LIVERPOOL (UNITED KINGDOM)
The Roys Report [Chicago IL]
January 29, 2025
By Mark Michael
John Perumbalath, Bishop of Liverpool, has been accused of sexually harassing two female clerics, including one of the Church of England’s bishops, according to a Channel 4 News report released January 28. He denies the allegations.
Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York and the Church of England’s acting primate, is accused by his critics of a coverup, because he reportedly knew of allegations against Perumbalath, a former protégé, before he was enthroned in Liverpool. With the primate position in the Church of England currently vacant, Cottrell has been performing those duties as the most senior bishop.
Last month, Cottrell faced calls for his resignation after a BBC Radio 4 report criticized him for failing to remove serial abuser David Tudor from ministry. Cottrell served as Bishop of Chelmsford from 2010 to 2020, before his translation to York.
“It could well be another example of a church coverup,” the Rev. Robert Thompson said to Channel 4 host Cathy Newman.
“I think one of the difficulties at the heart at the top of our church is that there is a protectionist culture between bishops in relation to bishops’ behavior,” Thompson said. “And lots of us know that this happens all the time. If this was an ordinary clergyperson, they would be treated in a very different way, I think.”
Thompson, a London vicar and a member of General Synod, was one of the authors of a petition signed by tens of thousands that played a major role in bringing down Archbishop Justin Welby in November.
Andrew Graystone, a religion journalist, told Newman that both women came to him separately in the summer of 2024 with allegations against Perumbalath that they believed the church had mishandled.
Graystone is a well-known safeguarding watchdog in the Church of England, and his book and television reporting expoded John Smyth’s abuses — a scandal that eventually led to Archbishop Justin Welby’s resignation.
The bishop, who remains anonymous, complained of sexual harassment by Perumbalath to Cottrell and other senior leaders in 2023. She made a formal complaint under the Clergy Discipline Measure in 2024 with Cottrell’s support, but an independent judge rejected it because more than a year had passed since the alleged incident.
The program also included written testimony from an anonymous married female cleric of the Diocese of Chelmsford interviewed by Channel 4. She alleges that Perumbalath assaulted her on three separate occasions between 2019 and 2023, while he was serving as Bishop of Bradwell, a suffragan see of Chelmsford.
She alleges that in March 2019, at a diocesan retreat, the bishop held her and “kissed me forcefully on my mouth, which I did not like and I did not want. I tried to move away, but he was holding my mouth too tightly.”
At the end of a meeting in May 2022, she claims that he “ran his hands past the side of my breasts on both sides, with a medium pressure, until he reached the edge of the areola.”
In January 2023, she said that he approached her at a music evening and whispered “I love you” in her ear, and then “moved his mouth to just below my ear, on the pulse point on my neck. He opened his mouth, took a piece of my skin between his lips, and let go.”
The cleric says that after the final incident, she filed a report with a local priest, and was put in touch with the Church of England’s safeguarding team. According to a church representative, the team “concluded there were no ongoing safeguarding concerns, but a learning outcome was identified with which the bishop fully engaged.”
Meanwhile, Perumbalath, whose election to the See of Liverpool had been announced several months before the alleged incident, was formally confirmed in his new role.
Cottrell acknowledged in a March 2023 email to the alleged victim that he had known about the allegations some time before, but he did not intervene to halt Perumbalath’s enthronement as bishop a month later, a service in which he played a prominent role as leader of the province.
“In most areas of life — if he were the head teacher of a secondary school or a consultant in a hospital — there is no doubt that the person against whom these allegations had been made would be stood down in a neutral way while they were investigated and dealt with,” Graystone said.
“The church may say that they have investigated these allegations — they think it’s all fine — but at no point in that process did they choose to step John Perumbalath back from his responsibilities,” he added.
In November 2023, the Chelmsford diocesan cleric filed a police report about the incidents. Perumbalath agreed to be questioned by police in March 2024 “under caution” (as a potential suspect in a crime). The police took no action due to insufficient evidence.
The Church of England has reportedly paid for therapy for the accuser and Cottrell offered to write her an apology, but one has not yet been received.
Members of the Crown Nominations Commission for Liverpool, who selected Perumbalath for his role in 2023, also told Channel 4 News that the bishop had initially failed to secure the necessary two-thirds majority for election after failing a required safeguarding competency test.
They say that Cottrell and another senior bishop put pressure on them to disregard the test and give Perumbalath their full support. Crown Nominations Commission records show that Cottrell served on the panel along with the Rt. Rev. Stephen Croft of Oxford. Church of England officials dispute these allegations.
Newman also interviewed the Rt. Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Bishop of Dover, on the program. Hudson-Wilkin, who told a podcast last week that she believed Justin Welby had been mistreated by the church, said Cottrell had asked a barrister to look into the ways the church had handled the allegations against Perumbalath “in order to see if anything has been missed and also to suggest further possible ways forward.”
“We live in a world where we have proper processes,” Hudson-Wilkin told Newman. “We don’t just sack someone when there is an allegation. … We cannot just behave like a sort of lynch mob.”
In a January 28 statement, Perumbalath said, “The allegations set out in this program are in relation to encounters that took place in public settings, with other people present. I have consistently denied the allegations made against me by both complainants. I have complied with any investigation from the National Safeguarding Team. The allegations raised in Essex were also investigated by the police, who took no further action.
“Whilst I don’t believe I have done anything wrong, I have taken seriously the lessons learnt through this process addressing how my actions can be perceived by others. I will comply with any investigation deemed necessary. I take safeguarding very seriously and work hard to provide proper leadership in this area.”
A native of Kerala State in Southern India, Perumbalath began his ministry in the Church of North India before moving to England in 2001. He is the chair of the council of the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, an Anglo-Catholic seminary, and serves on the Clergy Discipline Commission of the Church of England. He and his wife have one child, a daughter.
This article originally appeared at The Living Church and has been reprinted with permission.
The Rev. Mark Michael is editor-in-chief of The Living Church. A graduate of Duke University and Oxford, he serves as rector of an Episcopal church in Maryland.