PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH MINISTER STOOD DOWN

The Pres­by­terian Church in Ire­land (PCI) has con­firmed it has stood down a min­is­ter in Co Down.

The min­is­ter con­cerned is Rev Alan John­ston, from Killinchy Pres­by­terian Church.

The PCI said: “We can con­firm that Rev Alan John­ston, the min­is­ter of Killinchy Pres­by­terian Church, has been asked to stand down, and has done so.

“However, it would be inap­pro­pri­ate for the church to com­ment on the spe­cific details of indi­vidual cir­cum­stances.”

It is believed a state­ment announ­cing his tem­por­ary removal from work was read to the con­greg­a­tion last Sunday.

TURMOIL

Rev John­son, who is ori­gin­ally from Dun­gan­non, and his wife have led hol­i­day Bible clubs across North­ern Ire­land and worked in Italy with Coram Deo Min­is­tries.

He also min­istered in Gil­ford, Tul­ly­ish and Hazel­bank Pres­by­terian churches.

There is no sug­ges­tion of any wrong­do­ing.

Rev John­ston’s tem­por­ary removal comes amidst tur­moil in the Pres­by­terian Church.

A sep­ar­ate police invest­ig­a­tion, which has no con­nec­tion to Rev John­ston’s depar­ture, was triggered by safe­guard­ing fail­ures which came to light when former primary teacher Wil­liam Maher (38) was jailed in May for sex offences against two boys.

The per­vert, from Shaft­es­bury Drive in Bangor, was sen­tenced to one year in prison and one on licence.

He is thought to have been a vol­un­tary church youth group leader.

He had already been handed a Sexual Offences Pre­ven­tion Order, along with a three-year pro­ba­tion order, in May last year for com­mu­nic­at­ing with two young boys for sexual grat­i­fic­a­tion.

The PSNI launched an invest­ig­a­tion into fail­ures at the PCI last month.

Assist­ant Chief Con­stable Davy Beck said the probe would seek to estab­lish “vic­tims of offend­ing” and per­pet­rat­ors of crimes.

The fail­ures already admit­ted by the church led to the sud­den resig­na­tion of former mod­er­ator Dr Tre­vor Grib­ben, who also resigned as clerk and gen­eral sec­ret­ary.

The church is set to hold a Spe­cial Gen­eral Assembly about the mat­ter on Decem­ber 18.

Sunday Life has seen a let­ter sent to all min­is­ters from Rev David Bruce, the con­venor of the Gen­eral Coun­cil, and Act­ing Clerk Rev David Allen out­lining details of the meet­ing.

It says: “There is likely to be a large num­ber of people to be registered”.

QUESTIONS

The Gen­eral Coun­cil will present its report at a busi­ness ses­sion after lunch.

It will also be sent out in advance of the meet­ing and be avail­able on the PCI web­site.

It appears from the let­ter that ques­tions sub­mit­ted and agreed in advance of the meet­ing may be asked.

The let­ter also details how senior mem­bers of the PSNI invest­ig­a­tion team and the Depart­ment of Health atten­ded and addressed a meet­ing of the Pres­by­terian’s Gen­eral Coun­cil on Novem­ber 19, before remind­ing min­is­ters to exer­cise cau­tion in shar­ing details of past fail­ings, bey­ond what is already in the pub­lic domain.

The let­ter says: “It is import­ant that noth­ing is said that would either poten­tially defame an indi­vidual, nor impinge upon the police invest­ig­a­tion which is ongo­ing.”

The Spe­cial Assembly will be livestreamed and be open to mem­ber of the pub­lic and the media.