Sent to Coventry
Clerical abuse , Issue 1646 AFTER the recent sentencing of paedophile Church of England (CofE) minister Philip Aspinall to 23 years in prison for multiple counts of indecent assault on a male and a separate charge of indecency with a child, the Diocese of Coventry issued a self-exculpatory statement remarkable more for what it didn't say than for what it did.

As the trial at Warwick crown court heard, the offences were committed between 1991 and 2000. Aspinall is now 73.

The diocese commended "the immense courage of those who have testified, made disclosures and raised concerns" and offered its apologies to victims and survivors, insisting it had "at all relevant times fully cooperated with the statutory authorities and has assisted with investigations".

It added that in 1997, following a police investigation, the then Bishop of Coventry "took immediate action".

Silent treatment
Er, really? Nearly 27 years ago, in June 1998, the Guardian's Nick Davies reported on Aspinall's concerning behaviour and how the church tried to turn the other cheek after three adolescent boys separately complained that Aspinall had made sexual overtures to them. Coventry Police cleared him of breaking the law, but child protection experts warned it was inappropriate behaviour.

Davies wrote: "On Palm Sunday last year [1997], the Rector of St Peter's Anglican Church in east Coventry ended his service with a brief housekeeping announcement: his assistant, the Rev Phil Aspinall, he said, had been forced to take leave of absence due to pressure of work. The congregation filed out of the church and back to their homes all unaware that they had just been misled.

"The Rector had not wanted to mislead them, but his superiors had told him he must. The truth he could not tell was that the Rev Phil Aspinall was absent from church that day because he had been arrested by Coventry detectives who were investigating allegations about his involvement with children."

Cloud of suspicion
Aspinall had arrived at St Peter's in 1981, aged 30, as a lay reader who went on to be ordained as an unpaid minister. Only a few people knew he had left his previous parish, Holy Trinity, under a cloud of suspicion about behaviour with boys in the choir, one of whom reported to his parents that Aspinall had taken him back to his flat and showed him magazines with sexual pictures.

Coventry diocese conducted no formal inquiry and didn't alert police or social services. Instead it simply shuttled the problem into St Peter's.

So, what was that immediate action taken in 1997?

"Even though no criminal charges had been brought against Mr Aspinall, the Bishop revoked his licence, both as a Minister in Secular Employment and in the Coventry East Team," says the diocese's statement. "The Bishop gave him permission to minister as an ordained process engineer and safety adviser through his involvement in organisations relating to ministry in secular employment but forbidding him to officiate in any acts of worship.

"In 2013, on the advice of the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser and following recommendations arising from the publication of the final Chichester Report, the then Bishop of Coventry withdrew Mr Aspinall's permission in its entirety."

In other words, from 1997 to 2013 he could do exactly what he did before, as long as he didn't play a role in Sunday worship. For the next 20 years Aspinall continued to be prominent among ministers in secular employment.

No change
In the 2010 newsletter of the organisation CHRISM (Christians in Secular Ministry) he is mentioned as a committee member and giving a talk to trainee ministers. In the 2011 edition he is listed as attending an international conference. The patron of CHRISM at the time was Justin Welby, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013.

Even in 2015, after all his permissions had supposedly been withdrawn, Aspinall was the person handling bookings for CHRISM's annual conference. In 2021 he was on the steering group of something called the "Kingdom at Work Project". Crockford's Clerical Directory still lists him as a CofE minister at the same Coventry address at which he lived until being jailed.