She received a response saying the matter had been reviewed. Rev Penn wrote again, and was again told “the matters raised have been dealt with”.
She says she was “fobbed off”.
“To me it was quite clear cut that this person shouldn’t be in post but [Mr Welby’s office] couldn’t provide a satisfactory answer as to why he was.”
The Church of England told the Archbishop Welby “took seriously the correspondence from this cleric about David Tudor’s permission to officiate” and referred her concerns to the Bishop at Lambeth who was responsible for safeguarding.
A reply to a third letter from Rev Penn to Mr Welby’s office came from the Bishop of Lambeth’s provincial safeguarding adviser and suggested matters raised had been dealt with.
Rev Penn alerted the to the Tudor case after reading our story about the Church paying off a Blackburn Cathedral priest assessed as a potential risk to children.
“I was shocked once more, and angry, that similar things had happened in another place. Old sins cast very long shadows,” she says.
Stephen Cottrell’s spokesperson said the Archbishop of York “completely shares and understands the hurt and frustrations that surround this case, which were frustrations and anxieties that he lived with every day he was in office”.
The Church of England said the File on 4 investigation “reveals a catalogue of past safeguarding decisions, that allowed someone considered a risk in the 1980s to return to ministry in the 1990s”.
“This should never have happened,” it added.
Among Tudor’s victims, there is relief that he is no longer in a position of power after he admitted sexual misconduct at a Church tribunal in October this year and was banned for life from ministry.
“He should never have been let back into the Church in the first place,” says Jessica.
Debbie had to move away from her hometown “to a life where nobody knew anything about my past”. Holding back tears, she says she has “lived with shame for 40 years”.
“It felt like he was protected. It was just so wrong.”
Additional reporting by Hayley Mortimer and Kirstie Brewer
