The Conference of Religious

Where do you go with a complaint based on a case of historic clerical child abuse?
Not to the somewhat weirdly named Conference of Religious if you want my opinion.
They've devoted much energy to devising their logo, pictured above, but not enough to dealing with the Catholic Church's biggest problem. See http://www.corew.org/aboutus.htm#ourlogo

Having emailed Declan Lang, Bishop of Clifton, back in April - see http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/letter-to-bishop-of-clifton.html - I was expecting some sort of official confirmation complete with case file number. Three months later, on 23 July 2010, following a bit of pestering from me I get a nice and apologetic email from Safeguarding Coordinator Eugene Gallagher at the Clifton Diocesan Safeguarding Office who explained that my letter should have been forwarded to the Conference of Religious where it would be handled by a Mike Denton. Another gently enquiring email from me was needed before I received a nice and apologetic response from Mr Denton.

He wrote me a perfectly appropriate letter of sympathy offering to contact the Christian Brothers but made no response to my request for confirmation that my complaint had been referenced with a case file number. As for my request that my letter should be passed to the statutory authorities Mike Denton told me that the police would not know what to do with my letter.

"The Conference of Religious seeks to be a dynamic and proactive presence of Church, particularly with those on the margins of society," reads the welcoming statement of this organisation's website at http://www.corew.org/ "It aims to unite its membership in collaborative initiatives translating gospel vision into reality, and to offer support to those in positions of leadership."

The COREW site lists safeguarding among its sections but this is not accessible without a password. Hardly encouraging for victims of abuse. The safeguarding section is clearly intended to guide clerics rather than to support their victims.

However sympathetic Mike Denton's response might have been, I felt it was unsatisfactory.

That feeling was confirmed by an email I received from a victim of clerical child abuse whose case has received wide publicity: "This is a classic example of the safeguarding officer trying to persuade you that he knows everything there is to know about safeguarding. Well he clearly does not. The stuff about the police is bollocks. I work closely with police on numerous child abuse cases and there is no case that they do not want to know about. All safeguarding officers, regardless of whom they are employed by, have a statutory duty to report to the police any information that suggests that a child may have been abused in the past, or may still be at risk. There are no exceptions to this. The fact that a witness might be deceased is irrelevant."

Judging by its postcode, the Conference of Religious is housed in premises which are close to St Benedict's School, Ealing. Ironically, at this time the school is the subject of an enquiry by Lord Carlile of Berriew QC into clerical child sexual abuse at this establishment, which is run by the religious order of Benedictines.

Click on http://scepticalthoughts.blogspot.com/?gclid=CJDbqaSwv6QCFchH4wodQXhs_w where you will find that a sensible chap called Jonathan West is exasperated in the same way that I have been by the lack of transparency and general inefficiency of the Catholic Church in dealing with the messy business of sex abuse at one of its top UK school. His email address: jonathanwest22@gmail.com

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My response to Mike Denton was as follows:
To: Mr Mike Denton (by email, 5 October 2010)
Southern Area Safeguarding Co-ordinator for the Conference of Religious
3 Montpelier Avenue
Ealing
London W5 2XP

Dear Mr Denton

Physical and sexual abuse by Christian Brothers in the 1950s at Prior Park Preparatory School

Thank you for your lengthy email of 29 July 2010.

I appreciate many of the points that you made, including your explanation of the roles of the statutory authorities. While it is true that I am not intent on seeking legal redress I was curious to understand what steps the Catholic Church is prepared to take in order to convince the victims of clerical child abuse that it is doing all it can to make reparation. I was also interested in discovering how efficient the mechanism is for making complaints about such abuse.

Over the last six months I have made contact with former Christian Brothers' pupils from other schools in the UK. I have read and gathered enough material to convince me that Britain is no exception in providing examples of child abuse committed by certain members of the Congregation, although most of the cases highlighted by the media have occurred in Canada, the USA, Australia and of course Ireland.

There do seem to have been some procedural failings in dealing with my complaint, which was originally made on 3 April 2010 in an email to Archbishop Nichols. This was apparently misdirected by the Archbishop's office to the Clifton diocesan safeguarding officer rather than to your office at the Conference of Religious, as I was told it should have been.

It was only by chance that I discovered the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission's website where at http://ncsc.onlinebusiness.uk.com/contactus.htm I completed the details as required on that page and was promptly told that my submission had been verified successfully and that I had been given a case number 1442248.

I now believe that this is the organisation to which I should have been directed in the first place. I have since been in contact with Philip Dand, Chair of the North West Commission for Religious Orders. A copy of his letter to me dated 22 September 2010 is attached. The Commission has apparently advised that the Irish Christian Brothers make the circumstances of my case known to the police, and that the case be given a record number.

As regards your view that the police "would not know what to do" with my letter I would refer you to https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q133.htm where the issue of historic child abuse is dealt with and where I find the statement that "Any person reporting historic sexual abuse to the Police will be treated seriously and the matter will be investigated." You may also like to know that according to Jill Sewell of the Department for Education Public Communications Unit http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/ "the police have a duty to investigate all allegations of child abuse thoroughly, and to undertake a complete investigation, even if the incidents happened a long time ago." (Correspondence between a Christian Brothers' former pupil and Secretary of State for Education Ed Balls, 29 June 2009).

There is therefore no need for you to contact the Christian Brothers. I look forward to corresponding with Bro Eamonn O’Brien, Safeguarding Representative for the Christian Brothers, regarding my case. I believe that it is important in the interests of transparency for this matter to be brought to light so that other victims of the Congregation will be encouraged to seek recognition of the wrongs that were done, however many years ago.

Yours sincerely

Michael Downes



Heather Cottage
9 Exmouth Road
Budleigh Salterton
Devon EX9 6AF
Tel: +44 (0)1395 446407

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I will say something about my correspondence with Philip Dand in my next post.