“
THE HAILSHAM INCIDENT.
“And what happens to a little problem that doesn’t
get
resolved when it’s little? It gets bigger and bigger
until it
becomes a real problem that’s going to require a lot
of
time, energy, and resources to be solved. It’s
much
easier to confront problems early, while they’re
still
small and manageable. When a problem isn’t
addressed
quickly, it can easily spin out of your
control.”
These wise words were used many times in Rev Peter Timms’
letters to the executives in Methodist Church House. He used
them so often that one might have thought that he was the
original author of them – but in fact they are from an official
Methodist publication -
“Positive
Working Together”.
Ironically the advice was published in 2015 – the year when
the Timms affair was still in its “little” stage. It was yet to
become one of the biggest disputes inside the Methodist Church
in the past decade. The executives in Methodist Church House
simply ignored the advice that they themselves preached to all
other members of the Church.
The website you are reading is about the Timms
dispute. Like the dispute, the website started small –
simply one single report – but over the years it has grown.
The Timms dispute began as a small story in
Hailsham, a village just north of Eastbourne. Local rumour had
it that something quite outrageous happened within the Methodist
Church there in 2013. The Church did not want bad publicity and
so, when the local minister, Rev Ian Pruden, asked to leave his
post, it was decided that he should be moved fourteen miles
along the coast to Bexhill. By chance, the Superintendent in the
South East circuit, Rev Ian Wales, had left his station
unexpectedly – so there was a temporary vacancy. Rev Ian Pruden
filled the post.
It was an easy decision to station Rev Pruden in
Bexhill, particularly since no one seemed very interested in the
station anyway. But of course, the standing orders had to be
adhered to. – particularly those concerning impartiality.
However, it was not thought necessary to mention the rumours in
Hailsham that had caused Rev Ian Pruden to want to leave.
Nevertheless, it is only fourteen miles from Hailsham
to Bexhill - and rumours fly on the wings of supposed scandal.
And so, the gossip followed Ian Pruden as he moved along
the coast to Bexhill.
Thus it was that the circuit meeting in Bexhill in
September 2014 became the centre of controversy. There was an
“elephant in the room” – the rumour from Hailsham. No one knew
the truth about it, but it nevertheless cast its long shadow
over the meeting.
Rev Timms, OBE MA, was the oldest and most experienced
minister in the Bexhill area. Now over eighty years old and a
supernumerary, he had heard the rumours about Hailsham. He was
inclined to dismiss them as malicious tittle-tattle. However, it
was clear that the controversy might surface at the meeting at
which Ian Pruden was to be invited to take the job as
Superintendent.
Timms thought it would be better if some investigation
were made before the circuit took any irreversible action. What
he did not know was that such an investigation had already taken
place – but the damning details that had come to light
had been covered-up.
Rev Timms knew a little of Ian Pruden’s background and
had some small doubts about his fitness for the station.
However, on the whole, his views on Pruden were positive.
Nevertheless, he thought that the circuit needed to act
carefully and with visible impartiality.
Rev Timms decided that he should be careful not to
mention anything of the Hailsham rumours in public. His view was
that it was far better to simply delay matters about the
stationing - in order to allow adequate time for proper
consideration. To do that, he wondered how he might find some
technical objection to the decision that might be used to delay
matters. He thought that the circuit needed adequate time to
consider what to do.
Just before the meeting, Rev John Hellyer, the South
East District Chair, inadvertently produced just such an
opportunity.
Rev John Hellyer was not well. He had been in hospital
with heart problems. So it is perhaps not wholly his fault that
the affair progressed as it did. He did not attend the meeting
and it seems that the ministers on whom he was relying had
different interpretations of the stationing of Ian
Pruden.
One of the factors which may be important in the
general thinking of the ministers involved was a new amendment
to Standing Orders.
In 2013, Conference adopted amendments to
Standing Order 545. These amendments came into effect in
September 2014 – just a fortnight prior to the circuit meeting
of 16th September 2014 in Bexhill. Ministers,
particularly John Hellyer, had been learning of the changes and
thinking about how they should be applied.
One of the clauses of
SO 545 stated:
“(3A) Any Circuit Meeting to consider extending an
invitation under clause (2) or (3) above shall be held on or
before the 20th September”.
John
Hellyer, through his ministers, applied this clause to the
re-invitation of Rev Pruden. It meant that those at the
meeting of September 16th had only three days
to complete the matter.
