The Church of England is under renewed scrutiny following the exposure of personal details belonging to numerous clerical abuse survivors due to a significant data breach.
On Tuesday evening, unredacted names and email addresses of nearly 200 individuals who signed up for the Church’s new abuse compensation initiative were circulated in a mass email.
Survivors, who were assured their information would remain confidential, expressed outrage, stating that this incident further erodes their trust in the Church.
The CofE described the data breach as ‘deeply regrettable’ and said it ‘should not have happened’ but sought to distance itself from the incident.
The Church convened an urgent meeting with Kennedys Law, the firm handling the compensation scheme, and announced that Kennedys Law had taken ‘full responsibility for the incident.’
Kennedys Law attributed the breach to ‘human error’ and expressed profound apologies for the distress caused. It also confirmed reporting the breach to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Solicitor’s Regulatory Authority.
In November, former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was compelled to resign ‘in shame’ following a critical report that concluded he ‘could and should’ have taken more action against the Church of England’s most notorious child abuser.
The Rev Canon Ian Gomersall, a retired rector, said he was among the group of ‘prospective applicants’ to the redress scheme whose names and details were shared in the breach.
He described it as a ‘total breach of confidentiality’ and said it ‘shatters my confidence in the process’ and further traumatises survivors of church abuse.
The Rev Canon Gomersall wrote: ‘I have been a priest in the Church of England for over 40 years. Now I feel utterly ashamed to belong to it.
‘I am personally very hurt this evening by the Church’s continuing, unending, lack of due diligence and care for those who have been abused by it. The leadership of the Church is clearly not fit for purpose.’
Andrew Graystone, a longtime advocate for Church abuse survivors, said that survivors have been left feeling ‘shocked, angry and frightened’.
He said: ‘The CofE has a huge deficit of trust with survivors – and with the general public. They want to say “we used to treat survivors terribly but now we do it right”. Clearly they don’t.’
Mr Graystone said that the Government now needs to step in and ‘the church’s safeguarding needs to be placed under fully independent control’.
He added: ‘Even now, the CofE is trying to palm off responsibility onto its lawyers. But it is the church’s own victims who have been exposed, and that’s after they made a specific commitment that names and email addresses would not be shared.’
The Makin Review found that John Smyth (pictured in 2017) abused more than 100 children and young men over almost five decades. He died in 2018, having evaded justice
The General Synod, the Church’s governing body, voted to introduce the redress scheme for survivors earlier this year following a string of abuse scandals.
It came after former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was forced to resign in ‘shame’ in November after a damning review found he ‘could and should’ have done more to ensure that the CofE’s worst child abuser was brought to justice.
A CofE spokesman said: ‘First and foremost, our focus is on those affected. We recognise the distress this has caused, particularly for survivors who trusted the scheme to handle their information with care and confidentiality.
‘While the Church of England is not the data controller for the Redress Scheme and does not hold or manage the data in question, we are nonetheless profoundly concerned.
‘We are in discussions with Kennedys to understand how this breach occurred and to ensure robust steps are taken to prevent anything similar from happening again.’
Kennedys Law said it ‘accepts full responsibility’ for the breach. A spokesman added: ‘We understand the significant impact this will have on those affected for which we apologise unreservedly.
‘We remain committed to supporting victims and survivors of Church of England-related abuse to secure the financial redress, therapeutic, spiritual and emotional support, acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of the Church, apology and other forms of bespoke redress under this scheme.’
A spokesman for the ICO said: ‘We have received a report regarding this incident from Kennedys Law LLP and are making enquiries.’
