Ed Davey has said the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats should reflect on her position because of her failure to take action over an abuse case when she was a manager in the Church of England.
Jane Dodds, who was briefly the MP for Brecon and Radnorshire and is now the only Lib Dem member of the Senedd, was criticised in a C of E report about abuse carried out by the late bishop of Chester Hubert Victor Whitsey.
While the report, A Betrayal of Trust, was published in early 2021, the criticism of Dodds has received fresh prominence since the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, announced last week he would step down over his handling of another abuse scandal, connected to the church’s cover-up of abuse by John Smyth.
The report into Whitsey’s abuse details that Dodds committed a “grave error of judgment” in failing to arrange a meeting about allegations about abuse by the bishop when she worked as a senior casework manager for the church in 2016, with matters progressing only after she left the job.
Asked about the case, Davey told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuennsberg show: “I’ve spoken to Jane about this. She has apologised, and she has had a incredible career looking after children, but I’ve made it clear I think she needs to think about her responsibility on this.”
Asked if that meant she should consider resigning, Davey said: “I think she does need to reflect on this very carefully. I accept that she has apologised, but this is such a serious issue, so I think she does need to think about what else she may need to do.”
Asked if this was “code for she should resign”, the Lib Dem leader added: “I want Jane to reflect on this. I have spoken to her. I’ve made my feelings really clear to her about what I think she should do, and I think she’s reflecting. I hope she does.”
The Church of England review, led by a senior judge, David Pearl, said an unnamed complainant who said they had been abused by Whitsey was “sadly let down” by Dodds’s safeguarding team.
Dodds told the inquiry she could not initially remember the case, but that after reading the report she acknowledged “that there were clear shortcomings in her practice in responding” to the church’s safeguarding adviser over the case.
Welby resigned amid intense pressure after the independent report by the safeguarding expert Keith Makin detailed failings in stopping Smyth, a powerful barrister who died in 2018. He is believed to have abused about 130 boys in the UK in the late 1970s and early 80s, and later in Zimbabwe and, it is suspected, South Africa.
The review into the abuse concluded Smyth could have been brought to justice had the archbishop reported it formally to police a decade ago.