And this is where the divisions began – for Rev Peter
Timms thought that SO 545 did not apply to this particular
invitation.
Furthermore, he saw it as a fortunate opportunity for debate and
delay - which would give the circuit time to consider the matter
properly. John Hellyer’s decision to use SO 545 could
be opposed on procedural grounds, without the Hailsham
scandal being mentioned at all.
The procedural point was simple. Rev Timms thought that
SO
504 was the correct Standing Order to work with, not SO 545.
Standing order 504 did not specifically mention that it could be
applied to appointing Superintendents, but it was headed
"Principles" - and he therefore considered that it covered all
such appointments.
He told the Chair of the circuit meeting that he wished
to speak to the motion. Unfortunately, his email with the
details did not get through because the Chair's computer was
broken.
That is where it all began to go wrong. Prior to the
meeting, he was told that he would only be allowed to
speak for four minutes. He got the impression that the other
ministers involved were hustling him, trying to cut him
short.
The agenda of the meeting suggested the original
thinking behind the invitation. The wording had been determined
by Assistant District Chair Philip Luscombe, who had supervised
the appointment in the invitation committee, but who could
not attend the circuit meeting. Rev Luscombe was a most erudite
minister – with perhaps the best knowledge of standing orders of
anyone in the South East district.
The invitation read:
“The invitation committee issued a paper with the
agenda recommending the appointment of Ian Pruden as the
Superintendent Minister for the remaining period of his
appointment which is August 2017”
Rev Timms noted that this closely followed the wording
of SO
504 (2) which states:
“If a casual vacancy occurs, the meeting with authority
to appoint shall fill the vacancy with immediate effect for the
remainder of the term of the appointment
vacated.”
So it seemed that what was being proposed was filling a
casual vacancy. At least, that was apparently how Rev Philip
Luscombe and the invitation committee had seen it. However, Rev
Luscombe was not present at the meeting to explain this further.
SO 504 contains no deadline at all for when any such
appointments must be made. So why, when discussing the
limitation on Rev Timm’s contribution, did the Chair of
the meeting, Rev Margaret Heim, state that a delay could
not be allowed?
It was, she said “because of appointment time scales, this could not
happen with only 3 days left for
discussion.”
This was not a simple mistake. Rev Heim was supported
by Assistant District Chair, Rev Westwood, who was in overall
charge of the meeting. She stated that they “did not have all the time in the world to decide who
should be the new superintendent.”
And that phrase definitely suggested the Rev Pruden was
to be more than a temporary Superintendent.
This is where the confusion began, for the date 20th
September, which created the deadline of three days, came
from Standing Order 545. Standing Order
545 deals with extensions of presbyteral
appointments. It was also, of course, the standing order
that all the ministers had been reading, because of its recent
amendments.
Most importantly, as noted above, Clause 3a of SO 545
stated:
“(3A) Any Circuit Meeting to consider extending an
invitation under clause (2) or (3) above shall be held on or
before the 20th September”.
This is what caused the confusion – and it was clear
why both Rev Heim and Rev Westwood held the opinion that the
deadline of 20th September - i.e. 3 days - had
to be applied at the circuit meeting. Further, since Rev
Westwood was representing Rev Hellyer, the District Chair, at
the meeting, this must have been the view of Rev Hellyer.
Was there anything else in SO 545 which might make it
appropriate for the appointment of Rev Pruden? In fact the
opposite was so.
Clause 3a of SO 545 mentioned two other clauses. Both
of them make reference to a term of five years being extended.
Clause 2 states:
“in the fifth year of a
presbyter’s service in the Circuit”
Clause 3 states:
“in the fifth year of a
presbyter’s service in the Circuit”
The whole of SO 545 (3A) – the clause that contains the
deadline - is concerned with the extension of the
permanent stationing of ministers who have served a whole
term of five years.
Rev Pruden had been filling in for about five
months.
Nothing in SO 545(3A) applied to the extension of Rev
Pruden’s temporary, or casual, appointment. It was a fine point,
but an important one. The two senior ministers at the circuit
meeting in Bexhill were claiming that the deadline did
apply – yet, it seemed to Rev Timms, with some
justification, that SO 545, with its deadline of 20th
September, did not apply. And the man designated to
organise the stationing, Assistant Chair Rev Philip Luscombe,
appeared from the paperwork to hold the same
opinion.
