Multiple people have written to the SEC to ask it for confirmation of whether it produced the required impartial determination per its safeguarding policy of whether the allegations of abuse against Anne Dyer are true. The SEC has repeatedly ignored or failed to answer these questions. The Primus, Mark Strange, has actively misled people as to whether it has been made.
On 5 June 2025, John Armes, one of the SEC’s bishops, took to the stage at the Church’s annual meeting (General Synod) to condemn people who have been pressing the SEC to confirm whether it has followed its safeguarding rules.
He suggested that those people’s questions to the SEC (which are understood to have been simple questions about whether safeguarding rules were followed) were “every bit as harassing and bullying” as Dyer’s alleged conduct, which included abusing a disabled adult to the point she experienced suicidal ideation. He also suggested that people may need to avoid following their “moral scruples” if they want to “build genuine peace and friendship”
Armes’ statement gives every impression of being an attempt to discredit those asking the SEC to confirm that it has followed its own safeguarding rules designed to keep people, including vulnerable people, safe.
It follows on from the SEC’s refusal to take any meaningful action to prevent Dyer abusing complainers in the press for having lodged complaints that she had abused members of her Diocese. Dyer and her spokespeople have repeatedly made the baseless suggestion – which she has never evidenced in the press – that complainers are bullies, misogynists or homophobes. Dyer is responding to allegations that she is an abuser by abusing the people making those allegations in plain sight.
SEC officials including Strange and another bishop, Ian Paton, have privately admitted that Dyer’s comments about complainers are untrue and harmful, including in writing, but continue to refuse to act.
The SEC, including the College of Bishops, was aware that there were serious allegations against Dyer, including of abuse, from as early as 2018. The College of Bishops attempted to suppress an independent report that confirmed as much that it had commissioned and previously committed to publishing. It also failed to pass on safeguarding concerns, something the then-Head of Safeguarding confirmed when he stated that he had actively been told there were no safeguarding issues.
A concerned resident of the Diocese of Edinburgh said, “The SEC continue to refuse to acknowledge that it has broken its own rules. Its officials continue to use their respective platforms to attempt to suppress criticism or to attack or discredit those raising important questions. Its behaviour is corrupt, unchristian and profoundly unsafe. Its leaders appear to have learnt nothing from safeguarding scandals elsewhere in the wider church, including those involving sexual abuse. There are strong parallels between these incidents. Senior leaders cover for other senior leaders. Abuses, including against vulnerable people, go unchecked.”