However, the survivors then had to handle the trauma of fearing their notes and disclosures might now be handled by the very organisation that had wounded them. They also had no idea when any care (and further trauma) might happen. According to information I trust and believe, in the immediate aftermath they were told provisions for their care would be put in place ‘within weeks if not days’. 16 months later I am told they are still in limbo. If true, that compounds the safeguarding disgrace of the original shutting down of their cases and the independent professionals they had opened to.

I believe General Synod should be calling for an in-depth enquiry into these profound safeguarding failures, and suspension of all members of the Archbishops’ Council involved in these events – because they themselves have failed to safeguard victim/survivors and have shattered their trust and compounded the abuse done to them by the Church.

These comments are my opinion, right or wrong. How can decent people, injured badly by the Church, have been hung out to dry? Why did not their interests come first? Why weren’t they consulted and forewarned? Why did the General Secretary decline to engage in Independent Mediation with the ISB Board members first, instead closing the Board in such haste? Why could this all not have been brought to Synod, meeting a week or two later, to explain, to set out plans for the immediate pastoral care of the abused, to hear from the ISB members? Why the irresponsible haste and safeguarding fiasco?

Sadly, I think they are unfit to lead.