A senior priest who was subject to five police investigations for sexual impropriety and assessed as a major risk to young men received a six-figure payoff from the Church of England to resign in 2022, the BBC reported on August 13. Church leaders say the case raises major questions about the adequacy of the church’s disciplinary system and clergy employment rules at a time when major reforms are planned.
The Rev. Canon Andrew Hindley, 65, known by some as “the Teflon priest,” served for 20 years in the Diocese of Blackburn, 15 of them as canon sacrist at Blackburn Cathedral in Lancashire, before stepping down, after receiving what the BBC has been told was a £240,000 ($370,000) payment.
Hindley insists that he posed no safeguarding risk, and was never charged with a crime. He also alleges that as an openly gay priest, he was subject to a homophobic plot by the diocese’s leaders, prominent conservatives in the Church of England.
Those leaders, including Blackburn’s former bishop, the Rt. Rev. Julian Henderson, say they tried every means available to have Hindley dismissed, including a 2021 threat to shut down the cathedral if he insisted on returning to work. Henderson described the payout as the “only option” the church had “to protect children and vulnerable young people from the risk Canon Hindley posed.”
‘A Risk of Significant Harm’
Allegations of sexual impropriety with young men have dogged Hindley since the beginning of his ministry in the diocese. In 1991, shortly after he became rector of St. Wilfrid’s, Ribchester, Lancashire Police opened an investigation into allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old boy (the age age of consent for gay men in the U.K. at the time was 21). A similar allegation of sex with a 15-year-old boy was made in 2000, after he had moved to the cathedral. Both investigations were dropped after Hindley and the alleged victims denied the allegations.
In 2001, Hindley was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy. Church tribunal reports allege that Hindley gave the boy alcohol, encouraged him to watch pornography, and touched his genitals. In 2006, the police opened an investigation into reports that he made sexual remarks to a 15-year-old boy.
In 2018, during a drinks party in the cathedral gardens, he was accused of indecently assaulting a woman, kissing an underage girl, and improperly touching two men. Hindley admitted to the BBC that he “didn’t cover himself in glory” at the garden party, but denied accusations of assault. In all three cases, Lancashire Police chose not to file charges.
After the 2006 police investigation, the diocese commissioned the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to conduct a risk assessment of Hindley, which found that presented “a risk of significant harm to children and young people” and advised that he “should have no unsupervised contact with children or young people.”
Objecting to the assessment, Hindley commissioned his own review by a social-work researcher, which concluded that “it would be hard to sustain an argument of predatory targeting behavior” by Hindley, but urged that he “needs support on developing his boundaries in relation to work with children.”
A 2020 assessment by a consultant clinical psychologist said there was “low to moderate risk of future inappropriate sexual behavior” for Hindley, but that risk would increase if he spent “prolonged periods of time alone in the company of young males.”
‘Explored Every Single Option’
Hindley held his cathedral post as a freehold, a tenure system dating to the fifth century, which only allows a member of the clergy to be removed from post for disciplinary reasons. When the Church of England’s current, more flexible employment clergy employment system — common tenure — was introduced, clergy who had been in posts with freehold in 2007 were allowed to maintain their privileges.
The Diocese of Blackburn told the BBC that it had “explored every single option” to have Hindley sacked. Diocesan officials presented Hindley for discipline several times. Some allegations against him did not proceed because they involved alleged incidents that were more than a year old.
An action against him for his behavior at the 2018 garden party was seemingly dismissed by a judge because Hindley’s intoxication impaired his ability to make clear decisions. “Some alcohol appeared to flow pretty freely,” the judge said, “and, while alcohol provides no defence to assault, for assault to be constituted there has to be some degree of deliberation.”
In a May 2020 letter, the diocese’s three bishops complained to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York about the repeated failures to remove Hindley using the disciplinary process. They alleged that “strings have been pulled and networks have been used to effect Canon Hindley’s ongoing ministry.”
The BBC reports that the Archbishop of Canterbury told the bishops that the lawyers at Church House could see no legal solution to the issue and suggested they could leak the story to the press.
