I have copied the other standards teams in on this email as it does relate to similar behaviour by other press and media in Jersey. Also copied in Jersey's safeguarding board, who have failed me for three years by standing by and allowing the press and media and general public to harm me, and also produced a whitewash of my case on behalf of the church and police.Also copied in are the communications departments for the Bishop of Winchester and Archbishop and a number of people who have contacted me complaining of the JEP and other media's attack on me in their representation of the Church of England
I understand that the response to my complaint about the Jersey Evening Post was another attack on me by the Jersey Evening Post (JEP) in the editorial as they have ignored my statement of fact and run an editorial demanding the release of the conflicted Steel report on behalf of the Jersey Deanery. This article will be sent in the next email after it has been transcripted for the future court case. There will probably not be a court case against the press/media during the time I ask the Press Standards and ofcom to act regarding the press and media bias and harm to me, however court cases against the Church and the press are currently separate matters.
This is now a very serious matter, described below by one of the Jersey people who have been supporting me through this crisis.
'However, I'm told the JEP [yesterday I think] did an editorial comment demanding release of Steel report - and was slagging off the Bishop [who's name escapes me at the moment, who commissioned the original report which, in the main, supported you, and caused the war between the Jersey C of E and UK C of E'
With this matter of bias and attack continuing with impunity, and with the editor of the JEP well aware of this being prejudice and an attack on a vulnerable person without her side being heard, isn't it time the IPSO took action? A newspaper that acts with such blatant and unjust prejudice and putting a vulnerable adult's life at risk is not just breaching journalistic and press codes, but now doing so in revenge for the complaints.
The JEP, along with ITV and the BBC persistently act on behalf of the Dean and push for the release of the conflicted Steel report and consistently fail to add that Steel is a member of the Judiciary circle connected to the Dean and the Town church and also fail noticably and persistently to publish the fact that the Steel, Korris and other reports do not contain my views and are thus not valid. The JEP, along with the BBC and ITV have spent the past 3 years discrediting me and misleading the general public to think that my abuser has no case to answer and that the Steel report should be published.
It remains that my side of the story is not in any newspaper, media or report. But even after I have made this most recent complaint, after the JEP and media have been allowed to continue their attack despite my complaints, they have continued to allow harm to me, and not just to me, but also allowing attacks on the man who is seriously ill after collapsing from the stress of defending me from harm by the Jersey press and media.
The Bishop of Winchester is under a court order over the Steel report after allowing it to continue when he was presented with evidence that it was conflicted. The JEP and Jersey media persist in not reporting this. The Bishop can't truthfully claim to be choosing not to publish the conflicted Steel report, he is not allowed to publish it, and the JEP persist in stirring people up and stirring up hatred over this report as well as defaming and smearing and discrediting me.
Please be reminded of their open and blatant upholding of Senator Philip Bailhache, lay chair of the Jersey Synod last year, on the front page of the JEP, Bob Hill who produced the blog on this, collapsed with the stress of defending me a few days later, and the JEP are currently allowing trolls to attack him as well as stirring them up to demand this report that the JEP have misrepresented for 3 years, second link:
Scroll down for the kind of inaccuracies and nastiness the JEP allow:
I am being put under persistent undue stress over this matter. I would like the IPSO to take this matter seriously and act promptly as this has persisted for over three years, has led to one man being left seriously ill and a vulnerable adult left destroyed publicly. There aren't any excuses any more, especially as the most recent attack was made yesterday after I made a complaint and is thus a revenge attack. And the JEP continue to misreport blatantly on the Steel report and stir up demands for this report when it is conflicted, invalid, under a court order, and written by a member of the defendent's circle despite protests, and the JEP do not report on this side of things.
Articles such as this one fail to state that this retiring bailiff is not only a member of the town church but also of the Dame Steel and the Dean's circle of judiciary, States and Town Church members, it omits what the JEP have been told for 3 years, that Steel is conflicted, that she is a member of this circle and thus not in a position to investigate the Dean:
Nor has there been any comment there about why the Bailiff is only interested in the report on the Dean. The cries for this report to be published and the stirring up of the general public by this circle and their supporting newspaper, the JEP, are so very blatant and completely omitting my side of things, and for over three years I have endured this. I don't think any more excuses can be made now for this harassment by the JEP. And anyone who stands by and allows this should be asked why.
