Tomorrow night (Tuesday 17 December), BBC Radio’s File on Four will broadcast an edition focusing on the Church’s response to serial child abuser David Tudor – or the Revd David Tudor, to give him his full title. The programme, researched and presented by the BBC’s religion editor Aleem Maqbool, is already available to listen to now on the BBC Sounds app.

Amongst the people who don’t come out well in the programme is the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, who was Bishop of Chelmsford at a key point in Tudor’s timeline. The programme includes calls from various people for Cottrell to resign. I echo those calls. His “management” of safeguarding has been marked by inaction, complacency, fine words, and lies.

In response to news reports about tomorrow night’s broadcast, Stephen Cottrell has issued a statement. And, like most times he speaks about safeguarding, he can’t resist his natural impulse to lie.

Let’s look at what he says:

• “The situation I faced when I became Bishop of Chelmsford, was horrible and intolerable – most of all for the survivors and victims who had bravely come forward and shared their stories from the 1980s.”
  
  If it was intolerable, why did Stephen Cottrell tolerate it?
  
  
• “This morning’s news coverage incorrectly implies that no action was taken until 2024. That is not the case.”
  
  The news coverage does not imply that no action was taken until 2024. The coverage – and the File on Four programme – presents a timeline of action, including various times when Tudor was suspended. The coverage does not say that no action was taken, it says – correctly – that the action that was taken was insufficient.
  
  
• “In my capacity as Bishop of Chelmsford, I suspended David Tudor from office at the first opportunity, when a new victim came forward to the police in 2019.  Up until 2019, there were no legal grounds to take alternative action.”
  
  There were plenty of legal grounds to take alternate action.
  
  For a start, the Archbishop could have removed from Tudor the office of Area Dean of Hadleigh. The position of Area Dean is the gift of the bishop and can be granted and removed at will. By retaining Tudor in that position, Stephen Cottrell was retaining the inherited position where Tudor was given additional responsibility and authority over other clergy.
  
  It was also open to Stephen Cottrell not to install Tudor as an honorary canon of Chelmsford Cathedral in 2015. Tomorrow’s File on Four programme says that Cottrell’s office told them that “the new title for David Tudor wasn’t a promotion or personal reward but happened because of a change in policy, meaning Area Deans will automatically made honorary canons.”
  
  Did this change in policy happen in a vacuum? Was Stephen Cottrell not consulted on it? Did nobody review who the area deans were to see who would be made a canon under the new policy?
  
  FACT: Stephen Cottrell as bishop, and others in the diocese, approved this change knowing that it would result in Tudor being made an honorary canon.
  
  Secondly, it might be argued that Tudor’s actions were driven by “an infirmity of mind”, in which case section 6 of the Incumbents (Vacation of Benefices) Measure 1977 comes into play, leading to an “enquiry” into whether Tudor was able “to discharge adequately the duties attaching to his benefice” and, if he wasn’t, “whether it is desirable that he should resign his benefice”.
  
  As the local authority had written to schools warning them not to allow Tudor in, and as the dioceses required him not to be alone with young people, there’s a pretty big inability to “discharge adequately the duties attached to his benefice”.
  
  And if that didn’t apply, where has Stephen Cottrell argued for a change in the law to give bishops power to act in such cases?
  
  Thirdly, in 2012 that Tudor had made a £10,000 out of court settlement to “Jessica” (a pseudonym used by the File on Four programme). Cottrell told the programme that he had received legal advice to the effect that as the payment was made without an admission of liability, no action could be taken.
  
  Wrong: it was perfectly in order for this to have been the impetus for a complaint under the Clergy Discipline Measure. As “Jessica” had initiated a civil claim against Tudor, it is highly likely that she would have provided a statement to an archdeacon to allow such a complaint to proceed.
  
  
• “When I joined the Chelmsford diocese in 2010, I worked closely with its very professional safeguarding team to ensure the risk was managed.”
  
  How is retaining Tudor as an area dean and making him an honorary canon in 2015, with the added prestige that follows, managing the risk?
  
