Whatever
happened to John Troughton?
When John
Troughton came to the Bexhill area some fifteen years ago he came
with a fine reputation. He was in his mid-fifties by then, but was
thinking of his retirement.
He had been
trained in electronics, and that was still his trade to some extent
until he retired in 2017 - but his true life was in charity.
John had
been a Methodist since he was born. He grew up inside the
Church. In his thirties he became an accredited local
preacher. As he approached middle-age, his religion moved him
further into areas of society where he could help people.
It was in
1992, when he was 40, that he began to concentrate on charitable
works. He took his wife and family to Devon. There, he set about
providing spiritual, and even financial, support for
despairing fishermen and their families in a mission in
Brixham.
Within two
years the Troughtons had left Devon for the West coast of Scotland.
John began helping to provide a lifeline for sailors in Mallaig on
the West Coast of Scotland. Mallaigh had once been the busiest
herring port in Europe – and, though now in decline, it was
still the main commercial fishing port on the west coast of
Scotland.
John became
an assistant at the Fisherman’s mission in Mallaigh, taking care of
families of men lost at sea and those who had fallen on hard times.
With the
decline in the herring trade, there had been a decline in fishing in
Mallaigh as the port turned to catching prawns.
After
three and a half years in Mallaig, John Troughton, took his wife and
family back South - to the Queen Victoria Seamen's Rest
in London. John’s
Methodism no doubt played a part in his new position, for the
Seaman’s mission was funded by the Methodist Church. He became the
assistant manager there. For the next ten years, he was in overall
control of some 180 rooms and half a dozen residential flats.
It took good management and organisational skills. It also put him
in daily
contact with ex servicemen
suffering with post traumatic Stress Disorder.
In his
mid-fifties, John ended his wanderings by moving to Bexhill. He now
lives in retirement in a terraced cottage near to the new
roundabout, just outside Sidley.
Once
established in the local Bexhill Methodist Community, John once
again turned to doing charitable work. He became
close to Christopher Stewart-Maxwell a prominent and influential
former civil engineer who, in retirement, had become a local
historian and conservationist. Because of this connection, John
became a founding member of the “Snowflake” organisation.
“Snowflake”
is a highly
regarded organisation based in St Leonards. It assists homeless and
rough sleepers within the Hastings and Rother area.
John soon
demonstrated his organisational skills. He became a director
of the “Snowflake” company and deputy chair of the trustees. Many
poor people in the area have reason to thank John Troughton for his
work. His work in St Leonard’s was in line with his lifetime
commitment to the poor. It had become his mission to look
after the unfortunates in our society.
When he
was approaching the age of seventy, John resigned his trusteeship in
“Snowflake” - in 2019. By then he had been heavily engaged in
his work as Circuit steward in the Methodist Church for several
years. It was a heavy and prestigious job for which he was
well-suited. He was also a prominent member and trainer on the local
Methodist Safeguarding committee.
But
something had changed. In 2014 John Troughton began a vicious
campaign to damage the reputation of the oldest Methodist minister
in the area – Rev. Peter Timms. This campaign led to Rev Timms being
suspended from all Methodist activities; he has suffered very
much as a consequence.
Why John
Troughton should have started this remains a mystery – for the two
men were similar in their benevolent aims, though on different
levels of society and with different levels of authority and
responsibility.
John
Troughton looked after poor and ailing seamen and those in need on
the South Coast. It had become his mission in life.
Rev Peter
Timms devoted his life to prisoners in our jails. He had been a
leading prison governor, responsible for many reforms to help the
system. It was his life’s work, his mission.
The
lifestyles of the two men were different. Rev Timms was an ordained
minister, with a masters degree. He had been given an O.B.E. by the
Queen for his services to prison reform.
John
Troughton had worked tirelessly in his chosen area without any such
reward.
Nevertheless,
one must wonder why such an worthy man as John Troughton, with such
a loving approach to those in his care, could turn into
someone who was ready and willing to torment and pursue an innocent
octogenarian Methodist minister. For that is what John
Troughton did. In 2014 he began a campaign against the Rev Peter
Timms which continues to this day.
It began
at a routine Methodist circuit meeting in 2014. An argument
developed among the local ministers about the appointment of a new
Superintendent for the circuit. John Troughton, who was then a
relatively new steward, involved himself in the argument.
