Christ Church Fulwood, one of the biggest conservative evangelical churches in the country, has admitted that it allowed a ‘culture of secrecy’ to develop after it emerged a senior staff member resigned after an ‘inappropriate relationship’.
Tim Cudmore, Director of Ministry and also Safeguarding Officer at the Anglican church, quit in 2018 after allegations about his behaviour with a ‘young female member’ of the congregation came to light, it has now been revealed. Cudmore is said to have ‘initiated and pressured her into inappropriate physical contact, including touching her over and under clothes’, according to ‘church documents’ shown to the Sheffield Star.
The Star stated: ‘In 2015, Mr Cudmore had admitted to the then vicar, Canon Paul Williams, an earlier incident, involving a different female member of the congregation ... Although he was asked to step back temporarily from leading services, no formal action was taken at the time, nor were any records made.’
The newspaper added: ‘When the second relationship came to light, Mr Cudmore was “simply allowed to resign”, without any investigation or disciplinary action at the time.
‘The church reported back to the congregation last year following two investigations – one a “visitation” by a former Bishop and Archdeacon, and the other by Christian safeguarding charity thirtyone:eight – but the documents outlining the findings were never published more widely and were only recently shown to The Star.’
Contacted by en, a statement from Associate Vicar Pete Scamman, the churchwardens and current parish Safeguarding Officers on behalf of the church leadership said: ‘The last two years for the church family at Christ Church Fulwood have been very sad and painful. Failings in leadership and church culture over a number of years have been starkly exposed in the Bishops’ Visitation report and the thirtyone:eight safeguarding report, which we received in the summer of 2021. We are very sorry, and continue to apologise to, and seek to support, all those who we recognise have been deeply hurt by the matters described in these reports.
‘In particular, the circumstances described in the thirtyone:eight report should never have happened. They were not properly known, understood, or dealt with in the right way at the time due to a culture of secrecy which had been allowed to develop in our church. The delay in bringing matters to light was simply unacceptable. We did not fulfil our calling, required in Isaiah 1, to ‘learn to do what is right, seek justice and defend the oppressed’. We acknowledge the significant impact on the victim’s life which we have contributed to by our failings. We have formally apologised to the victim for letting her down so badly, and we are determined, with God’s help, to develop a culture of openness and transparency within our church.
‘The recommendations of both reports were accepted in full and are being progressed by the current church leadership, our two Parish Safeguarding Officers, and an Implementation Group of the Church Council. We also recently surveyed our church family to ensure we receive and listen to voices of both encouragement and concern. We want to ensure we continue to develop a more open, safe, transparent, and compassionate church. This is an ongoing task and is very much a work in progress. We are however committed to seeing it through to the end, however long it takes.
‘Our prayer is that with God’s help such a harmful culture will never develop again within our church, but that Christ-like compassion, justice and truth will be the characteristics of our church family and its leadership.’
