‘Doing the Opposite of a Welby’: The cost of genuine safeguarding in the Church of England

BY STEPHEN KUHRT

The phrase ‘doing the opposite of a Welby’ is not one I use lightly. It came to me in November 2024, when the Archbishop of Canterbury faced severe criticism over his handling of the John Smyth case. I realised that seventeen years earlier in my parish, I had made a very different set of choices. Unlike Justin Welby, I insisted that a serious historic safeguarding case was dealt with properly, and kept pushing when the instinct of the institution around me was to minimise, delay, or ignore. It was deeply costly but the most important thing that I have done in my ministry.

What follows is an account of what I experienced and what I learned.

How it started

Around 2005-6, while I was still curate at Christ Church, New Malden, rumours reached me about inappropriate conduct at the church by a licensed lay reader. When the vicar retired in April 2006, I immediately arranged a meeting with the archdeacon to raise my concerns. I fully expected engagement. Instead, I was met with anger for raising the issue and a dismissive response. I left the meeting stunned, returned to the parish and with considerable misgivings, continued to deploy the lay reader.

The direct result of this was that when some concrete evidence emerged several months later, I knew that I had to return to the archdeacon with enough information that he would be forced to deal with the matter. I was further influenced by knowledge that it had been brought to the leadership at Christ Church some years before and not dealt with properly. I spoke briefly and carefully to a small number of people who had agreed to be contacted, asking whether they wished to take the matter further. I then returned to the archdeacon with this information. The result was further anger from both the archdeacon and diocesan safeguarding adviser. While this was officially targeted at my breach of process, it was clear that the real reason was that I had forced them to deal with an issue they wanted to avoid. The most obvious indication of this was that at no point did they ask me a single question about the matter and its context.

The case nonetheless proceeded to court. In October 2008, the lay reader received a criminal conviction and lost his licence to minister. The follow-up, however, was unsatisfactory. By this time vicar of the parish, I was not asked to contribute to any lessons-learned review. Later, when the former reader moved to another church and I wrote to the area bishop about managing the situation, nothing was done for years. I later learned that it was only when a separate safeguarding scandal connected with someone else at that church became public that measures were hastily arranged.

In the years that followed a consistent pattern emerged. Every safeguarding case that I encountered in my diocese was characterised by the desire to do the minimum possible for as long as possible. Eventually, and helped by the emergence of safeguarding scandals in the wider Church, I started to join the dots and realise that the cultural factors were the critical ones at play. The Church of England – and those running it – were overwhelmingly concerned with its continuation and status quo. Those equally invested in the institution – even those whose commitment was with predatory intent – were ‘safe’ compared to those who brought any level of threat to it. This second group included both survivors crying out for justice and whistleblowers.

The gap between policy and practice

As the 2010s progressed, safeguarding gained much greater profile across the Church of England. Training vastly improved with its content being excellent. But when I used training settings to describe the gap between policy and practice – offering concrete examples of failures I had witnessed – the response was silence. My correspondence with the diocesan bishop about this went unanswered or seemed to provoke a strong measure of irritation.

A small but telling example concerned our diocesan policy. This was entitled A Safe Church. I argued that the phrase was ambiguous. Was the priority to make people safe, or to keep the institution itself safe? In my experience, a lack of clarity over this vital distinction lay at the very heart of the Church of England’s safeguarding failures. All I received in response, however, was silence and eventually anger at my refusal to ‘pipe down’.

PCR2 and a naïve assumption

In 2019–22, the Church of England undertook a second Past Cases Review (PCR2). This followed an earlier process, roundly discredited for the small number of mishandled cases it was prepared to acknowledge. Clergy were asked to indicate (in a very small box) whether past cases involving licensed ministers existed in our parishes, whether we were satisfied with how they were handled, and whether we wanted follow-up about this from an independent reference group.

On 5^th March 2020, I completed the form, noting that I was not satisfied with the handling of the case from 2007 and that I would be happy to explain more. I expected to hear back promptly. No one ever contacted me.

Looking back, I made a critical mistake. I assumed those overseeing PCR2 in my diocese were independent and safe to approach. I now realise that was naïve. The relationships and alignments involved were closer than I appreciated.

From ‘review’ to complaint

My increasing outspokenness about safeguarding failures in my diocese eventually landed me in serious trouble. A few months after my PCR2 submission, my area bishop commissioned a ‘review’ of my ministry. The terms of reference were broad, but ‘safeguarding concerns’ formed a strand of this, overseen by a safeguarding consultant. Ironically, the vicar also involved in the review declared at its start: ‘This will not be a hatchet job.’ In hindsight, my churchwardens and I should have declined to participate in a process that had no legal basis. We chose instead to cooperate, believing transparency was right and would foster an honest engagement with our concerns.

