Lord Hope's Statement On The Independent Inquiry

Archbishop of York
October 22, 2014

http://www.archbishopofyork.org/articles.php/3170/lord-hopes-statement-on-the-independent-inquiry

The Office of Lord Hope of Thornes issued the following statement today. Bishop David Hope is a former Bishop of London, and the former Archbishop of York.


STATEMENT RE THE WADDINGTON INQUIRY

Lord Hope issued the following statement today

I have maintained throughout my career that any allegation of abuse made against anyone connected to the Church must be dealt with professionally and swiftly. Accordingly, as someone who has always taken safeguarding extremely seriously, I am obviously disappointed that this Inquiry has raised concerns about how the two cases in question were dealt with during my time at Bishopthorpe.

As Bishop of Wakefield, then London followed by my time as Archbishop of York I always took great care and acted in, what I believed to be, an appropriate and effective manner in cases where the abuse of victims was brought to my attention.  I note that the Inquiry itself is clear that no allegations of abuse in the Diocese of York were ever made during my time as Archbishop.

At the time 15 and 12 years ago respectively such allegations as were reported to me were unspecific.  Indeed the full details of the allegations in question have never been brought to my attention either at the time that I was Archbishop, or during this Inquiry.  The allegations were also from unnamed sources who had indicated their unwillingness at that stage to go to the police.  In such circumstances, at that time, there was no recommendation that reporting to the police and statutory authorities was mandatory and that there was 'no single, correct procedure for dealing with a disclosure of abuse by an adult'[1]. If any allegations were passed to me today, however, I would not hesitate to inform the police and the statutory authorities.

I am glad that the Report has found that there is no evidence that Waddington abused anyone else after I spoke to him in 1999.

In 2004 as soon as I for the first time had specific allegations against him I withdrew his Permission to Officiate, I did not hesitate to do that and it was never reinstated.

I believed that as I was withdrawing his PTO I had to tell him what the allegations were that had caused me to do that. As for revealing the contents of the statements to him prior to interview, I understand that it is customary before the police interview a person to tell them through their solicitor the details of the allegations they are going to be asked about. I still do not think I had any option but to give him that information in the light of what I was asked to do by the Australians.

It is matter of great regret to me that 12 years ago when the non-specific anonymous allegations were first made in Manchester, the church and I myself were not more proactive in seeking out and/or assisting a reluctant complainant. Nor is it any comfort that other organisations were no more diligent at that time when dealing with similar situations.

Although I chaired the relevant meetings of the House of Bishops in 2003, I believed that the policies we were discussing were principally aimed at how parishes should deal with matters and I did not envisage that some of these policies would one day be said to be relevant to the decisions I made about how to respond to these various reports about Robert Waddington.

The Judge has taken statements of policy that were intended to guide a parish receiving a disclosure about abuse and has applied them to my different role which they were never intended to cover. It was a weakness of the policy that it did not address that role. However it is not right to apply some of those policies (eg policies that were intended to make clear that a youth worker or priest receiving the first disclosure of abuse should not carry out an investigation) to the unusual circumstances that had arisen with the request from persons in a foreign jurisdiction who were already conducting a high level investigation for assistance in their Inquiry. As a consequence she has firstly criticised me for carrying out an investigation and then she has criticised me for not carrying out a proper risk analysis which would surely have required a deeper investigation.

The Judge has made various criticisms of those of us who dealt with those reports in 1999 and 2003/4. The Report criticises us either for failing to follow the Church’s Policies, or for not following what was accepted as good practice by Child Protection Agencies. She says that various things followed from those failures. These possible consequences are what the judge describes as ‘speculative’. Even what she specifically says is not speculative, amounts only to ‘possible consequences’.

Notwithstanding that I consider that there are some such flaws in the approach adopted by the Judge, I consider it is important that the church does acknowledge, as I do, that we were, and I include myself, at that time only at the beginning of learning how to deal with disclosures of abuse, and leaders such as myself did lack experience and training.

Last May, in some of the reporting, it was suggested that there had been some cover-up by me. This Report makes clear that not applying the policy is not the same as a cover-up. Hindsight is of a course a wonderful thing. If all that has been learned by organisations and the public about child abuse in the last 15 years had been known in 1999 and 2004 I would certainly have acted differently.

Finally I want to pay tribute to the courage of the victims of abuse who have spoken of their abuse. It is through them that we are learning so much about how we can better protect children.

If either of the two persons concerned feel in the light of this report they have been denied the justice they deserve then on behalf of the church I offer my personal and profound apology.

I genuinely believed that any complaints were being adequately dealt with by the respective dioceses in which they were alleged to have happened.

I do nevertheless wish to reiterate that we need to be seen to be rigorous, forthright and totally open in dealing with all cases of abuse. That is how I have always sought to act and I hope that we will continue to take steps towards providing as safe an environment as possible for all children and vulnerable adults in our churches and communities.