Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom · 2017

United Kingdom: Sunday school organiser convicted of indecent assault, having told the boy no one in the church would believe him

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

prominent figure in an evangelical organisation connected to the United Reformed Church, organiser and leader of Sunday school activities, camps and trips

Organization

an evangelical organisation connected to the United Reformed Church (not named in the source), Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA)

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

His standing in the church was the instrument of silence rather than of access: he told the boy that no one in the church would believe him, so that the very position which made him trusted with Sunday school children was what made the child unbelievable against him.

Pastoral or clerical authority
Institutional obedience or isolation

Scope decision

The coercion here is status and credibility — the boy was told the congregation would not believe him — rather than doctrine used as the instrument: there is no divine-command framing, no ritual pretext and no claimed spiritual consequence, as there is in the deliverance-ministry cases held at core. ATTRIBUTION: the Inquiry describes an evangelical organisation 'connected to' the United Reformed Church and does not name the organisation. That hedge is carried deliberately — this record does not attribute the offending to the United Reformed Church itself and sets no organisational cross-reference to it. The complainant is identified only by the Inquiry's cipher PR-A3 and no attempt at identification should be made. Roy is a living convicted person and the conviction is stated exactly as the Inquiry records it from the Crown Prosecution Service's evidence. No appellate position has been searched for, so this record is marked unverified rather than searched-and-none-found.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

Date in cited record · conviction and sentence

Sheffield Crown Court, England. In 2017 Andrew Roy was convicted at Sheffield Crown Court of four counts of indecent assault and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, drawing on evidence submitted by the Crown Prosecution Service, recorded that in the 1970s Roy was a prominent figure in an evangelical organisation connected to the United Reformed Church, that he organised and ran Sunday school activities including camps and trips, and that the complainant PR-A3 was abused by him from the age of seven until he was ten, in PR-A3's own home and at Sunday school camp. PR-A3 did not disclose the abuse as a child because, in the Inquiry's words, 'Roy told him that, if he did, it would upset PR-A3's father and no one in the church would believe him'.

Documented coercion mechanisms

the warning that disclosure would upset the boy's father
the assertion that no one in the church would believe him — his standing in the congregation used as the guarantee of disbelief
access to a child through Sunday school activities and residential camp

Cited record

Sources

statutory inquiry inquiry investigation report Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, 'Child protection in religious organisations and settings: Investigation Report', September 2021, paragraph 10 (sourced there to a Crown Prosecution Service evidence submission).: The statutory inquiry's account, read directly from the government's published PDF: 'In the 1970s, Andrew Roy was a prominent figure in an evangelical organisation connected to the United Reformed Church. Roy organised and ran Sunday school activities, including camps and trips. PR-A3 was abused by Roy from the age of seven until he was 10 years old, in PR-A3's home and at Sunday school camp. PR-A3 did not disclose the abuse as a child because Roy told him that, if he did, it would upset PR-A3's father and no one in the church would believe him. In 2017, Roy was convicted at Sheffield Crown Court of four counts of indecent assault and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.'

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62287e478fa8f526d1fa917b/E02672222_CPiROS_Investigation_E-Laying_Corr.pdf Corpus classification: statutory-inquiry; evidentiary role: inquiry-investigation-report.
Retrieval: 2026-07-28 · Preserved; Bound by Fear research cycle 2026-07-28 (inquiry paragraph read verbatim from the gov.uk PDF)

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