In a subsequent interview with the BBC, Bishop Henderson said that the disciplinary failures were “almost impossible understand,” adding that “it was natural to wonder whether other factors had been called into play that we knew nothing about.”
Other attempts were made to oust Hindley, including suspending him at least twice and offering him a payout in 2010 that Hindley rejected as insufficient. He was banned from engaging with the choir school, junior confirmation groups, and school visits, though one report seen by the BBC claimed that “the restrictions were never monitored.”
In January 2021, Blackburn Cathedral’s chapter voted to retire Hindley on grounds of ill health, relying on an untested law from 1949. The chapter also began legal proceedings to remove him from his cathedral-owned townhouse. Hindley contested the chapter’s actions, appealing the decision to the High Court.
Henderson wrote to Hindley in July 2021 saying that “were it within my power to dismiss you, I would have done so.” The 2020 risk assessment’s conclusion that Hindley posed a risk of inappropriate sexual behavior, he added, “should never be said of a clerk in Holy Orders.”
Henderson also told Hindley he was “prepared to close the ministry of the Cathedral,” with the concurrence of the dean and both archbishops, if Hindley should insist on returning to work.
Hindley never returned to work, but accepted the six-figure payment in exchange for dropping his appeal. Both parties to the agreement signed a non-disclosure agreement.
‘Without Real Change, An Apology is Empty’
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York issued a joint statement after the BBC report was published.
“We are truly sorry when survivors are let down by the Church. We were both made aware of this case, including the concerning background and the challenges caused by statutory and Church processes ending with no further action,” they said.
“We absolutely believe that there is no place in ministry for people who are a risk or pose a risk to others and continue to work to ensure that our systems are made ever stronger and more robust.”
Blackburn’s bishop, Philip North, joined with the Very Rev. Peter Howell-Jones, the cathedral’s dean, in a statement that said the church must listen to the survivors of abuse “to ensure that the Church now, and in the future, is not hampered by its own processes from acting quickly and properly on serious safeguarding matters. Only then can this truly be a safe Church for everyone.”
In an August 16 post on the Diocese of Blackburn’s website, North said he had listened to the Radio 4 version of the BBC report with “an intense degree of sadness and shame.”
“The heart of the problem lay with a church that is hidebound by heavy legal structures and processes, many of which are not fit for purpose. This has caused years of needless suffering, traumatisation, and re-traumatisation to survivors, some of whom have suffered life-changing harm.”
“There must be learning from this case, and that learning must result in change. Without real change any apology is empty and hypocritical.”
He urged the reconsideration of a resolution brought to General Synod in 2014, which would have allowed a bishop or tribunal to remove a cleric from office if a risk assessment had concluded there was a safeguarding risk. The proposal, he said, was not taken forward because of heavy criticism.
“General Synod in 2014 therefore took a clear decision that clergy who are assessed as a risk should be able to continue in office. It is that decision that has led to the crisis at Blackburn Cathedral and to such suffering to survivors.”
He also urged that both freehold and common tenure be abolished and be replaced with a system in which clergy become employees of the diocese “with all the transparency and mutual accountability that offers.”
“An advantage of this way ahead is that most disciplinary matters would be settled through an HR process rather than through long and clumsy legal procedures.”
The clergy tenure system, with its basis in a notion that priests “own their office as if it were a piece of personal property,” North said, “is at odds with a modern safeguarding culture in which accountability is critical. To be a safer church we must address this issue.”
He also noted that a process to replace he Church of England’s current Clergy Discipline Measure is well under way. General Synod was informed in July that proposals for a new system, called the Clergy Conduct Measure, are in the final stages of drafting.
He said the new proposals are “a significant improvement and will address many of the current weaknesses.”
The new system, he said, must also be administered by lawyers and judges who will “make just and fair determinations that are based on the evidence with a focus on that which will keep the church safe.”
“To reinforce this we need to have a mechanism to appeal against poorly argued or unjust determinations to avoid another situation similar to that which arose in Blackburn Cathedral.”
