a school fails to follow this “guideline” there is no sanction for “failing to report”. In theory the School Inspectors should put any such school on an undertaking to the DCSF to report alleged abuse appropriately: but this rarely happens (and is a frequent example of failure in the inspection process).

Presenting this “guidance” as quasi-statutory misleads most in the world of education, including, to my knowledge, a senior officer in the DCSF involved with Safeguarding. It is a triumph of presentation over reality. But the losers are the child victims of abuse, and it is this that the DCSF fails to understand. From many years of communication with the DCSF it has become clear that “Safeguarding” is not a subject of which there is much practical understanding.

So, to summarise, there is no legal obligation. And there is no effective inspection regime to ensure that schools - state or independent - obey the guidance.

So you are on your own. You have to rely on the school having robust procedures in place, that it actually implements them, and that allegations of abuse will be reported and acted on.

But particularly for an independent school, news of a case of abuse is very bad for business. It is very common (and not merely in Catholic schools) when a case comes to light, to quietly move the teacher on, and if the parents become aware of anything, to persuade them that it is not in the child's interest to put them through the additional trauma of a police investigation and a possible court case. And so the parents are persuaded to collude in the cover-up.

If a cover-up can be achieved, and there is no legal obligation to report abuse, and no practical sanction for failing to report, why should a school make it more likely that its reputation (and intake) will be damaged by reporting a case? Does the school really exist for the education and welfare of the children, or do the children exist for the glory and reputation of the school? I've known other independent schools where the atmosphere of the school very much suggested the latter.

You'll have to check the arrangements for yourself if you are concerned for the safety of your children. You will have to ask the headteacher what the safeguarding arrangements are, and you will have to decide for yourself whether you think they are adequate. There is no statutory or voluntary body which will do this work for you and will ensure that adequate procedures are in place. And if you get it wrong, you run the risk of wrecking your son or daughter's childhood. Believe me, no matter how fine the education might be in other terms, no matter how prestigious a university your child obtains entry to, your child's life will be stunted if he or she becomes a victim of abuse.

And do you think that nothing like this could ever happen again at the school? If so, why do you think that? What evidence do you have to support that conclusion? It was unthinkable that Fr Pearce could have operated for so long - him a monk and priest as well as a teacher and a pillar of the community. The clever career paedophiles look just like ordinary people - except that they look even more distinguished, an impression they are careful to cultivate.

Now, go back and take a look at my Open Letter to the Abbot, and see whether you think that the school has really taken adequate measures to ensure that there can be no repetition of the abuse, that no other abuser could still be at the school and remain undetected, and that no new member of staff or volunteer could start to operate. Remember that CRB checks will only protect against somebody who has already been caught once. To catch somebody for the first time requires other measures.

The Abbot refuses to speak to me. He apologised to those who have been "troubled" by Fr Pearce and put the whole blame onto Fr Pearce in saying "The crimes perpetrated by David Pearce were a betrayal of the trust placed in him as a teacher and priest". He spoke more truly than perhaps he realised when he said of Pearce "His exploitation of the most vulnerable was brought to an end by the courage of those of his victims who came forward and revealed what had been happening." Very true. Especially as the Abbot himself made no contribution to that process.

And we still know nothing of this independent review that is supposed to be happening. Confident, are we?

Latest news on Ealing Abbey

The Abbey has been in the news again. I've been a bit busy with other things, so haven't had the chance to comment until now.

On 15 December, the Charity Commission published the delayed report of two statutory enquiries into the activities of The Trust of St Benedict's Abbey Ealing. You can see the full report here.

Go there and read the report. It really does make damning reading.

The first statutory enquiry was opened as a result of a complaint made to the Charity Commissioners following the 2006 civil case. They don't say who the complaint was from, (all they say is that the complaint was anonymous) but I guess the complaint was in the form of a letter from 'C's solicitor. ('C' was the name given to the complainant for the purpose of that case.)

The Charity Commissioners don't have a role in investigating abuse of a charity's beneficiaries, so the investigation concerned itself with whether charitable funds have been misused in defending the case and making the payout, and with whether the charity's trustees are acting appropriately in the light of the allegations and taking appropriate steps to protect the Charity’s beneficiaries in the future.

The first enquiry had concluded its investigation and was in the process of writing up its report when Fr Pearce was arrested. This time, the Abbey sent in a Serious Incident Report to the Commission. It is not clear to me why the trustees did not send in a Serious Incident Report following either the civil case or the arrest of Fr Stanislaus Hobbs (called "Individual B" in the report). No mention of any other Serious Incident Reports is made in the Commission report, so I assume that no others were made by the trustees.

The Commission decided to hold back the report, start a second Statutory Enquiry and combine the two reports.

The conclusions of the second enquiry are damning. The commissioners use fairly dry language, but even so, you can tell that they treated this matter very seriously.

