I can't for the life of me remember who wrote it...

But it is so frucking funny. That I have to repost it.


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.