‘The Church is an old boys’ club which covers up abuse – like the rape I endured’

When I heard the Archbishop of Canterbury had resigned last week, I immediately messaged my old friend James. I knew he’d be appalled by the findings of the Makin Review, which sets out how the Church of England failed an estimated 130 victims of late barrister John Smyth – who ran Christian church camps and beat boys so savagely some wore nappies to soak up blood.

James was the victim of another prolific abuser, the Reverend David Barnes: chaplain of Sutton Valence School in Kent from the mid-1970s to 1987. But as James says now: “Men, for reasons of self-preservation and stigma, tend to keep disclosure of abuse very much buried.”

I wouldn’t have had a clue, had I not interviewed him in 2018 about his inspiring work with young people who have fallen out of the UK’s education system. James is now a successful entrepreneur with a loving, supportive marriage and children he adores, known for going out of his way to help others. The conversation, which I recorded, turned to the fact that James’s own education had gone awry, leaving him with no O-Levels. “Why was that?” I asked innocently. The ebullient middle-aged man in front of me crumpled away and within minutes we were having one of the most upsetting conversations I’d had in my life.

James grew up, like me, in the lush stretch of Kent countryside that runs from Westerham down to Penshurst. His family were well off, but down to earth and much liked locally. All the children were privately educated and James was sent to Sutton Valence school, aged 13. On his first day he was singled out for an initiation ritual, “The Circle of Death”, involving being stripped naked and kicked to the floor by other boys. He spent the next six weeks hiding in a cupboard every break time. So, when the school chaplain and RE teacher, David Barnes, expressed a special interest in James, he responded “as if to a father figure”. He was invited to visit Barnes’s house in the village one evening to discuss his forthcoming confirmation and general progress.

‘He did all sorts of horrendous things to me’

On James’s arrival, he was handed a gin and tonic and offered cigarettes. The chaplain had taped his favourite TV programme, Top of the Pops, which they watched as more drinks were poured. James said, “I now know that’s classic grooming. But at the time you think, ‘I’m a grown up: someone’s treating me the way I want to be treated.’” Our conversation faltered at that point, because the next part of the story was impossible to describe and unbearable to contemplate. Mastering emotions, James continued quietly: “Then there were a couple of hours of taking me upstairs and doing all sorts of horrendous things to me. He took Polaroid pictures and put them in a shoe box that was full of photos of other boys. And then he said, ‘You’re like one of us now.’”

The knowledge there were many other victims has haunted James: “I realised it was happening to other people, but I didn’t do anything about it” – though it’s obvious to any adult that a 13-year-old child could do nothing about a man so adept at manipulating others. The aftermath was brutal: “My grades tanked as soon as it happened. I couldn’t function.”

James acted out his distress with increasingly wayward behaviour. “I was sniffing aerosols until I passed out, drinking a whole bottle of gin in the woods, smoking weed... doing everything in my power to get caught, to get my folks to take me away from school.” He did his best to avoid Barnes, despite the chaplain’s repeated attempts to get James to return to his house. Until, that is, one particularly chilling encounter in a garden centre café where he was enjoying a day out with his parents and he saw Barnes sitting at a table. The teen fled in panic to the gents and was standing at a urinal when his abuser walked in with a chilling smile “and tried to touch me”.

James escaped back to his table, stalked by Barnes, “who started talking to my parents about how he wanted to go on a boating holiday with me and a few other boys”. The impact of that day was so horrific, James says he was unable to stand at a public urinal for decades afterwards.

When James was 15, his parents removed him from the school. Even then, supportive and loving though they were, he couldn’t say what had happened. Everything was suppressed to the point he now doesn’t remember anything of his life before the age of 13; as if “my brain has been divided in two”. He never got any formal qualifications and says his dating years were blighted by a fear of intimacy. Not that anyone would have guessed; when I bumped into him over those years, I saw a warm-hearted, popular young man with every prospect of happiness. Although, I shouldn’t be surprised by the contradictions. Battening down emotional hatches is commonplace and men who speak out about abuse are often treated as if they’ve let the side down, or betrayed their alma mater. Charles Spencer cited this reaction from some in his moving memoir, A Very Private Education, detailing the abuse he suffered.

