CANON Mike Pilavachi, the founder of Soul Survivor currently subject to a safeguarding investigation (News, 3 April), has been suspended, it was announced on Friday.
On Sunday, an article in The Sunday Times said that the announcement had come “after the church was asked to explain a meeting between Pilavachi and Dan Goodwright, a musician and associate worship pastor at Soul Survivor. The pair were pictured walking near Pilavachi’s home in Watford when Pilavachi was meant to have been sidelined, pending the investigation.”
In April, when the safeguarding investigation was first announced, Soul Survivor said that it had been “mutually agreed with Mike that he would step back from all ministry, while this investigation is carried out”. The statement stressed that Canon Pilavachi had not been suspended.
A statement published on the Soul Survivor website on Friday suggested that this had been an error. “The trustees of Soul Survivor Watford have suspended Mike Pilavachi as an employee with immediate effect while the formal independent investigation conducted by the National Safeguarding Team (NST) and St Albans Diocesan Safeguarding Team continues,” it said. “It has become clear that this more decisive action should have been made earlier and we have acted to correct this now.
“When he stepped back from ministry in April, Mike resigned from the board of Soul Survivor Watford and all related charity boards.
“We want to reiterate that we are especially aware of the responsibility we have towards those who reported their safeguarding concerns to the Church of England and of how much they are suffering. We regret this was not clear in our initial statement made on 2nd April and are sorry for the pain caused as a result.
“We are continuing to cooperate fully with the investigation. We are assured that anyone affected will continue to be given the opportunity to contribute to the investigation and given the support they need. We are also committed to reviewing the culture of Soul Survivor Watford and are determined that lessons are learned to ensure a strong, healthy and supportive environment for anyone who calls this church their home.”
A spokesperson for Soul Survivor told The Sunday Times: “There has been no authorised contact this week with Mike from Soul Survivor Watford. As Mike has now been suspended, all of our team members have been advised that they should not have any direct communication with Mike while there is an ongoing investigation.”
The newspaper said that there was “no suggestion that Goodwright is implicated in any of the allegations”. In recent weeks a number of allegations have been published in national newspapers, including accounts of wrestling and full-body massages (News, 5 May; 19 May).
Soul Survivor stressed in its first statement last month that “the police are not involved; this is not a criminal investigation and Mike has not been suspended. It is also not currently a clergy disciplinary matter.”
Complainants have raised concerns about the investigation, which is being carried out by safeguarding professionals from the diocese of St Albans and the National Safeguarding Team. Last week, a statement released through Richard Scorer of Slater and Gordon Lawyers, who is advising some of the complainants, called for the appointment of an “independent agency”.
It said: “Given the network of connections between Soul Survivor and the Church of England, we do not believe that any Church of England body . . . can plausibly conduct an independent, objective and transparent investigation at this time. There are simply too many connections between the Church of England and Soul Survivor, both at diocesan and national level, and too many potential conflicts of interest, for survivors to have confidence in the independence and transparency of any church-run investigation.”
A Private Member’s Motion seeking an independent investigation has been tabled by the Revd Robert Thompson, Vicar of St James’s, West Hampstead, and St Mary with All Souls, Kilburn, with Priory Road. It states that the Synod “does not accept that an internal Church inquiry into the allegations of abuse and cover-up within the Soul Survivor network is either sufficient or right in principle: it accordingly calls upon the Archbishop’s Council to commission, on agreed terms of reference with survivors, a report into those allegations from an independent King’s Counsel without delay.” The motion would need to attract at least 100 members’ signatures to have a chance of being debated.