| "What I can say is that details included in some of the press accounts are false. No baseball bats or weapons were involved, only fists and feet. I was not discovered on the ground; I did not fall, and I summoned help myself. I cannot say if drink or drugs were involved; it’s possible that it was a spill-over from an argument elsewhere.
I carried on working as normal for the next week, explaining the cause of my black eyes and bruises at funerals, in school, and even at engagements at Lincoln’s Inn and St Paul’s Cathedral. But then I had persistent bleeding, and my return to hospital turned into a four-day stay.
It was then that the story broke, first in the local press as the result of a priest-colleague’s article, and then nationally, and even internationally.
Some members of the congregation were enticed into making comments. My greatest sadness in all of this is the devastating effect of this incident on them, as we struggle to build good relationships. They do not deserve this.
I shall not be drawn into comment by the national media. They have their own agendas, as have the bloggers, both professional and amateur, who are using the story for their own ends and drawing bizarre, mainly racist, conclusions. It has even been claimed that I was targeted because of comments I made at an obscure Select Committee hearing about state funding of churches two years ago.
Their interest, we hope, will wane; but local people are left to pick up the pieces, and the issues remain pressing and sensitive, which is why I have agreed to give this account.
I want to emphasise that community relations in this area are, on the whole, good, and worth working at — which is what nearly everyone I have spoken to is committed to doing. This is one reason why it is important to seek out the perpetrators, who are not typical." |
back to March 2008
