Mystery over departure of Presbyterian Church’s safeguarding chief

A senior safe­guard­ing offi­cial with the Pres­by­terian Church in Ire­land (PCI) is under­stood to have left his pos­i­tion.

Dermot Par­sons was the dir­ector of the Coun­cil for Social Wit­ness.

The exact cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his depar­ture are not known.

Mr Par­sons, who had been in the post since 2021, had over­all respons­ib­il­ity for safe­guard­ing the church’s con­greg­a­tions, care homes, addic­tion centres and ex-offend­ers’ hostel.

A spokes­per­son for the PCI said: “As an employer, we never com­ment on the per­sonal cir­cum­stances of any employee.”

Mr Par­sons’ exit fol­lows rev­el­a­tions by Sunday Life last month that he was among a 16-strong panel that received a damning report in 2023 from former PCI head of safe­guard­ing Dr Jac­qui Mont­gomery-Devlin.

The report high­lighted fail­ings in safe­guard­ing prac­tice and said a major scan­dal was loom­ing if church lead­ers did not pay heed.

In what came to be a proph­etic warn­ing, it detailed how the safe­guard­ing depart­ment was under-resourced and high­lighted the lack of record-keep­ing.

VULNERABLE

“From the out­set of my role, it was evid­ent that the denom­in­a­tion was acutely vul­ner­able, with a single indi­vidual expec­ted to man­age safe­guard­ing across the PCI’s extens­ive and com­plex port­fo­lio,” Dr Mont­gomery-Devlin said.

Her com­ments were echoed by safe­guard­ing expert Ian Elli­ott, who said his warn­ing to the church was also largely ignored.

Mr Elli­ott added: “The reports that I wrote and con­trib­uted to the PCI were ignored, includ­ing a brief­ing report to (former mod­er­ator) Tre­vor Grib­ben which was sub­mit­ted in Octo­ber 2023 (and) which spelled out clearly that there was a major prob­lem (that), if not addressed, could lead to sig­ni­fic­ant crisis.

“I also sent it to Dermot Par­sons, and wrote to him again out­lining my con­cerns the fol­low­ing month.

Noth­ing came back, and so I wrote again in April 2024 after the depar­ture of Dr Mont­gomery-Devlin. I sent three sep­ar­ate emails, and he replied in May.

“Dermot Par­sons knew of the absence of proper case records (prior to Dr Mont­gomery-Devlin’s appoint­ment) in Octo­ber 2023.”

A let­ter to dis­band the safe­guard­ing panel from Rev David Brice and Dermot Par­sons was sent to mem­bers in August 2024.

Mr Elli­ott said he did not under­stand why the panel had been stood down, because it was “never more rel­ev­ant”. Before it was stood down, Mr Elli­ott resigned, frus­trated that simple ques­tions about safe­guard­ing were not answered.

In a state­ment, the Pres­by­terian Church in Ire­land said, “Since a crim­inal invest­ig­a­tion has been announced by the PSNI, and a sep­ar­ate inquiry by the Char­ity Com­mis­sion, we are unable to make any com­ment in rela­tion to the mat­ters raised which may form part of either invest­ig­a­tion.”

Mr Par­sons pre­vi­ously declined to com­ment on the mat­ters raised in this report.