A PHOTOGRAPHER who took erotic shots in a Cornish church has been widely condemned.

Andy Craddock, a photographer from St Austell, used St Michael’s, Penkevel, in the diocese of Truro, as a backdrop for a photoshoot of scantily clad young women. One photo shows two, one of them topless, frolicking between candles on the altar. There are other topless shots. One also shows a nude man standing in the pulpit.

The communications officer for Truro diocese, Jeremy Dowling, said that “the vast majority of people of all faiths” who responded to debates on local and national radio on the issue “deplored this mistreatment of a Christian building”. He said that the photographer had been able to hold the unauthorised photoshoot because the diocese operates an open-door policy.

Mr Dowling praised the attitude of the Priest-in-Charge, the Revd Andrew Yates, and the parishioners, who “regret enormously” what had happened, but remained “stoic”.

Solicitors acting for the diocese wrote to Mr Craddock giving him 24 hours to remove the offending photographs from his website. Mr Dowling said that the situation had reached “something of a stalemate”, as the photographer claimed that he had not received the letter.

“The solicitors wrote that the photographs were sacreligious or blasphemous — not all of them — but certainly they were concerned about items which are specific and sacred to the Christian faith, such as the altar, font and Bible, which were being misused.”

The diocese is continuing to take legal advice. The photographer was not legally trespassing, as the church was open to the public.

Mr Craddock described the photographs as fine art, and said that he would not remove them from his website.