STAGGERING LACK OF SOCIAL AWARENESS - ST PETER’S BREDHURST – A CHURCH IN NEED OF LEADERSHIP

The graveyard opposite St Peter’s Church used to be a welcoming place, resonating with warmth and colour. Until 2016, for over thirty years people laid flowers – both real and artificial – on the graves of their loved ones. Children’s resting places were decorated with small mementoes, such as tiny ornamental booties or angels. The result was a solemn but beautiful landscape adorned with tokens of remembrance – a fitting tribute to our setting where mourners socialised and supported each other through the memory of loss. It was a garden of grief lightened by visible tokens of care: an ethos reflected in a succession of the Parish’s vicars who would regularly join and comfort families visiting to pay their respects, just as shepherds tend to their flocks.

Alas, all that changed after 2016 when a new Reverend arrived. He decided to enforce, to the letter, a series of 40-year-old churchyard regulations which do not permit either artificial flowers or small items on graves. This has caused unnecessary sadness to many mourners. Although these regulations have been in place since 1981, previous vicars at St Peter’s had consistently shown a respectful understanding for those who wanted to place such items on the graves of their loved ones. Though rarely seen at the graveyard, the current Reverend instigated a team of hired hands to remove and destroy these items, including gifts to deceased babies and children –despite earlier assurances that their resting places would be spared.

The needless misery inflicted by this dramatic change in approach has been palpable.

For a period, items were removed by the hirelings, only to be replaced by mourners who could not believe what was happening. The Reverend of St Peter’s then, in 2017, invoked the full force of the Church law by applying for a ruling from the Diocese Judge. After that, many items were not only removed from graves but also destroyed – including from those of babies and young children -  even though some had been there for 30 years.

Some mourners reported the removal of their items to the Police as theft. A PCSO dutifully arrived mid last year. Around this same time the Church reported it had items (ornamental mushrooms) stolen from the graveyard. Some individuals linked to the Church outrageously, and without evidence, sought to imply that members of the Bredhurst Bereavement Forum group were responsible (even though it coincided with the timing of a nearby illegal rave). The church then decided to erect security cameras, it says on the recommendation of the police.

At breakneck speed, St Peter’s decided to erect SIX security cameras in the graveyard. Shockingly they did so with no prior consultation. This displayed a staggering lack of social awareness by the Parochial Church Council (PCC) of South Gillingham. Many local people are acutely familiar with the case of pervert Reverend Richard Lee, a former vicar at  Hempstead (part of this same PCC) found guilty of using secret cameras to record children and young women. He confessed to eight charges of voyeurism and 18 of making indecent images over a period of around 10 years including four while at Hempstead. And yet, just eight years later, the PCC did not consider the erection of cameras at St Peter’s graveyard – regularly visited by children and young women - warranted any local public consultation.

Even if the PCC were too incompetent to consider why there might be public concern, you would hope the Diocese of Rochester would pick it up – particularly in the light of its appalling past failings and apparent cover-ups of sexual abuse in the Diocese. Or perhaps not. The recent damning report of the Independent Inquiry into Sexual Abuse made a specific recommendation in respect of the Diocese of Rochester as one of those which should provide an updated version of the Past Case Review given “the absence of evidence that the Past Case Review had been carried out competently in these dioceses.” Appalling, unacceptable delay.

The Diocese, and the PCC of South Gillingham, has emphasised the implementation of new safeguarding procedures in recent weeks (October 2021). For the sake of our children let us hope that new procedures overcome the Diocese’s horrifying and shameful past failures.

Nevertheless, the point about the church’s lack of social awareness on this - and the situation at St Peter’s Church graveyard - remains.

Indeed, such was the rush to get these cameras up that the PCC also appeared to fail to do any due diligence about the product it was buying. The cameras it has purchased are made by a Chinese state-owned company reported to be linked to human rights abuses in China, including genocide against the Uyghurs. As a result, while our PCC was funding this company’s cameras to go up at Bredhurst, the EU was busily removing them from its Parliament. The UK’s Foreign Affairs Committee has called for the Government to ban the cameras from the UK. The United States had already banned them for federal use. All of this can be found in a couple of minutes on the internet, but such is our PCC’s priority focus on stopping artificial flowers it lost sight of the big picture.

In addition, this company’s cameras have been found to contain serious glitches which permit attackers to gain full control of the devices – acknowledged by the company itself - with clear implications for safeguarding. Let us hope the Church is more on the ball when it comes to installing firmware fixes.

The PCC also waves aside any suggestion that the cameras might inhibit mourners from praying, including on the Prayer Walk, saying that “private devotions” take place in the church building. In a charmless reply to concern expressed by the Bredhurst Bereavement Forum about this, the PCC said, “Given the abundant and clear signage and the full visibility of the cameras, each individual can make a personal decision whether or not they took part in prayer within that area of the churchyard.”

Sadly, as a direct result of all that has happened over the five years, there are people who no longer feel able to go to St Peter’s to mourn and tend to the graves of their loved ones. For example, one lady, so distressed by the Church’s action, will not return, and relies on others to send her photographs of her family graves.

A graveyard that was previously full of warmth and colour now has an unwelcoming, grey air.

The local Church has shown itself to be woefully out of touch in recent years. It needs a reset.