OXFORD (UNITED KINGDOM)
BBC [London, England]
December 28, 2025
The Church of England is “learning lessons” and making its processes more rigorous to deal with reports of sexual abuse following recent scandals, a bishop has said.
The Bishop of Oxford, Dr Steven Croft, who will retire from his role in the summer after nearly a decade, said his diocese has improved its safeguarding training.
Dr Croft previously said he had learned from his own “mistakes”, including in the way he dealt with a rape allegation made against a parish priest who later took his own life.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby left the role earlier this year after a review found he “could and should” have reported a prolific child abuser to police in 2013.
Dr Croft currently oversees 800 churches in 609 parishes across Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.
He told the BBC: “Nationally and in all dioceses, I think our processes are better, I think our churches are safer thanks to better training and the work of our volunteer safeguarding officers in parishes.
“We have a brilliant safeguarding team in the Diocese of Oxford but we’re not complacent.”
But he said the “thing we still need to do better as a church is listening to the voices of survivors” and connecting them with safeguarding processes “so we really understand…the cost of when safeguarding goes wrong and does not go well”.
Dr Croft added: “The best way it can’t happen again is for us not to be complacent and say it could never happen again and is to be alert to the risks and dangers.”
The bishop has been criticised previously by Matthew Ineson, who said he told Dr Croft in 2012, while he was Bishop of Sheffield, about abuse he suffered under Rev Trevor Devamanikkam in the mid 1980s.
In December 2024, Dr Croft said it was one of his “deepest regrets” that he did not do more to ensure Mr Ineson’s disclosure was followed up.
In an an interview with Radio Oxford on Sunday, Dr Croft said the Church of England must “respond with real caution” to apparent attempts by the far-right to “appropriate” Christian symbols.
Far-right activist Tommy Robinson held a carol event in London earlier this month, reportedly attended by about 1,000 people.
Dr Croft said the event seemed to seek to “appropriate Christian symbols and a certain story of Christian Britain and equating that with white, native British culture”.
He added: “I think, from the Church of England, we are very careful to say Christ is already part of Christmas. We don’t need to put Christ back into Christmas.
“Attendances at church services across our diocese, I’ve been hearing, are significantly up again this year. People are celebrating Christ at the heart of Christmas but we need to be very cautious about appropriating Christmas into this far-right narrative.”
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