As part of this aim, I submitted a lengthy document detailing the safeguarding matters I had encountered during my ministry. This included the diocesan handling of them and my concerns about this but also my own mistakes from 2007 and what I had learned. Its submission was followed by four and a half months of silence. Emails requesting updates yielded vague and unsatisfactory replies. I sent the document to the National Safeguarding Team of the Church of England. This, too, went nowhere beyond receiving a formulaic instruction to ‘take it up with your diocese.’

In frustration, I then shared the report with a small group of trusted advisers, including survivor advocates. Here I made my most obvious error: I failed to redact names in the document. It had no material impact since it went to people who couldn’t have cared more about genuine safeguarding. But it was careless and wrong. The mistake was quickly weaponised against me.

A complaint under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) followed – brought by the safeguarding consultant attached to the review. There were two allegations: that I had not followed proper process in handling the 2007 case, and that I had failed to redact names in the document that I shared with unauthorised people in 2021. I denied the first but accepted the second.

An irregular process and an ‘agreed penalty’

The CDM process that followed departed from normal procedure. Rather than suspending me formally, I was ‘asked’ by the diocesan bishop to ‘step back from ministry’ while the matter was ‘investigated.’ Advised that I should demonstrate cooperation, I initially agreed to this informal suspension. Once it became clear that this removed any right of appeal, I was advised to inform the bishop that I was returning to work, triggering a formal suspension.

At no point, however, was there an interview with the bishop where I could explain my actions. The ‘evidence’ consisted entirely of the document I had written to highlight my concerns about safeguarding, including some deliberately self-deprecating elements written in the hope of encouraging engagement. My lawyer noted the precedent to the bishop: a whistleblower’s voluntary disclosure repurposed as grounds for discipline against him. This received no response.

The first allegation (relating to 2007) was ruled out of time. This was appealed against by the complainant. This part of the process and the approach taken to it had the effect of prolonging my suspension to five and a half months. Only those involved know whether use of the maximum amount of time allowed for this was deliberate.

The stress and uncertainty of this time was balanced by the huge amount of support that I received from my family, friends and, crucially, the churchwardens and vast majority of members of Christ Church. The staunch support of the churchwardens, in particular, and their clarity about the injustice of what was occurring appeared to be something that the diocese had not bargained for.

In the end, the 2007 allegation was dropped. I accepted an ‘agreed penalty’ for failing to redact names in the document I had shared. This involved five years of supervision meetings with a new diocesan safeguarding adviser every three months and regular ‘confidentiality training’ with the archdeacon.

I would not have accepted this penalty had my appeal against the suspension been upheld. This would have resulted in a tribunal examining the case, including the diocese’s conduct. Although the processes were officially separate, the prospect of such scrutiny and certainly the expense of such a tribunal appeared instrumental in my appeal against the suspension being denied. With the parish emerging from Covid restrictions and the prospect of me remaining suspended for a long time ahead of a tribunal, I decided that returning to ministry and setting about the task of ‘building back’ after the pandemic had to be my priority.

The outcome of the penalty, however, was revealing. The ‘confidentiality training’ with the archdeacon never took place and the safeguarding supervision was intermittent, occurring only four to five times. When it did take place, a new DSA swiftly acknowledged my ‘resolute commitment to safeguarding’, which underlined the incongruity of this penalty being imposed upon me.

The nature of my return was equally telling. Simply informed by email that I could resume ministry in the parish after five and a half months absence, there was no return-to-work meeting with the diocesan bishop. I have never met with him since. A meeting with the area bishop only occurred some twelve weeks later, following protest about this by the area dean, with nothing of significance discussed.

Pressure to resign – and a turning point

The reason for this non-engagement was already apparent. Within minutes of my reinstatement, a hostile email had arrived from the diocesan bishop criticising the churchwardens for their ‘behaviour’ and signalling that further consequences would follow. Constant accusations about my poor conduct  followed but without evidence or even clear allegations, despite numerous requests for this. A fresh safeguarding ‘review’ of the parish was announced under another safeguarding consultant.  

Protesting that this review had no justification and scarred by our previous experience, we agreed to cooperate on condition that a meeting took place first to discuss its remit. When this was refused, we declined to participate. This was justified when the report of the ‘review’ emerged. It relied on a series of anonymous local allegations that, the report itself was forced to admit, did not fall within safeguarding. None of these complaints were formally made and were without substance. They therefore came to nothing. But it became apparent that the strategy of at least some within my diocese was to prompt my resignation.

This became explicit in mid-2023 when a new area bishop arrived and fairly immediately proposed that I resign as vicar, step out of ministry for at least a year on full pay and receive help with ‘handling conflict more appropriately’. He offered the prospect of a positive reference for a post in another diocese if I could show ‘progress’. Like his predecessor, the bishop was unwilling to discuss any specific examples of alleged misconduct or even the areas in which concerns were located. When I declined his ‘offer’, the bishop then refused to meet with me for two years, making ministry within the parish needlessly difficult.

