The Assistant Chief Minister and former Bailiff, who has supported the Dean since he was accused of failing to act properly following a complaint of abuse on a vulnerable woman by a churchwarden, is now calling for the report to be sent to the Bailiff and the Dean as originally promised.
It follows a statement by the Bishop, the Right Rev Tim Dakin, that no disciplinary action would be taken against any clergy as a result of the investigation by former Jersey Court of Appeal judge Dame Heather Steel.
However, he said that he was currently barred from releasing the report to anyone for legal reasons after being approached by an interested party.
Senator Bailhache, who wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury earlier this year expressing his dismay over the treatment of the Dean, the Very Rev Bob Key, said everyone was entitled to know what Dame Heather had concluded on safeguarding matters.
‘I am delighted that the Dean and his clergy have been exonerated by the Steel report but appalled by the Bishop of Winchester’s expressed intention to suppress its publication on what appear to be very specious grounds,’ he said.