When Rev
Timms began to speak, one of the ministers who disagreed with his
opinion interrupted the debate and demanded that he step down from
the podium. John Troughton decided to intervene to help the
minister who had objected. He advanced to the front of the hall,
threatening to pull Rev Timms down from the podium. This level of
violence was unprecedented in the Bexhill Methodist community and
several members stopped John before he could carry out his threats
to harm Rev Timms.
It did not
end there. When Rev Timms issued complaints about what had gone on
at the meeting, John Troughton, now chief steward, set about
prejudicing the inquiry. Rev Timms had sent him a confidential
internal email - John Troughton immediately passed it on to
the leader of the complaints inquiry in London. It was a short
email, simply pointing out that the person whose employment was
under consideration, at an invitation meeting that John
Troughton chaired, was the subject of a complaint. The implication
of the email was that this situation could cause complications for
the local circuit. What if they employed a man who was subsequently
censured by the national executive?
John
Troughton considered that this internal email was a breach of the
confidentiality of the complaints system. The leader of the national
panel of inquiry, having heard Troughton’s accusations, sent a
extraordinary document to Rev Timms. It was this unprecedented
action which was to cause the Methodist Church a lot of
distress over the next half decade.
The
document that the complaints panel sent to Rev Timms was a false
confession. It demanded, with coercion, that Rev Timms sign an
admission of guilt to a misdemeanour of which he had no knowledge –
and which had nothing to do with his complaints about the 2014
meeting.
Rev Timms
had no idea that John Troughton had sent the confidential internal
email to the complaints team who had considered it sufficient to
find the hapless minister guilty. He had been accused and
tried – and found guilty – in complete secrecy. It had all
been done behind his back.
Consider
the situation – Rev Timms and John Troughton had attended worship
together, with this betrayal of Methodist community spirit in place.
No doubt they exchanged the usual pleasantries – with John Troughton
fully aware that he had effectively stabbed his minister in the
back.
The
coercion that the church authorities used to persuade Rev
Timms led eventually to him being suspended from all church
activities – until he agreed to sign the false confession.
Even then,
Rev Timms continued to refuse to sign the self- incriminating
document. By now the affair was becoming a national scandal because
of a film that had been made about it – and there was also a website
that showed how the church had tried to threaten Rev Timms into
submission.
And so
John Troughton entered the fray again. He determined to
further incriminate Rev Timms. It was now 2016 – two years after the
original trouble when he had threatened the octogenarian minister
with violence.
John
Troughton hatched a remarkable attack – one which no one could have
thought possible from a man so ready to help and care for those in
need. His life’s work had been to help the needy – he now made it
his life’s work to bring Rev Timms down and make him sign the false
confession.
Troughton
issued a formal complaint against Rev Timms’ conduct in the matter.
It went to the national headquarters of the Methodist Church in
London.
He
repeated the claim that Rev Timms had broken the rules in sending
the internal email to him in 2014 – the claim which had
initiated the false confession and the scandal that followed.
This new
complaint revealed new details of his actions – and a remarkable
side of his character. He revealed that before he had sent the copy
of the email to the leader of the inquiry panel in 2016, he had
collected all the relevant documents concerning it – and destroyed
them. Having made the accusation against Rev Timms, he
destroyed the evidence which would have proved it false!
He now
called Rev Timms’ objections to the false confession “a campaign”.
He accused Rev Timms of orchestrating such a campaign - ignoring the
fact that Rev Timms had had nothing to do with the emails and notes
that were now flying around Bexhill.
It did not
end there. John Troughton criticised actions that Rev Timms had
taken elsewhere in Bexhill. He claimed that a lady whom Rev Timms
had employed as a church treasurer had shown signs of
suffering from dementia. He offered no evidence for this -
except his accusation.
This was a
gross defamation of a lady who was highly respected in the Bexhill
community. John Troughton seemed to ignore the fact that claiming
that someone
has dementia, when there is no clinical documentation to back up the
allegation, is libellous. But then, it is clear that John Troughton
has a poor grasp of the law.
Troughton
also complained that Rev Timms had allowed various church members to
pay some of the minor church bills out of their own pockets –
something that many church members do. He thought that such costs
should be listed in church accounts. It was clear from this that,
unlike Rev Peter Timms, John Troughton would not be paying for a
broken window to be replaced out of his own pocket. Such was how
much he really cared for his church.
He claimed
that the church accounts – drawn up by the “demented” lady treasurer
and properly audited - were in a bad state and should not have been
signed off as they were. John Troughton has no qualifications as an
accountant.