Then, this is Senator Bailhache, a Senator who is also lay chair of Jersey Deanery synod, conflicted not only by that but by being a colleague of Dame Heather Steel, he has written law publications with her, he has had her as a guest speaker at one of the conferences he ran, he arranged with her for her to be put forward to create a report that defamed me and cleared the Dean, he is very angry that instead of being one of the voiceless vulnerable such as the abuse victims he failed to protect as a judge by allowing their abusers to go on abusing, I have continued to speak up and fight back, and when the Bishop of Winchester failed to annul the Steel report, I took him to court. Which is why
With these powerful people supporting the Dean and meeting with the Archbishop with all their legal expertise, I am left voiceless and continually attacked by the press and media on behalf of these powerful people. This is abuse, and there must be an end to it at some point.
How can any member of the UK church know who in Jersey is conflicted when not a single member of the UK church has met with me and recorded my full story? The Bishop hasn't met with me, nor the Archbishop, and the only reports carried out have been conflicted and have not contained my views. For the press and media to continually raise the matter of the reports and mislead the general public but refuse to add my side of things, this is nothing to do with news or balanced reporting, it is just a further attack on me.
Presumably the JEP, overseen by my abuser's brother, will try to make excuses about me being mentally ill, this is something that abusers and their supporters do, it is a way of trying to discredit survivors, who do act in traumatised ways and have that used against them.
My psychological report is available, I am assessed as free from serious mental illness and suffering Post Traumatic Stress. Each attack on my life by the Jersey press and media puts my life at risk and causes me profound distress. Although in the case of Mr. Sibcy and his newspaper, that seems to be either a bonus of one of the aims.
Here's my psychological report, and considering it's outcome, by a very skilled and experienced professional, how do you think I am coping after another three years of this biased and vicious harassmet by the Jersey Evening Post?
The Archbishop's office have been made aware of the distress and damage, as have the Bishop of Winchester's office, but they have consistently ignored the damage done to me by the press and media and have continued to make press releases that are published without question by the JEP and Jersey's BBC and ITV. None of whom publish the reality of Steel's conflicted state and my side of things. ITV made a bluster and pretence of including me but for themselves and not me, and partly because of my complaint to ITV. No reporter, journalist or press or media personnell have interviewed me. They simply publish what suits them. And years of complaints about this has changed nothing.
When the press and media attack, defame and discredit a vulnerable person persistently and relentlessly, especially in my case, there is no recovery, there has been no apology each time over the years, the wounds have remained and have built up and built up. This matter must be concluded, properly and the attacks must stop.
There is no excuse for either the press and media or the Church of England's abuse of power in this matter, none. Both are responsible for ensuring that a balanced and equal story is shared, and for these years both have failed to do so.
The articles discrediting me remain available, and I am getting complaints from Jersey people who are afraid to complain to these abusive press and media themselves because in Jersey, the consequences of speaking up can be ruin. As I myself know.
The Church are liable because they not only knowingly released one-sided stories, knowing the damage to me, but have failed to redact and remove these articles in the press or ensure that my side of things is heard.
The press and media are also liable because they have again omitted my side for their prejudice, also well aware of my complaints and distress over the years.
Finally, below is an article written by an independent observer of the Church and press and media campaign of abuse, I don't necessarily agree with the writer but he is just giving his view, without influence, and he is able to give his view because he has seen the press and media but looked beneath their bias, and most observers of this matter haven't been as reasonable and impartial, the impact of strangers attacking due to the cruel and self-serving church and press will affect me to my dying day, remember, more important than the needs of the Church and press in this, a vulnerable adult's life has been destroyed and is at risk and that makes the continued actions of church, press and media unjustifiable:
Bystander's written observation:
Waiting for HG
The media battle over the case of HG has been coming to the forefront of the news over the last year, largely as a result of proactive pushes by the church hierarchy in Jersey to obtain the Steel report.