  
• “But it was not possible to remove David Tudor from office until such time as fresh complaints were made, which happened when a victim bravely spoke to the police.  Once this happened in 2019, I acted immediately. I suspended David Tudor from all ministry pending the investigation and subsequent tribunal hearing in which he was removed from office and prohibited from ministry for life.”
  
  If the law is such that a priest identified as posing a risk, such that he isn’t allowed to be alone with children and is banned from schools, can’t be removed from office, the law needs to change. Why hasn’t Stephen Cottrell called for such a change? Why has the law remained as it is?
  
  
• “I am deeply sorry that we were not able to take action earlier, but that was the situation I inherited. It is extremely disappointing that this story is being reported as if it was an abuser being ignored or even protected. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.”
  
  I repeat: Stephen Cottrell retained Tudor as an area dean and made him a canon of Chelmsford Cathedral. Is that not ignoring the abuse and protecting the abuser? Why make it comfortable for Tudor to remain in post?
  
  As I understand it, the facts reported in the File on Four programme aren’t disputed. What Stephen Cottrell disputes is the public reaction to those facts. The public view on the facts show that the Church of England did not act appropriately. Stephen Cottrell’s view on the facts reveal that he feels that the real victim is the Church of England, who was constrained by laws of its own making.
  
  
• “And to present it this way only re-traumatises already hurt people.”
  
  This is an appalling statement. The programme was made because “traumatised and already hurt people” contacted the BBC – presumably because they were fed up with the lack of action by the Church. This statement is part of a frequent narrative from Church of England hierarchy designed to silence victims.
  
  This programme was made because victims wanted a voice. This programme gave victims a voice. Cottrell is making it clear here that they should not have a voice. They should simply be quiet and go away.
  
  
• “The situation with David Tudor was an awful situation to live with and to manage and has meant many people suffering as a result. I want victims and survivors to know that everything was done to understand, assess and manage the risk. I also want them to know that I fully welcome the outcome of the Tribunal in October 2024.”
  
  This is a repeat of what he said elsewhere in his statement. So I shall repeat what I said: Stephen Cottrell and his dioceses did not manage the risk: they retained him in a position (area dean) which they could have removed from him. The did not have to Tudor an honorary canon, but chose to do it.
  
  
• “Following David Tudor’s five years of suspension from ministry in 1988, the process at that time did not prevent him from returning to ministry in the Diocese of Southwark in 1994. Changes to the way safeguarding is now managed and scrutinised would mean the decision taken in 1988 would not take place now. But it did then.”
  
  This is just plain wrong, and Stephen Cottrell knows it is wrong.
  
  In June 2022 I sat in Stephen Cottrell’s study in Bishopthorpe supporting a victim of clergy abuse as she told him of her fears as her abuser was about to return to ministry after a temporary prohibition of ministry imposed by a Clergy Discipline Tribunal. Cottrell waffled on about risk assessments, supervision, and restrictions to the priest’s ministry, but said that as the prohibition was coming to an end, the priest was entitled to resume his ministry.

• “The Church of England now needs independent scrutiny of safeguarding so that those who do have understandable frustrations and concerns can have their voices heard and those of us who have responsibility for managing these situations can be helped to avoid them and resolve them. I have publicly supported this for many years. I pledge myself to do what I can to achieve it.”
  
  The Church of England had this. It created an “Independent Safeguarding Board” to do just that. The problem was the board was too independent and the Archbishops’ Council did like the criticism it was receiving. So it sacked them.
  
  Stephen Cottrell then lied to the General Synod about it.

And now he is lying again.

Stephen Cottrell could – and should – have done far more than he did.

His statement today is self-serving, deflective and false.

When Justin Welby announced that he was resigning over the Makin Review, Stephen Cottrell said that Welby’s decision was “the right and honourable thing to do”. One can only infer that Cottrell’s decision not to resign is the wrong and dishonourable thing to do – after all, his complicity in the Church’s failures over Tudor is far more significant than Welby’s complicity in the Church’s failures over Makin.