A priest who drunkenly crashed a bishop’s car and wrote off another vehicle has been let off by a Church disciplinary panel.
The Rev Sion Hughes-Carew was three times over the drink-drive limit following birthday celebrations with the Bishop of Lincoln when he crashed into a car last October.
He crashed into a parked £2,000 Skoda Octavia half a mile from Lincoln Cathedral twice, and rolled into a garden wall and railings.
The parked car, which belonged to Brian Meagher, 78, the partner of actress Heather Bell, who has played Clarrie Grundy on radio soap opera The Archers since 1979, was written off.
Mr Hughes-Carew, 40, was arrested and admitted to driving the bishop’s £50,000 Kia Sportage on Oct 30. He was handed a two-year driving ban and fined £873 at Lincoln magistrates’ court.
It was thought Mr Hughes-Carew faced being defrocked, but it has emerged that he escaped being stripped of his holy orders despite the Lincoln diocese revealing that Bishop Stephen Conway was reportedly unaware that the vicar had driven off in his car.
Let off with ‘rebuke and injunction’
In January, a Church of England panel found Mr Hughes-Carew had engaged in “conduct unbecoming and inappropriate to the office and work of a clerk in Holy Orders”.
He was let off with a “rebuke and injunction”, The Daily Mail reported.
A church spokesman said he remained a vicar.
Mr Hughes-Carew had been vicar of All Saints Church and priest-in-charge at St Mary le Wigford in Lincoln since February last year.
He has since stepped away from both roles, telling parishioners he was “deeply sorry” and adding: “Many of you will know that, in the months leading up to that evening, I had been under a great deal of stress and struggling with depression.
“While that does not in any way excuse my actions, it does form part of the context within which they occurred.”
Bishop Conway has since been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a man.
He is suspended while police inquiries continue.