Guilty until proven Innocent
Sarah Mac Donald writing in this week’s Tablet describes the awful ordeal of Fr Tim Hazelwood who had an anonymous false allegation made against him and who then was left to prove his own innocence while feeling totally abandoned by official church and fobbed off by the National Safeguarding Board.
“I was left feeling very alone”, he says. “I had to fight my accuser but I also had to fight the Church, because it didn’t help in any way.”
This article raises very disturbing questions for church authorities in how they deal with anonymous allegations, questions that should prevent them from sleeping easily until they have been fully resolved.
Robert Dore, solicitor, describes the Church’s protocols on anonymous allegations as “wrong” and “wholly inappropriate”.