Considering what was going on elsewhere concerning Rev
Pruden, this sounded like a deliberate twisting of the rules as
a means to an end. To some it may have seemed that it was an
attempt to reassure Rev Pruden that he was safely embedded in
Bexhill for the next two years. The Hailsham incident might have
been long forgotten by then.
Was this the reason why Rev Timms’ contribution to the
matter was limited to four minutes? His was the only
contribution that was so limited that evening. Were the ends
more important than the means?
The objections of Rev Heim and Rev Westwood caused Rev
Timms to leave the podium without making his procedural point.
In fact there was a more basic point he might have
argued. This action of using SO 545 might actually be
breaching the standing orders. Was the stationing under
discussion an extension of a temporary
stationing? Rev Westwood called it a “re-invitation”. A
temporary stationing might be brought to an end at any time –
but this stationing was specifically limited to filling
in the rest of the term of office that Rev Wales had abandoned –
some two years.
That meant that the stationing could run until August
2017 – at which point Rev Pruden could request an extension of
five years, until 2022. And even then, he could request a
further five years’ extension. That would mean that Rev Pruden
could stay in office for twelve years - until 2026. And yet the
normal limit to any such stationing is set in the standing
orders as being only ten years.
Furthermore, SO 543
established that SO 545 (2) was specifically concerned with
appointments of five years. The meeting was discussing a
term of considerably less than that.
No one at
the circuit meeting in Bexhill, other than Rev Timms,
considered this. And Rev Timms was not given the
opportunity to mention it.
In fact,
the appointment of Rev Pruden earlier in the year to fill
in for Rev Wales was already, in accordance with SO 504,
“effect(ive)
for the remainder of the term of the appointment
vacated.”
So there was no need at all for anything to be
done about the stationing of Rev Pruden. His term of office was
already extended until August 2017.
And there was no need for the
oldest minister in the circuit to be gagged - as he was. It
suggested ulterior motivations were at work.
Why was the question of Rev Pruden even brought to the
circuit meeting? Why did the senior ministers claim that the
decision had to be taken within three days? And why, after this
meeting, were there no further advertisements for the station?
And why, Rev Timms was later to ask, were the minutes of the
meeting edited - with all detail of his objections
omitted?
We might look again at the question of why the
contribution by Rev Timms was curtailed to four minutes. The
circuit surely, to use Rev Westwood’s words, had “all
the time in the world” to decide what action to take. In
fact they had two years - until August 2017.
When one considers this distortion of the Standing
Orders – either because of design or simple ignorance – one can
understand Rev Timms’ frustration with what had gone on.
His objections were simply an attempt to get the
circuit back on the right track in accordance with the Standing
Orders of the Church. He thought it dangerous to station someone
permanently when there was such gossip coming from Hailsham. He
thought that the senior ministers were interpreting the Standing
Orders incorrectly in their haste to push through Ian Pruden’s
stationing. Most importantly, thought Rev Timms, it left
the Church open to charges of partiality with consequent
damage to its reputation.
For this strict adherence to the standing orders, Rev
Timms has since been crucified. He is currently suspended
from all Church activities – and has been so for some three
years. His life is in ruins. Half a century of devotion to the
Church has been turned to bitterness.
So what happened to cause this uproar, to cause this
website to be made – and to cause a petition to be sent to the
Charity Commission about the activities of the Methodist Church?
It is a
classic example of “what happens to a little problem that
doesn’t get resolved when it’s little,” - to quote
“Positive Working Together”.
Back in
2014 and 2015, Rev Timms was astounded to find that none of the
senior ministers in the circuit would discuss the matter with
him. Indeed, they seemed to be deliberately twisting his words
in order to shut him up. They used their false charges against
him as leverage to shut him up.
Soon the
matter was no longer a question of confusion about the
intricate wording of standing orders; it was about ethics
- and in particular the question of whether the systems of
reconciliation in the Methodist Church were adequate. Because,
though he tried, Rev Timms could not engage in reconciliation.
No one would listen to him.
In late
2015 another rumour had brief circulation in Bexhill. It was
said that Rev Pruden had actually visited Rev Timms sometime
after the circuit meeting, and explained to him what had
happened in Hailsham.
Rev
Pruden’s story apparently completely exonerated him from blame.
