Bishop’s strange gambit

The latest institution to qualify for a brief lesson in constitutional history is the Diocese of Winchester – and the consequences of ignorance this time could be far-reaching and traumatic.

The long-running row between the Bishop of Winchester, the Right Rev Tim Dakin, and the Anglican Church in Jersey, over how the case of a vulnerable, disturbed woman in an Island congregation was handled, surfaced again this week in the States Chamber.

That is the right forum for its continuation because the issues at stake have moved beyond the realms of one isolated case, whatever its rights and wrongs, and now threaten to damage relations between the Island and the diocese, perhaps irreparably and potentially to the point at which the Channel Islands decide to break away from Winchester, to which they have been ecclesiastically affiliated for some 450 years.

The Anglican Church has been very important to Jersey and any such split would undoubtedly distress many people. However, the current arrangement is neither eternal nor sacrosanct and there are other options, as our fellow Crown Dependency in the Isle of Man ably demonstrates. In the grander scheme of things, Jersey’s independence from the UK is even more important and Chief Minister Ian Gorst’s promise to make this week’s visiting Bishops fully aware of the public and political concerns was therefore a welcome declaration of intent and outlook.

A number of troubling questions remain in the air and all possible pressure should be exerted to get them answered. Did the Bishop tell the Dean of Jersey, as was claimed in the States, that church rules should trump the Jersey canon law which underpins the special status of the Anglican Church here? If so, why, and what is his ultimate aim for the Channel Islands and the strong system of parishes, each with its own rector, from which Jersey draws so much of its unique character.

Above all, why will he not sanction publication of the report by Dame Heather Steel QC into the case of the vulnerable woman in question? The Very Rev Bob Key has been very publicly denigrated and his deanery left humiliated and angry by the actions of senior clergy in the UK. Whether or not, as his supporters have asserted, the Dean has been exonerated by the Steel Report, its findings and the evidence presented to Dame Heather deserve an equally public airing.

For the Bishop to maintain the secrecy of a report which could clear the air is wrong, baffling and, it might even be suggested, somewhat unchristian.