For 16 years a Blenheim woman endured rumours and speculation about her sexual harassment by an Anglican clergyman. A Human Rights Review Tribunal declaration means she can finally tell her full story.

When grieving mother Jacinda Thompson sought solace from her priest, he soothed her with his vision of her stillborn child “cradled in Jesus’ arms”. Just weeks later, the Reverend Michael van Wijk would be touching her thigh and trying to kiss her, even as she cried and begged him to stop.

It was the first time van Wijk sexually assaulted her, but not the last, Thompson told the Human Rights Review Tribunal last June, more than 15 years since that day.

Van Wijk had gone to Thompson’s Blenheim home for a spiritual mentoring session because his office was “a mess”, the decision said. He began with washing her feet, because he wanted to “serve as Jesus had served”….