Indeed, the revelations caused Rev Timms to have a lot of
sympathy for him. It seems that Rev Pruden had been the victim
in the terrible affair.
Certainly, Rev Timms’ comments about Rev Pruden became much more
supportive at around that time. As for Ian Pruden, if the story
is true, it seems that he appears to have readily understood
that the Hailsham scandal was at the heart of the matter.
However,
the evidence also suggests that when Rev Timms finally heard the
truth of the Hailsham affair, he realised that it merely moved
the scandal one step further into ignominy. It made matters
worse – for Rev Pruden’s revelations apparently exposed
the fact that the Church was covering up someone
else – someone who had committed a heinous and
corrupt act against Rev Pruden.
For some
reason, it also now appeared to have crossed Rev Timms’
mind that the Hailsham incident might be involved in the
major inquiry by Jane Stacey into sex abuse in the Methodist
Church. That inquiry had been seeking evidence during 2013, the
year of the incident in Hailsham. As chairman of the Loudoun
Trust, a leading think-tank on the subject of child sex abuse,
Rev Timms was closely involved with developments in that area.
What comments he made, suggesting local links, were made in
connection with evidence he was submitting on behalf of the
Loudoun Trust to the Home Office.
For
whatever reason, Rev Timms continued with his efforts to put
things right inside the Church - as he saw it. He persisted with
his objections to the conduct of the ministers concerning the
2014 circuit meeting. After some two years, it became
clear that the senior ministers were solely concerned with
shutting Rev Timms up. It seemed that they had been instructed
to stamp out all reference to the Hailsham scandal. The irony
was that Rev Timms had had no intention of mentioning it at the
circuit meeting; it was their own, perhaps well-intentioned but
misguided, fears that had caused the arguments.
This
blatant gagging of the most distinguished minister in the
District, a friend of Her Royal Highness Princess Anne,
merely spread the corruption further. Who was the person
who had caused the Hailsham Incident? Who is so influential and
powerful that he or she had to be protected at all costs? It had
to be someone with a lot of power within the
Church.
Angered
by the treatment he had received, Rev Timms took the matter to
national, connexional, level. And it was there that the
worst actions began – and the worst cover-up took
place.
The
egregious actions by Methodist Church officials and agents are
detailed elsewhere on this website, but perhaps the worst was
the first response from Methodist Church House when Rev Timms
lodged his complaints. It was like something out of Stalin’s
Russia.
When Rev
Timms submitted his complaints, the Church went on the
offensive. Rev Timms, the complainant, was immediately
categorised as the person being complained about!
Worse -
he was sent a false confession to sign. It stated that he had
been found guilty of a breach of confidentiality. It was a
charge of which he knew nothing and a judgement which had been
decided in his absence. This was a kangaroo court or a Star
Chamber, at the heart of the Methodist Church!
The
little affair in September 2014, had turned, by September 2016,
into
“a real problem that’s going
to require a lot of time, energy, and resources to be solved.”
(Positive Working Together)
In late 2017, Rev Timms wrote to the President of
Conference, Rev Loraine Mellor. His words to her were as wise as
those of “Positive Working Together”. He told
her:
“I live for the Church. The Church has survived over
the past three centuries because of ministers who have fought
against the type of corruption that I now see around me in this
District.
The Church cannot survive if false confessions can be
sent to ministers with threats designed to persuade them to sign
them. The Church cannot survive if panels of inquiry can lie to
complainants. The Church cannot survive if anyone who complains
is immediately investigated, even spied upon, without
being even able to defend themselves before being found guilty.
The Church cannot survive if such things are hushed
up.”
The President did not reply.
Despite Peter Timms’ martyrdom in his efforts to right
the wrongs in the cause of openness, honesty and integrity in
the Methodist Church, we still do not know any detail of
what happened in Hailsham in 2013. It seems that Rev Timms knows
– but he continues to protect the reputation of the Methodist
Church by keeping quiet about it. And yet he is punished.
He suffers for the sins of another, a man who hides his
shame in the shadows of the Methodist Church - the perpetrator
of the Hailsham incident.
Is this what John Wesley intended? Is this the
Methodist Way?
--00—
Further reading:
1.
The false confession sent to Rev Timms.
2.
The chronology of events.
3. The
peace talks with District Chair John
Hellyer.
4. Film
“The disciples of John Wesley”
5.
Website home page:
http://www.roughjusticetv.co.uk/METHODISTS/index.html