Troughton
further claimed that Rev Timms had planned to demolish one of the
main churches in Bexhill in order to create a parking lot. This was
total nonsense, but John Troughton added to this by claiming that
Rev Timms should have found the money to repair parts of that same
church.
Not
content with these totally un-founded slurs and allegations, John
Troughton then accused Rev Timms of several actual crimes.
Perhaps
the worst of these was his allegation that Rev Timms had so
intimidated a woman that she was afraid to be in the same building
as him. This is a crime for which the punishment can be several
years in prison.
This
allegation was completely false. The lady herself denied it - and
proved the point by entering the same building as Rev. Timms. When
evidence of the lack of truth in the outrageous charge was so easy
to find – why on earth did John Troughton ever think about
making it? Did he really want the police to enter into the affair
and charge Rev Timms with sexual abuse? It seems that he did –
for his criminal allegations increased.
He next
claimed that Rev Timms had abused members of the Methodist Church in
Bexhill. They had been abused, he claimed, not only
physically, but also mentally.
In fact of
course, it was John Troughton himself who had offered physical
violence to Rev Timms at the meeting where all this had blown up,
and it was John Troughton who had instigated the mental abuse of Rev
Timms by the church authorities in demanding that he sign the false
confession.
John
Troughton also claimed that Rev Timms had abused the finances of the
church in Bexhill. Any financial irregularity is a serious offence –
and that is what John Troughton charged Rev Timms with. He did not
specify exactly how this had been done, how the books had been
fiddled, for what reason, nor who had benefited financially from the
fraud, but he made the accusation nevertheless.
This all
occurred in the early months of 2018. John Troughton had appeared to
have acted impulsively and without reason. When Rev Timms pointed
out the falsity of these criminal charges, his persecutor acted
bewilderingly and irresponsibly in reply.
When
confronted, John Troughton withdrew all the charges and apologised
for having presented them. He thought that this was a sufficient
response. He had thrown mud at Rev Timms to see where it might stick
and when nothing stuck, he stopped. He made no attempt to
justify his initial attacks in any way - and he continued to
oppose Rev Timms’ objections, now calling them “a
campaign”.
And he
issued further complaints.
The
quarrel rumbled on until March 2018 when Rev Timms finally persuaded
John Troughton to face him across a table so that they could
formally discuss the matter and be reconciled. A neutral convenor
was in charge of the meeting – a member of the church from another
district.
Once again
John Troughton made an allegation that a criminal activity had taken
place – that the meeting was secretly “bugged”. There was no
evidence of this. He had concocted the accusation out of thin air.
He has never apologised for this.
Over four
hours, during March and April 2018, the discussion between the
two men continued. It was the first time in two years that Rev Timms
had been able to discuss with John Troughton the email from 2016
that had caused all the fuss.
And
eventually John Troughton saw the light. Now under a neutral
chairman, he realised that the game was up. He admitted that Rev
Timms’ rationale for sending the internal email in 2014 was
perfectly correct and acceptable.
Why had it
taken him two years to understand Rev Timms’ rationale for sending
the email? Had John Troughton’s eyes been clouded over by hatred?
And did he now realise the damage that had been done to the Church
because he had sent the email on to the National Executive? It seems
not.
One might
think that any reasonable person might have left the matter there.
Having launched his second wave of attack on Rev Timms in 2016 and
caused a tremendous upheaval inside the Methodist Church, John
Troughton had finally effectively admitted that he had been wrong in
the actions he took – which had so damaged the reputation of the
Methodist Church. He had, either deliberately or stupidly,
misinterpreted Rev Timms’ reason for sending the email and
had, himself, breached the standing orders of the church by leaking
it and then destroying all the evidence surrounding it.
His
submission of all points in the discussion was not, however,
the end of his attack on the minister.
Within a
month, John Troughton dismissed the official report by the
independent neural chairman of the meetings. He retracted his
acceptance of Rev Timms’ explanation for the “offending” email. The
four hours of discussion had been for nothing. He had shaken hands
on the agreement with Rev Timms in front of a highly- esteemed
neutral member of the church. He had given his word that it was all
over – then he had broken his word.
This is
not the action of a man who has devoted his life to helping the poor
and needy. It is not the action of a man given to making sane
sensible judgements. It is the action of a man with hatred in his
heart who accuses without evidence, a man who is quite capable of
destroying evidence when it suits his purpose. It is not the action
of a man who is worthy of protecting the church with his
safeguarding advice. It is not worthy of a man who has been a
preacher in the Methodist Church for almost half a decade.
