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	The Vicar Who Shamed a Small Community By Gavin O'Connor Wales Online September 28, 2008 http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/09/28/the-vicar-who-shamed-a-small-community-91466-21914997/ 'He was a vicar, so you gave him respect. Now you look at him as some kind of a monster.' Beguildy – a sleepy little hamlet in deepest Mid Wales – was rocked this week when its vicar, the Reverend Richard Hart was jailed for three-and-a-half years after being found guilty of possessing around 57,000 images of child pornography. GAVIN O'CONNOR visited the village to find its residents trying to rebuild their lives in the shadow of scandal... IT'S little more than a collection of chocolate box cottages spread across a strikingly beautiful little patch of Welsh countryside. But for years the picturesque hamlet of Beguildy in Mid Wales hid a terrible secret. This week, the Reverend Richard Hart was jailed for 3½ years at Cardiff Crown Court for amassing a huge collection of child pornography. His veneer of respectability was blown wide open to reveal a man who held a long-standing, perverted obsession with children and left the small Powys community with feelings of revulsion, shock and bewilderment. Outside St Michael's Church – where the evil pervert preached from his pulpit – I meet two men pulling up in a small truck and unload grass-cutting equipment from the back. One of them has relatives buried within the grounds and is there to tend the graves, tidy them up and go back home. Both the men know all about the church's former priest and they are keen to stress they are not from the area. "It's all over the village and in Knighton," said one. "We all know what he did." His companion then offers a much stronger – but unprintable – version of events before going through the lopsided metal gate which Hart opened and closed for seven years until the trusting community found out his sordid secrets. Beguildy is not somewhere which is easy to get to and the people living there have put the stresses of work behind them, are content and at ease with life. It's not so much a retirement village – more a place to enjoy the slower pace of living. If you blinked while driving past St Michael's Church you might miss the place – it really is that small. But it's every inch the storybook community, lying just metres from the border between Wales and England. As you enter on the B4355, Beguildy Church in Wales Primary School offers a colourful welcome across the fence moments before you reach the local shop, adjacent to the Radnorshire Arms pub, which itself is surrounded by a cluster of houses. St Michael's Church is just up on the brow of a modest hill and overlooks the whole area from a central point in the rural farmland. But the gentle, picturesque warmth of the village has been tainted in its association to 59-year-old Hart, and nobody living there wants any part of that link. Some attempts to speak to those living there prove futile and knocking on doors brings little willingness other than a curtain twitch – child pornography is the last thing people living in this area expected to be talking about at the turn of the year. But now the truth behind the parish priest is the talk of the village – not to mention the whole of Wales and beyond. The lack of residents is conspicuous, given it's a beautiful, sunny day, but some do offer conversation, even though they want to remain anonymous. "When the police turned up last January they were very good," said one man. "They were open with us, told us what was happening. That was important because the police presence was totally unnatural." For a church couple, Hart and his wife Julie shared an unlikely home. The property, a seven-bedroomed mansion complete with a tennis court, was raided by Dyfed Powys Police officers on January 11 this year after the cleric's credit card details were passed onto them. The card was used to access illicit websites. What the police uncovered was a shocking collection of indecent material going back more than three decades with nearly 57,000 images ranging from grade 1 to grade five, the most serious in terms of classification. The oldest of the images went back to 1973, pre-dating the Reverend's ordination, his marriage and his children. When rumours of this circulated in Beguildy, the sense of bewilderment was palpable. Hart, a father-of-five, was a community leader, respected for seven years as St Michael's priest and who was chairman of governors at the school where his wife Julie, 41, had also worked as a teaching assistant. The sick priest had been practising as an authority on religious rites since 1986 and since settling in the village took up the exalted position as priest-in-charge of six other parishes in the surrounding area – Heyope, Llangunllo, Bleddfa, Llanbister, Llanbadarn Fynydd and Llananno. One villager said: "You would never have suspected him of such a vile thing – you just don't. "He was a vicar, you looked at him as a vicar, so you gave him that respect. The couple were godparents to three other kids in this community. Now you look at him as some kind of a monster and wonder what he could have been capable of." The fact the couple lived in the most spacious property in Beguildy, where a three-bedroomed detached house can attract nearly £400,000, is a suggestion of their relative wealth. Mrs Hart is said to belong to a family in charge of a well-known whisky-making company and is said to have a brother who plies his trade as a top barrister in London. Following the arrest in January, the couple quickly relocated to Whopsott Avenue in Woking. "Julie's been back a few times since," said the villager. "She was always odd, juvenile in her ways, almost." Investigating officers interviewed Mrs Hart and were surprised by her attitude, openly admitting to them she knew her husband viewed these depraved images. She also said it was "nobody else's business" and said her husband sometimes viewed the milder images to arouse himself before they both had sex. But on being re-interviewed, the gravity of the situation hit her and she expressed disgust at the vast number of images in her husband's possession. "Looking back makes you feel uncomfortable," said another villager. "He was in a position of trust, we trusted him a lot. I have family members he christened." For most, the aim is to move on. "There's a relief this has come to a conclusion," said one man. "We've had to deal with this for nine months. "Of course there is anger. Who was this man? "But there are some parishioners who are still in a bit of denial, blaming the coverage of the story for making things worse for him. "It's hard to come to terms with for them because of who they thought he was." In the more built-up village of Knighton, 10 minutes south of Beguildy, some youngsters sit on a bench underneath the clock tower in the shopping centre. They know what you are going to ask before you ask them. "He should have had a lot more than 3½ years," said one. "Eight years would have been better." In the Red Lion, in Church Street, there are fewer than half a dozen people in the bar. But the conversation revolves around just one topic. "People will never forget him," said Kirsty Chillery, one of the drinkers. "What he did will always be remembered around here." Contact: gavin.o'connor@mediawales.co.uk
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