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A message from the Elders and Trustees of Emmanuel Church
following the publication of the independent Lessons Learned Review by thirtyone:eight
concerning Jonathan Fletcher and Emmanuel Church Wimbledon
As Trustees and Elders of Emmanuel Church Wimbledon we are enormously grateful to
thirtyone:eight for their review published today, 23rd March 2021, and we welcome their
recommendations. While we at Emmanuel commissioned the review and provided evidence to
thirtyone:eight, the report and findings are their own, and their findings have been published in full
and can be read here. We are grateful to the reviewers and to their Independent Advisory Group for
their exhaustive work and commitment to this process, and to everyone who has contributed to the
review in any way, recognising the courage this took.
We remain devastated by the hurt caused by the abuse of Jonathan Fletcher, who was Vicar from
1982 until he retired and left the church in 2012. We want to personally and sincerely say how
profoundly sorry we are for every life that has been adversely affected in whatever way by his actions.
We know that abuse that takes place over many decades, involving many victims, is not something
that can be blamed on just one individual, and that other failings and aspects of our church culture
enabled Jonathan Fletcher’s abuse, which is something the review makes plain.
We therefore embarked on this review desiring to gain an independent view of what occurred, and
to learn what we as the leadership team must do to create a healthier and safer culture going
forward. We have made the decision to publish the review in full, not holding anything back from
public scrutiny, hoping that being open about what has happened might be the first step in rebuilding
a level of trust with those who have been wounded by this situation at Emmanuel Church.
We apologise unreservedly for all we have got wrong and publicly commit to change, and seek
forgiveness from all those who have been hurt, damaged or affected by our failures.
As the review reveals, whilst certain specific and secretive abusive behaviours were not known by
the leadership team, or by the vast majority of Emmanuel church, we did see other things that should
have troubled us and prompted us to act. Emmanuel was too willing to embrace a worldly definition
of what many believe ‘strong’ leadership should look like, and when we saw bullying and domineering
behaviour we excused it, believing too easily that, ‘we all get things wrong’ and therefore did not, as
we should have, call out and report the clear, disqualifying patterns of sin and wrongdoing by
Jonathan Fletcher. We are and will continue to be deeply sorry for the pain that has resulted because
of this.
As the report highlights, there was no meaningful accountability around Jonathan Fletcher, either
internally or externally. This meant that people did not feel they could speak out safely, or on the
occasions when someone did try to speak out, their voices were not heard. Since 2017, as disclosures
began to be made, at every stage we have sought to put the victims of the abuse first. However, we
failed to identify quickly enough the need for a safe and independent body, beyond Emmanuel and
the Diocese, for victims to disclose to. So we want to say again, clearly and unreservedly, that we
are deeply sorry for this as well as for the ways that failings in Emmanuel’s safeguarding and
corporate governance have allowed many individuals to be badly mistreated.