Although it contained background information about the policy of chaperoning a churchwarden who was to tactile with women, and who was the subject of HG’s complaint, it has been widely seen that the Korris report was flawed in some respects. Not least of these was the inability of Jan Korris to interview HG herself, and yet to press ahead with the report regardless, basing HG’s testimony on emails from her to others; the obvious flaw in this is that it gives only one side of the story, and a highly selective one, as HG may have been angry in some emails, and those undoubtably were those selected to pass on to Korris by participants in the review both in Winchester and Jersey.
And while Korris mentioned that HG had been bound over to leave Jersey, and forcibly placed on a plane and left destitute in England, she failed to mention that this binding over to leave Jersey could not have occurred had Michael Scott-Joynt decided to withdraw a complaint of harrassment, leaving just that of Bob Key, the Dean of Jersey, standing.
The Bishop’s decision to published precipitated a crisis in which Winchester and Jersey were at loggerheads. This was not helped by the politicisation of the whole matter, which shifted the focus from HG onto the conflict between Bishop Tim Dakin and Dean of Jersey, Bob Key. Instrumental in this were Gavin Ashenden, Sir Philip Bailhache, and Bruce Willing, all of whom vilified HG.
Sir Philip wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and this seems to have involved access to confidential material, which he had been seen perusing on a plane trip between London and Jersey. Having blasted the passengers who had brought it to the attention of Deputy Trevor Pitman, as “malicious” and making them out to be liars, he finally grudgingly issued a statement in which he said he could have only had information in the public domain and not police records, and anyway he has been confused about which flight it was, and he didn’t really mean to brand the passengers “malicious”. It was a grudging apology because his position was untenable, but evidently he was amassing material to send to Canterbury in which he appeared to show not one whit of concern or compassion for HG. He even mooted the idea of an independent Diocese of Jersey. Such delusions of grandeur. A big fish in a small pond.
Meanwhile the Bishop had decided to take refuge behind a press agency, the rather pagan sounding Luther Pendragon, and commissioned two more reports by Dame Heather Steel, and Bishop Gladwin. Dame Steel, of course, as a QC, had met Sir Philip Bailhache, so could not be seen as impartial anyway. It may be remembered that in the UK, there were two attempts by the Government to place conflicted persons in charge of an inquiry into historic child abuse, both of which folded under public criticism. It is not enough to be unbiased, there must be no suspicion that their could be bias, and in the case of Dame Heather, that certainly was not the case. Like Korris, she failed to engage with HG, but completed her report anyway.
The Bishop then decided to sit on the report, much to the chagrin of the Jersey church “rat pack” who were trying to get it seen to justify their position that Bob Key was a good guy – despite him admitting he made safeguarding mistakes – and Tim Dakin was a bad guy. A delegation led by the Chief Minister went to the UK, led by the Chief Minister, and with the Bailiff, the brother of Sir Philip, to get the report published but came away empty handed.
Meanwhile HG was asking for the report not to be published as she had suffered enough trauma already and it was destroying her life. Deaf and insensitive, the Jersey Church “rat pack” continued and no doubt will continue to complain., because until it is published, they can’t play their religious politics against the Bishop.
The latest development has been a sit down dinner with the Archbishop for the Dean and his wife, and an informal apology for all the hurt they had suffered, which was made public soon afterwards. It was only a supper, alas, and not the Last Supper, and no thirty pieces of silver for betraying HG in the first place.
Newspapers publish the story because it sells, and they don’t seem to be aware of the hurt it causes to HG, except as they can ask her to give “her side of the story”, and thus make a relativism of truth. The Bishop did send an email apology to HG, but still can’t leave alone as requested. And the Jersey Church “rat pack”, are still stirring the pot like the old hags in Shakespear’s Macbeth.
Where is HG in all of this? Like the play “Waiting for Godot”, her voice is not heard, and she is a presence of stage, while others strut their stuff and take centre stage.
end.
HG