This is a man who stabs his chosen enemy in the back.
How can
this be, when John Troughton has such a wonderful record of devotion
to the poor in our society? We may only guess at his reasons
for his actions - for he has now been waging his campaign against
Rev Timms for six years. Indeed, one might say that he has made a
career out of it. It is a question that many in Bexhill may ponder.
The answer
may lie in the personal histories of these two men and their
different attitudes towards the rules of the organisation they work
in.
Rev Timms
was a Prison Governor for some forty years. Prison Governors need to
deal directly with the Home Office and need to define clearly the
policies that they are subject to and the statute law that underpins
those policies.
As a
governor, Rev Timms had to deal fairly and properly, in
accordance with the rules, with dangerous criminals such as members
of the IRA and murderers such as Myra Hindley. At the same time he
had to deal with demands from a wide range of interests and offices
– such as the judiciary, the probation service, welfare and medical
staff and prisoner charities.
One of the
main tasks that Prison Governors need to deal with expertly is the
interpretation of the Home Office’s Prison Service rules. They
must apply them in accordance with the general principles laid down
by government. This involves careful interpretation of the
legal strictures that surround the treatment of
prisoners.
John
Troughton’s experience in life has been quite different to this. The
rules he lived with were much more simple. There was little need for
interpretation – and the recipients of his charitable actions
were usually so grateful for his help that his interpretation
of any particular rules was never questioned.
Close
examination of the original argument that sparked John
Troughton’s campaign against Rev Timms shows that this difference of
approach may be important in understanding John Troughton’s
more violent moments.
Rev Timms’
objections at the 2014 circuit meeting were essentially about the
interpretation and application of a new Standing Order – SO 545.
This had come into effect a few days before the meeting. It
concerned extensions of the role of presbyters.
Rev Timms
claimed that what was under consideration at the meeting was indeed
an extension – or at least could be. The agenda of the
meeting did not help – it merely referred to “the employment” of the
minister. This could mean either a temporary or a permanent
appointment. The minister under consideration had already been
acting in the job for about half a year.
During the
ensuing arguments, an Assistant Deputy District Chair took over and
told the meeting that the appointment of a new Superintendent had to
be made that very night. She claimed that SO 545 meant that it had
to be done within three days.
Rev Timms
disagreed. He thought this hasty – and not required by the new
standing order. He considered the hasty action
discriminatory against other potential applicants.
His reading of the new standing order was to the effect that a
selection could be delayed for a year. The incumbent could stay in
the job temporarily whilst things were handled properly.
The two
ministers had two different interpretations of this new
Standing Order. The wording of the agenda of the meeting did not
help – indeed it confused the issue. Rev Timms considered that the
meeting might be accused of a lack of impartiality if it rushed the
proceedings. But John Troughton shouted him down.
Could it
be that John Troughton did not appreciate what Rev Timms was arguing
at the meeting in 2014? Is that why he suggested dragging the
minister from the podium by brute force? Did he believe that
there was to be no discussion or consideration of different possible
interpretations of a new standing order? Considering his later rash
actions in this affair, it is perhaps doubtful that he ever got that
far in his thinking.
Rev Timms’
approach to the rules was along the same lines that he had adopted
throughout his working life. When the new standing orders had been
published at the turn of the century, he had read them avidly. In
spite of the fact that the new standing orders appeared to have been
written by lawyers, for lawyers, he was accustomed to reading and
absorbing such documents. So he had kept abreast of any changes.
As for
John Troughton, he was not in any position of power inside the
Methodist Church when the new standing orders were introduced. He
was very busy looking after the men in the Seaman’s Mission in
London. It seems that he never caught up with the changes. As a
consequence of this, he led himself up the wrong track.
Perhaps
the simple lesson of all this is that as men grow older they become
less adaptive to change. Neither Rev Timms nor John Troughton could
change their approach to the way in which rules are applied in an
institution. Their different approaches led to a fatal dispute that
is still unresolved.
But the
consequences of John Troughton’s many mistakes still affect the life
of the Methodist Church in Bexhill. His great charitable work in the
past means that many members of the Church remain his friends. Those
people are naturally mystified by his attitude towards on of
Bexhill’s most loved ministers.
John
Troughton’s latest efforts have led to a disciplinary inquiry at
which Rev Timms might be expelled from the Methodist Church.
Is this
really what John Troughton intended to happen with his persecution
of Rev Timms? Or is the destruction of a minister more important to
him than truth, honesty and justice?