The person who brought the complaint has told Premier they were “shocked, deeply distressed, and profoundly unsettled” after learning that the person had been appointed to the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) and would influence the appointment of the next Archbishop who would then input into safeguarding issues in future.
The person, we’re referring to as K, said they believe the process was “fundamentally compromised”. They told Premier: “Throughout this period, the individual…participated in interviewing Bishop Sarah for the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
“This represented a serious and unmanaged conflict of interest and fundamentally undermined my confidence in the integrity of both the safeguarding process and the Crown Nominations Commission appointment process.
“It also reinforces my concern that safeguarding processes were shut down to protect the appointment of the new Archbishop of Canterbury.”
Premier has seen evidence that K contacted Lambeth Palace during the CNC process to inform them of their concerns over the process.
K was later informed that their complaint had been “unsubstantiated”.
K would now like to see an independent review of both the safeguarding process in their case and the CNC process itself.
In a statement to Premier a spokesperson for the Church of England said: “The Canterbury Crown Nominations Commission was committed to ensuring the appointment was a safe process. Supported by the National Safeguarding Team, dioceses, provinces and others, due diligence was carried out on the members of the Canterbury CNC, and there was survivor involvement in the appointment process.
“Had complaints been raised during the process about any of the members that were judged by safeguarding professionals to have met a threshold for further action the member would have been asked to step back from the process.”
The 17 voting members and 3 non-voting members of the Crown Nominations Commission were announced on 13 May 2025. The Bishop of London Rt Rev Dame Sarah Mullally was announced as the next Archbishop of Canterbury on 3 October 2025.