What again made the crucial difference was the consistent support of the congregation, churchwardens and the PCC. They challenged the diocese’s narrative, naming the treatment as gaslighting and an attempt to bring about my constructive dismissal. They also pressed for proper engagement. This support and the growing profile of safeguarding scandals in the Church of England ensured that the various efforts by my diocese to get rid of me came to nothing and were eventually abandoned.

The arrival of an able new archdeacon with an excellent attitude brought an entirely different tone and in June 2025, I finally met with the area bishop. To his credit, the bishop acknowledged that he should not have accepted the negative narrative that he had been given about me and invited a fresh start. After five gruelling years, the treatment I had received from the Church of England for ‘doing the opposite of a Welby’ appeared to be over. The cost for those involved – including my family, friends and colleagues – was considerable. Vitally, however, they all agreed that the stand and everything it involved had been entirely necessary.

My mistakes – and what I’d do differently

I made mistakes. The failure to redact names in 2021 was an error I have acknowledged from the start. More broadly, I was too trusting. I assumed independence and goodwill in processes that were, in reality, tightly held within the institution. I accepted an informal suspension that offered none of the procedural safeguards of a formal one. I cooperated with a review that had no legal basis, trusting assurances from a malleable vicar being manipulated by the diocese that it would be fair-minded.

I understand, too, how these errors intersected with my decision to keep pressing safeguarding concerns. I was, as others put it, ‘rocking the boat’ while handing those unsettled by that rocking an avoidable ‘chink in my armour’.

But I also know this: if I had not raised concerns, little or nothing would have happened in the cases I encountered. And if I had resigned, the underlying dynamics would have gone unexamined again.

What my experience says about culture

The essential problem is cultural. Policies and procedures do matter; the training I attended was generally sound. But culture trumps process. When the prevailing instinct is to keep the show on the road – minimise difficulty, protect reputations, avoid scrutiny – then genuine safeguarding will always be undermined.

This, to repeat, is why, in case after case across the Church, survivors and whistleblowers are treated worse than those found to have abused or those who covered for them. The latter are, in their own way, invested in the status quo. The former threaten it.

In the Smyth case, I believe Justin Welby acted consistently with this culture. In my parish, I acted against it. Hence my phrase: ‘doing the opposite of a Welby’. I don’t say this to personalise the issue or to sensationalise it, but to underscore how powerful institutional instincts can be – even for good people – when culture rewards self-preservation.

Why change is hard – and what might help

Real change requires more than revising policies or commissioning reviews. Peter Drucker’s line – ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’ – captures the point. Unless leaders at every level of the Church of England are willing to reward truth-telling, to value courage over convenience, and to put integrity ahead of institutional defensiveness, safeguarding will remain fragile.

What does that look like in practice?

Clarity of purpose: Safeguarding must be unambiguously about making people safe, not about minimising reputational risk.

Transparent processes: Whistleblowing routes should be genuinely independent, with meaningful protections against retaliation.

Accountability for non-action: Failing to act – or acting only when forced – must itself be treated as a serious failure.

Learning loops that actually learn: Lessons-learned reviews should be routine, include those directly involved, and publish clear, time-bound actions.

Pastoral integrity: If a clergy person is suspended or asked to step back, the process should be formal, time-limited, appealable and safe from manipulation to serve as vehicle for informal punishment.

These are not dramatic proposals. They are the basic conditions under which policies can work.

Why I wrote Safeguarding the Institution

Safeguarding the Institution: How the culture of the Church of England facilitates abuse grew out of two decades of ministry and the conviction that well-written strategies cannot compensate for evasive culture. It analyses the patterns I have seen and sets out a practical manifesto for cultural reform. The accompanying website is designed to gather resources and encourage those who are trying to act with integrity in complex systems.

My aim is not to rehearse grievances, nor to cast myself as a hero. It is to tell the truth about dynamics that many clergy and lay leaders recognise but struggle to name publicly, and to argue for changes that will make vulnerable people safer and ministry healthier.

A final word

I have learned, more painfully than I would wish, how powerful the institutional instinct in the Church of England can be. I have also learned how resilient congregations can be when they are told the truth and invited to act together with integrity. If this account helps a few people avoid my mistakes, or emboldens others to resist the pull of self-preservation, it will have done something useful.

The Church of England has invested substantially in safeguarding policies and procedures. That is welcome. But until we attend to culture – how we really behave when pressured – those policies will always be at risk of being undermined. The Church does not need theatrics or scapegoats. It needs clarity, honesty, and courage.

‘Doing the opposite of a Welby’ is a shorthand for choosing truth over convenience. It is deeply costly. But if we want the Church of England to be a truly safe church, it is entirely necessary.

Order Safeguarding the Institution: How the Culture of the Church of England facilitates abuse here.