Despite assurances from the trustees, they failed to implement the restrictions placed on Individual A whilst on Charity premises and the Commission is extremely critical of the trustees in this regard. One of the terms of Individual A’s continued role in the Charity was that he was to have no access to children and young people on the Charity’s premises – the trustees failed to ensure this was the case.

I've compared the language used with other recent statutory reports into individual charities by the Charity Commission. Even in cases where a charity has been closed as a result of the investigation, there is no other recent report I have been able to find where the Commission says it is "extremely critical of the trustees".

Also, it is clear that the Commission was dubious about the propriety of using the Charity's funds to defend the civil case.

The Commission considered that it was arguable that the decision taken by the trustees to use charitable funds to meet the legal costs of Individual A fell within a reasonable range of decisions open to them. The Commission determined that this decision was open to challenge and that the trustees could have approached the Commission for advice on this issue.

"Individual A" is identified elsewhere in the report as Fr Pearce. According to the report, the legal costs and the award of damages in the civil claim were both covered by an insurance policy held by the abbey, so no funds were directly at risk - except presumably that the premiums may be higher in future as a result of the claim. I get the impression that had the policy not been in place and charitable funds used directly for the defence and payout, the commission would have been somewhat less forgiving.

The Guardian has published a brief article about the Charity Commission report. The Guardian journalist contacted me for a comment.

The Daily Mail copied the Guardian report - including the quotation from me (mis-spelling my name, but I'll forgive them for that), merely changing a few words around.

Andy Slaughter MP has written in the Ealing Gazette.

One thing that strikes me about these various reports is that what the Abbot says seems to change a bit depending on who he is talking to. In the letter from the Abbot read out in court at Fr Pearce's sentencing hearing, it was stated that the restrictions were being placed on Fr Pearce "to protect Father David from unfounded allegations", but no suggestion that the Abbot thought the allegations were unfounded appears to have been made to the Charity Commission, in the assurances by the trustees that Fr Pearce would have no contact with children.

In the newspaper reports, the Abbot replied to questions as to why Fr Pearce had been allowed to remain at the Abbey by saying "Where else is he going to go? If I sent him anywhere else I would have had no idea of what he was up to." This rather suggests that he realised perfectly well the truth of the allegations, but was saying different things to different people in order to tell them what he thought they wanted to hear. I'll leave it to you to decide what to make of that.

Following his Ealing Gazette column I've sent an email to Andy Slaughter asking him if he will ask the Abbot to provide details of the independent review. I've had no reply yet, but I wouldn't expect one over the holiday season.

Sentencing of Fr David Pearce

Just two very quick items, I'll report in more detail later.

Fr Pearce today was sentenced to 8 years in prison for his offences against boys at St Benedict's School. According to law, he will serve half and the other half will be suspended. He will be placed on the sex offenders' register for life, and the judge also made an order that he must not have any unsupervised contact with any child under the age of 18, not be involved unsupervised in any educational activity with any child under the age of 18, and not undertake unsupervised any religious service in the presence of any child under the age of 18.

The Abbot was not present and no statement on behalf of the Abbey was made to the press at the court (though a press statement was issued later). I understand from discussions with journalists present that he has been refusing all calls from the press recently.

UPDATE
The story has hit the news. It was lead item on ITV's news programme "London Tonight". So far, the fullest written account is in The Independent, but the Ealing Gazette, the Press Association, and the BBC website are also carrying the story.

I'm not going to compete with the Independent's account, written by Wesley Johnson and Anisha Ahmed of the Press Association. Their journalists have better shorthand than mine and their account is a substantially accurate summary of the offences committed by Fr Pearce. Also, the victims have had their lives messed with enough, I don't want to invade their privacy any further by repeating the details all over again. I met one of the police officers who had conducted the investigation and she advised me that the case was under reporting restrictions as regards the names of the victims, but I assured her that even without restrictions I had no intention of naming any victims.

But there are a few points which I made a particular note of.

Firstly, it is quite clear from the account given by the prosecuting barrister that Fr Pearce got himself into a position of trust and authority and then used that position to prevent his victims from speaking up, and to prevent them for a long time from being believed even when they did speak up. One victim was even estranged from his own parents for a time as they found the accusations to be unbelievable.

Second, although the physical acts involved were not the most serious possible sexual offences, it is quite clear that it has had a devastating effect on the lives of the victims, as much from the abuse of trust as from the physical abuse. Statements read out in court from more than one victim mentioned how Fr David "was everywhere" in their life. It is quite clear that the victims were in no way able to deal with the psychological manipulations he inflicted on them, they just didn't have the age and maturity.

If any of the victims read this, let me assure you that from the description given in court, there is no reason at all for you to feel in any way guilty about your own actions. You were manipulated and you were not responsible for the abuse done to you. The mere fact that there was little or no physical coercion is entirely irrelevant, Fr Pearce was in such a position of authority over you, and in some cases over your parents, that there is no way that somebody of your age could have resisted an adult with the age, authority, education and sophistication of Fr Pearce. Psychologically it was the equivalent of putting a 9-year old into a boxing ring with Mike Tyson. There's no way you could possibly have been expected to withstand that. You have my every best wish and sincere hope that now Fr Pearce is behind bars for a substantial time you will be able to get on with your lives in peace and privacy.

