Baldock priest admits to destroying hard drive which allegedly contained child abuse images

By Matthew Mohan-Hickson
Hertfordshire Mercury
February 27, 2017

https://goo.gl/n6Pojk

The Bishop of Hertford, the Right Reverend Dr Micahel Beasley said the way the incident was handled may have tarnish St Mary's Church

Jeremy Hirst, diocesan safeguarding adviser

The report states that Reverend Andrew Holford, rector of St Mary's Church, admitted to disposing of the computer's hard drive at the request of the church administrator in 2010.

Mr Holford said: "I now accept that destroying the hard disk was unwise and made a difficult situation worse.

"I am sorry for that and pledge that safeguarding policies will be given proper priority in St Mary's."

The report, written by diocesan safeguarding adviser Jeremy Hirst, states: "This action is at the heart of subsequent difficulties fully answering the questions that have arisen now that the matter has come to light."

Volunteers at the church discovered the pornographic images, which according to allegations contain children, on the office computer while Mr Holford was way.

The report also states: "The church administrator as the main user of the church computer admits that the images came to be on the computer through his actions.

"But he asserts that the images in question were not deliberately sourced and that they were a by-product of a search for medical information.

"The church administrator also failed to bring the presence of these images to the attention of the churchwardens or the rector when they first appeared on the computer and their presence was only discovered by chance."

St Mary's Church also destroyed the hard drive on a separate church computer.

In his response to the report the Right Reverend Dr Michael Beasley, Bishop of Hertford, said: "One churchwarden then subsequently dealt with another instance of pornographic images being found on an older computer in a similar way."

The report also found that instead of following established diocese safeguarding protocols, the volunteers decided to deal with it themselves.

The Bishop said: "I believe the way this matter was handled may leave the name of St Mary's tarnished.

"Any instance where one of our parishes falls short of best safeguarding practice is a matter of deep shame and sorrow.

"The parish was left largely defenceless to hearsay accusations which suggested that 'child porn' had been viewed.

"This leaves the parish damaged by questions hanging over it which cannot be fully answered.

"Any instance where one of our parishes falls short of best safeguarding practice is a matter of deep shame and sorrow and an instance of us failing to honour the people who we are trying to serve in our communities.

"The matter risks having a lasting detrimental effect on the reputation of the church locally and adds another negative story about the Church of England nationally."

The volunteers, known as churchwardens, decided to carry out their own investigation once the images were discovered.

The report states: "The parish's investigations, carried out by those reputable professional people involved by the churchwardens, could not be as detailed or exhaustive as those which may have been carried out by police using their specialist software to investigate computer misuse.

"The police might have concluded that the circumstances did not warrant deeper investigation, but they were never given the opportunity to form a view."

Both the report and the bishop of Hertford state that the pornographic images viewed on the computer were completely legal.

The Bishop said: "The evidence from the limited investigations which took place at the time and the account given by an architect who was with the churchwardens when the images were discovered is that the pornographic images discovered were of adults and no evidence of illegality has been found.

Hertfordshire Constabulary have been approached for a comment and confirmed that they are currently investigating the incident and expect to release an update on the case early this week.