‘I was in complete denial for a long time’

James appeared well-adjusted and successful for years. But everything changed in an instant in 2012 when he strolled to his local pub for a cheery pint. He was engaged in conversation when he looked across the room and saw his abuser, although Barnes didn’t spot James. He started shaking and his pint slipped from his hand, smashing on the floor. Unable to speak, he turned on his heel and walked straight out of the pub. For weeks afterwards he was plagued by nightmares and insomnia, followed by suicidal thoughts, finally realising it was time to see a therapist and confide in his wife – who has been a tower of love and strength. James says: “I was in complete denial for a long time with my psychiatrist – he ended up turning round and saying, ‘What are you not getting? What you’ve gone through is rape.”

But what really brought the damage home to him was a letter that arrived from Sutton Valence about six weeks after the pub encounter, announcing Barnes’s death. It said the school would be hosting a commemorative service. “I just thought NO, you’re bloody not!” James told me. He wrote an anonymous letter to the headmaster detailing the abuse in full and saying he was horrified the school would celebrate such a life. The service was immediately cancelled, suggesting the school knew this wasn’t a missive from a fantasist.

As his counselling continued, James kept thinking about Barnes’s other victims. He also contributed to The Truth Project, an offshoot of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which gave 6,000 victims the chance to share their experiences anonymously. He also signed up to a Sutton Valence newsletter and social media page for former pupils, hoping someone might break ranks and talk about Barnes. Until, as he says drily, “I realised that someone was almost certainly going to be me.”

I should make it clear that James is one of the least vindictive people I have ever met. Much like John Smyth’s victims, the thing he found intolerable was the knowledge that crimes were being pushed under the carpet by the UK’s leading institutions until perpetrators were dead. And that those in charge often appeared more worried about reputations and compensation claims than looking after survivors.

So, he engaged a lawyer to delve into Barnes’s time at Sutton Valence. Bit by bit, a deeply disturbing story unfolded. Barnes had left the school abruptly, mid-term in 1987, after another boy confided in his parents. Far from retiring, Barnes was then sent as curate to the parish of Minster-in-Sheppey, before becoming Vicar of Ash-with-Westmarsh, close to Canterbury (1993-2001), before a briefer stint in Suffolk. It’s hard not to conclude that other children must have been put at risk because of a cover-up culture. Once James’s legal case hit the papers, a number of old Sutton Valence pupils got in touch. Troublingly, there were also men who cited alleged abuse under the chaplain who preceded Barnes, although none has opted to pursue claims.

James is the first to admit he’s unusual in having the willpower to pursue a civil case against a school – made harder by the fact Barnes died before a criminal case could be prosecuted and the fact he’d never even been questioned by the police for abuse allegations prior to his death. James’s main motivation was the silent victims: the nameless boys in the Polaroids. Last November the school settled for a significant sum, although James gave the money to victims’ charities. At the time a spokesperson for Sutton Valence School said: “What happened to this former pupil should never have happened. We apologise unreservedly for what they endured. When we received their legal claim last year, we immediately notified the police, local authority, and the Charity Commission, following our strict processes for all safeguarding matters. We continue to be in direct contact with the former pupil and we are providing ongoing support.”

James requested that he be allowed to return to the school premises to confront the ghosts of the past: “I had a good meeting with the head and one of the governors. It was difficult, very difficult. But there was a sense of peace afterwards.” Hardest of all, was driving past Barnes’ former house, where the abuse happened. James’s lawyer later told me that the location of the chaplain’s house is a striking factor in the case: “It wasn’t on school grounds. So, boys were walking on their own at night through the school gates and then though the village. Somehow nobody questioned this.”

Looking at the school’s website this week, I couldn’t help noting the words: “the School places great value on the moral framework and ethos that Christianity provides”. When I ask James what he thinks of the Church not dealing with men like Barnes and Smyth, he says his key frustration about the CoE is that: “It’s an old boys’ club like any other. Because Church leaders feel they’re closer to God than the rest of us, that gives them the right to make up the rules, even if it means covering up abuse… they hold reviews and push the scandal down the road.” And no wonder. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse concluded in October 2022 and made 20 recommendations. Not one has been implemented.

I take heart from James’s incredible determination and courage in speaking out. He has absolute clarity about the way forward that institutions like the Church – or his old school – must adopt: “Anyone found guilty of abuse or covering up abuse, should warrant an instant dismissal.” Meanwhile, he encourages other survivors to speak out about abuse and shine “the biggest possible spotlight upon it, until predators have nowhere to hide”.