Move along now

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The latest piece of effrontery is a report by channelonline.tv (basically ITV Jersey) to the effect that Bishop Dakin has informed Jersey's Governor that he intends publishing the Steel Report but is considering how best to do so without harming the woman involved.

Channelonline have translated this into a headline which reads:
Bishop concerned report will “harm” alleged victim.

What Dakin is reported as saying is bad enough, but the headline adds another layer to it, incorporating the tv station's own interpretation of the whole saga.

To my way of thinking, putting harm in quotes suggests that the victim will not be harmed but that the Bishop has to take account of the possibility for PC reasons or to cover his holy arse.

Of course the victim will be harmed by the report which is a biased report by a friend of the establishment who didn't even interview her and who has nevertheless already expressed very negative views on her in a non-public interview for which she now refuses to supply a promised transcript. How the Bishop thinks he can get round this one without literally crucifying the woman is beyond me.

The victim, who was abused by a churchwarden with form, whose complaint was ignored, who was then victimised twice over, to whom the Dean, Bishop and Archbishop have made lame apologies, has now become the alleged victim. Maybe nothing ever happened at all?

How any self-respecting media, or minister of religion, can peddle this shite is beyond me.

Finally, the Bishop reiterates that no disciplinary action will be taken (against the Dean) on foot of the report. We know the reason is that the Bishop does not have jurisdiction. When he thought he had, he actually suspended the Dean, but the Dean's constitutional position in Jersey's established church and within Jersey's civic administration puts him beyond the Bishop's reach. However, every time the Bishop states that there will be no disciplinary action, without stating the reason why not, he strengthens the impression that the Dean has no case to answer.

So, in a nutshell, the above reveals a sleazy cleric (or two, or three) who just want shut of this problem at any cost in order to protect the interests of their church and with a total disregard for the actual victim.

Jesus wept. Again.

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You can hear Matthew Price's interview with Bob Hill (18/5/2014) below:


with thanks to BBC Jersey

Proxy Bishop Bob

Bob Key, Church of England Dean of Jersey (CI)

I have just heard the Dean being interviewed on BBC Radio Jersey and a more sickening piece of effrontery you could not imagine. He was oozing complacency and triumphalism which must surely have made every one listening, bar his own claque in the Jersey civil and church power structure, throw up.

The background is briefly that a vulnerable young lady was abused by one of the Dean's Churchwardens and when she complained she was the one held up to odium and ridicule. Needless to say she did not react well to this and as a result, and with the connivance of the Dean, she was locked up in a cell for two weeks and then deported penniless from the island, in the night attire in which she had been arrested.

As far as the Dean was concerned, the matter had now been swept under the carpet and he and his buddies could continue "moving into the future".

Unfortunately for him the carpet was not up to the job and the whole matter resurfaced in recent times. The Dean's Bishop commissioned an inquiry, with which the Dean refused to cooperate, and which found his behaviour unacceptable. The Bishop promptly suspended the Dean but subsequently found he had not the power to do so (Jersey is a funny place) and had to withdraw the suspension. The Dean and his civil cohorts immediately trumpeted this as the Dean being "cleared", which it wasn't and the whole matter moved on, beyond the victim, who had been living homeless on the streets of the mainland, and into a fully blown civil and ecclesiastical constitutional crisis.

As relations between Jersey CofE and its parent diocese had totally broken down, the Archbishop of Canterbury (CofE's No.1 man) moved Jersey from the jurisdiction of Winchester to that of Canterbury itself, but effectively under Bishop Trevor Wilmott, a friend of the Dean, if we are to believe the story.

It was the signing of an agreement between Jersey, Winchester and Canterbury, the other day, which gave rise to the BBC interview referred to above.

In the interview the Dean claimed he had been "cleared" of any misbehaviour or whatever, and he gave out about the Korris report which criticised him, and which he had not been shown in advance of publication, though he had refused to cooperate in the drawing up of the report itself. He said he can't wait for publication of the Steel report, also commissioned by Winchester to look into the complaint, after all the work that went into it, including a gruelling 8 hour interview with himself. It should be pointed out here that Dame Heather Steel, the author of this report has strong Jersey establishment connections, offered herself to do the job, and did not interview either the young lady or the churchwarden. A former MET policeman and former Jersey parliament member, who was intermediating for the young lady and had a substantial meeting with Dame Heather, found her extremely prejudiced against the young lady. So it is no wonder the Dean, and his Jersey civil cohorts, can't wait for this report to hit the presses.

The man is a smoothie weirdo. Jesus would have a fit. I already have.

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I have previously posted about the young lady and if you have a strong stomach you can read her blog where she is slowly finding a voice to pitch against the official trumpets.

You can listen to the Dean here.