Thirdly, I'd like to mention some of the points made in plea of mitigation by the defending barrister. I happened to be sat next to one of the victims in the public seats during the hearing, and could sense his hackles rise at some of the statements being made. But I don't blame the barrister for making pleas of mitigation - it is his job, and it is necessary for the judge to hear whatever good points there are to be made. But there was very little that really could be said that would have much mitigating effect. Here are some of the points made.

• the defendant wished to apologise to the victims for the acts committed, and the barrister was now doing so on his behalf
• he had shown sufficient contact with reality (in contrast to many other sex offenders) that he had changed his plea to guilty, albeit at a very late date
• he did not set out to cause distress
• the judge had a duty to sentence only on the basis of the charges to which Pearce had pleaded guilty (about half the charges originally brought - the rest were dropped by the prosecution in exchange for the guilty plea)
• he had also done much good in the world, that he had been a good and effective teacher, that he had participated in and led a great many out-of-hours school activities, and that many pupils had benefited from the education he had had a part in providing
• many people had come forward to act as character witnesses for him, including pillars of the local community, even though they were aware of his offences and that he had pleaded guilty
• he hadn't acted as a predator - the crime career of a sexual predator classically involves an escalation in the seriousness of offences over time, which didn't happen in this case
  
• the victim impact statements should be read with some caution, not because they should be regarded as in any way untrue, but rather that they should be read as the effect of all the abuse suffered by the victims, and that some of the victim impact statements made mention of abuse inflicted by others in addition to that by Fr Pearce

The judge was thoroughly unimpressed by most of this, and this was reflected in the points he made in giving sentence.

Fourth, I was very much struck by one point made by the prosecuting barrister, almost as an aside. After the civil case in 2006, Fr Pearce was placed on a "restricted ministry" by the Abbot. Part of a letter from the Abbot was read out in court which stated that Fr Pearce:

• was not to have any public ministry
• must celebrate mass only in private within the monastery
• must have no contact with children

The reason given in the letter for this restricted ministry was "to protect Fr David from unfounded allegations". No mention was made in court of any other reason given.

The last of his victims was befriended by Fr Pearce after the civil case, despite the restrictions supposedly imposed by the Abbot.

Fifth, there was no sign of the Abbot. He was not present, despite the fact that he had led me to understand that he would use the occasion to make a statement. A press statement was issued later by the Abbey. I don't yet have a copy, because as far as I can tell it hasn't been posted either on the Abbey website or that of the Diocese of Westminster, so all I can do is quote what was included in the report in the Independent.

In a statement issued by Ealing Abbey, Abbot Martin Shipperlee said: "The crimes perpetrated by David Pearce were a betrayal of the trust placed in him as a teacher and priest.

"His exploitation of the most vulnerable was brought to an end by the courage of those of his victims who came forward and revealed what had been happening.

"I would like to apologise in every way I can to the victims and to everyone else who has been affected by this case.

"I will remember in my prayers all those whose lives have been troubled by David Pearce's actions."

The Abbot said he was launching an independent review into the case "to examine what there is to be learned to ensure that there can never be a recurrence of this situation".

He added: "David Pearce's future as a priest will now be reviewed by my superiors in accordance with the child protection procedures of the church."

That is not nearly good enough. It leaves entirely unstated what of his own personal failures or the Abbey's institutional failures he was apologising for. After all, these failures were what permitted Fr Pearce to continue his abuse for so long. The words are very slightly less weaselly than those which followed the civil case, but fall far short of what the victims can and should reasonably expect from the Abbey.

Even the statement about the "independent review" could be interpreted as weasel words. "A recurrence of this situation" could be read to mean "a recurrence of things being found out to the extent that it got to court and embarrassed the church." I warned the Abbot against the use of euphemisms and circumlocutions, that an apology would have to be full and frank if it was going to do much good. Certainly I am comprehensively unimpressed with what has been offered so far.

I think that the victims deserve something a little more substantial in terms of support than that the Abbot will "remember in my prayers all those whose lives have been troubled by David Pearce's actions".

But I'm pleased about the independent review. I would like to learn more about it - who will be conducting it, what their terms of reference will be, and whether its report will be published. The details of this matter, and unless I know it is going to have a broad remit, unqualified cooperation from everyone at the Abbey and its schools from the Abbot down, a public report, and be conducted by secular non-catholic experts, then I'm going to be skeptical as to whether this is any more than window dressing. However, it it does have all those characteristics, then there is every chance that future abuse can be prevented and any other past abuse brought to light.

I intend keeping an eye on this and seeing what happens in future.