Updated 12 July
This news story is now reported in a fourth place:
This news story is reported in three separate places:
There are varying amounts of detail in these accounts, but what is notable is that Church of England officials are also implicated in the handling of this matter.
From the Church Times:
…Gilo also welcomed the mediation from EIO “over their repeated public dissembling around the review into my case. The bishop mandated to implement the review recommendations [the then Bishop of Crediton, now the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally] and the secretary-general of the Archbishops’ Council, William Nye, remained silent to every question and request for help on this. Eventually a Subject Access Request revealed complicity between the Archbishops’ Council, NST, and Ecclesiastical, and showed they had sought to work together on reputational management.”
And his earlier comments in September 2020 can be found here: Thoughts on the Elliott Review ‘translation’ by Archbishops Council.
From Surviving Church:
Ian Elliott, the internationally recognised safeguarding expert and reviewer, has said:
“I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and welcome the agreement to reach a mediated settlement with Ecclesiastical Insurance regarding the dissembling that has marked their response to the review that I undertook of a historic abuse case for the Church of England. Over the course of the years since I produced the report, EIO have made comments on national television, on their website, and in evidence to the Inquiry (IICSA), regarding the accuracy of my assessments, claiming that they were flawed. These damaging statements are completely untrue. Despite this, they were never publicly withdrawn and no attempt has ever been made by EIO or the Church to set the record straight. Telling the truth is important and when that does not happen, trust is damaged and lost.”
From Insurance Business:
A spokesperson for the Church of England, which was not involved in the settlement and was unable to comment on it but was involved in the Elliott Review, said that “the rights of survivors and victims to protect their data and our duty to use that data properly in any aspect of our work is paramount.”
“We will continue to unreservedly apologise for the Church’s poor response to survivors and victims, as highlighted at IICSA, and are committed to engaging with them to inform our future work,” the spokesperson said.
As Andrew Greystone says (Surviving Church)
I wish the House of Bishops in England would step up and take responsibility for the damage the church has done. Instead, victims and survivors of abuse in the Church of England find the church’s hierarchy resistant at every stage. It’s not that the bishops don’t care about justice and healing for victims of church abuse. Some certainly do. It’s just quite low on their list of priorities.
As Gilo and many others know only too well, every engagement with the church on this issue is an uphill struggle. Some survivors who have already lost years to fighting to have their voices heard, fear that they will face further years of legal battles to persuade the church to make redress.
Bishops need to understand that healing for victims of abuse is not a drag on the mission of the church. It IS the mission of the church.”
From Insurance Post:
Richard Scorer, head of abuse law team at Slater and Gordon and Gilo’s solicitor in this case, said: “The outcome of this case speaks for itself. Ecclesiastical initially treated the claim as a claim for a minor data breach. But it has now paid substantially more by way of damages than would ordinarily be paid for a simple breach.
“In addition, its CEO Mark Hews has provided an unreserved apology, and it has agreed to a further mediation about the wider issue of its public treatment of the Elliott review. By settling the matter in this way, it has in reality acknowledged that this data breach occurred in a wider context of EIO failings towards survivors, some of which were explored in IICSA, and that those failings significantly aggravated this data breach. I hope that these events will be part of an urgent and radical reshaping of EIO’s behaviour towards survivors, and the full implementation of the Elliott report”.
It’s perhaps noteworthy that Sarah Mullally’s name is mentioned here. Given that this appears in the same week as the report into Fr Griffin’s case, one wonders how the Bishop of London will demonstrate her stated commitment to accountability.
She doesn’t appear to know the meaning of the word!