Documentary record Bound by Fear
← Explore all cases
Other Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established United Kingdom · 2015

Methodist Church in Britain's Past Cases Review finds 1,885 abuse cases 1950-2014, roughly a quarter naming ministers or church employees

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Official finding

Authority role

Methodist ministers and lay church employees in pastoral and youth-work roles

Organization

The Methodist Church in Britain

Spiritual nexus

The review's church-perpetrator subset concerns ministers and employees who held pastoral or youth-ministry authority over the congregants and children in their care; the finding is that fewer than a tenth of the 1,885 identified cases had ever reached police, and no comparable published national review of Methodist safeguarding existed before it.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2015-05-01 · published independent past-cases review

    Independent review commissioned by the Methodist Conference. The Past Cases Review identified 1,885 cases of sexual, physical, emotional and domestic abuse and neglect connected to the Methodist Church between 1950 and 2014. In approximately one quarter of these, a minister or lay church employee was identified as perpetrator or alleged perpetrator. Only 61 cases had involved police contact at the time, with 6 investigations still open as of publication. The Methodist Conference issued a full and unreserved apology and established an implementation group for the report's 23 recommendations.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • pastoral and youth-ministry authority over congregants and children
  • institutional processes that referred only 61 of 1,885 cases to police at the time

Primary record

Sources

official report commission report 'Past Cases Review Report', The Methodist Church in Britain, 2015.

The Methodist Church's own publication of the Past Cases Review report and its findings.

institutional reporting press release 'Church issues full and unreserved apology to abuse survivors', The Methodist Church, 2015.

The Methodist Conference's apology accompanying the review's publication.

Related record

Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts

← Explore all cases