Decision

Charity Inquiry: Ampleforth Abbey and St Laurence Educational Trust

Published 12 July 2024

Applies to England and Wales

The Charities

Ampleforth Abbey Trust

Ampleforth Abbey Trust, registered charity number 1026493 (referred to as ‘AAT’ within this report) was registered as a charity in England and Wales on 24 September 1993. It is governed by a trust deed dated 30 September 1944, as amended by a Commission Scheme dated 7 August 2019.

The Ampleforth Abbey Trustees Limited is the sole corporate trustee of AAT. The directors of the Ampleforth Abbey Trustees Ltd are referred to as the AAT trustees throughout this report and collectively referred to as the Board. AAT has general charitable objects but its primary charitable activity is the furtherance of the Roman Catholic religion through the operation of the Abbey which is home to a community of Benedictine monks.

AAT’s entry on the register can be found on the register of charities.

St Laurence Education Trust

The St Laurence Education Trust, registered charity number 1063808 (referred to as ‘SLET’ within this report) was registered as a charity in England and Wales on 6 August 1997. It is a company limited by guarantee which was incorporated on 31 July 1997. It is governed by a memorandum and articles of association as amended on 16 August 2011 and 29 May 2019.

SLET’s charitable objects are the advancement of education and the Catholic faith which it primarily delivers through the operation of Ampleforth College (the ‘College’), a co-educational Catholic boarding and day school for pupils aged 11 - 19. At the time the inquiry was opened, SLET also operated a preparatory school at Gilling Castle, St Martin’s, Ampleforth which closed in 2020, which was a co-educational day and boarding school for pupils between the ages of 3 to 13 years.

SLET’s entry on the register can be found on the register of charities.

The Ampleforth site and relationship between AAT and SLET

The Abbey and College are located adjacent to one another on the same site in the village of Ampleforth, North Yorkshire, with the site being owned by AAT. These institutions share a close relationship, based on both their proximity and their charitable purposes. The spiritual life of the College benefits from the support of the Abbey monastic community, including through the Dean who is a monk of the Abbey. Abbey monks also provide chaplaincy and teaching to pupils at the College. Recent changes to safeguarding practice have resulted in the site being physically divided (through new fencing and security measures between the two institutions), to improve the safety and security of all beneficiaries. At times within this report and where appropriate, the AAT and SLET may be referred to as ‘the charities’.

Background

In August and September 2016, the Commission became aware of articles published in The Times newspaper that included allegations of abuse of pupils at the College (and the preparatory school at Gilling Castle) by both monks of the Abbey and lay employees as well as reports of individuals that had been convicted of historic sexual offences against pupils at the College.

The Commission engaged with the AAT Board to obtain information about these media reports and the Abbey’s safeguarding policies. There followed the disclosure of nine previously unreported serious abuse allegations and/or convictions (both historic and recent) which the Abbey Board had been made aware of in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The majority of these were reported to have been committed or alleged to have been committed against pupils by staff and monks in place at the time.

Issues under Investigation

On 15 November 2016, the Commission opened a statutory inquiry (“the inquiry”) under section 46 of the Charities Act 2011 (the ‘Act’) into AAT. Shortly thereafter, on 21 November 2016, the Commission decided to extend the inquiry to encompass SLET, due to the close links between the two charities and the nature of the historic allegations against staff of both charities and concerns about the current safeguarding environment on the Ampleforth site. The class inquiry into both charities examined the following: 

• the current administration, governance and management of both the Abbey and SLET by their respective trustees and whether or not the trustees have complied with and fulfilled their duties and responsibilities as trustees under charity law
• whether, and to what extent, there was or had been misconduct or mismanagement in the administration of the charities by the trustees
• the charities’ handling of safeguarding matters, including the creation, development, substance and implementation of its safeguarding policy and review procedures
• how the charities dealt with the risks to the charities and their beneficiaries arising from alleged abuse incidents, including the application of their safeguarding policy and procedures

The class inquiry closed with the publication of this report. The length of the class inquiry has been impacted significantly by the charities satisfying the Commission and other regulators of the effectiveness of safeguarding at both charities.

The Commission’s role in relation to safeguarding

The Commission has an important regulatory role in ensuring that trustees comply with their legal duties and responsibilities in managing their charity. In the context of safeguarding matters, it has a specific regulatory role which is focused on the conduct of the trustees and the steps they take to protect the charity and its beneficiaries.

The Commission does not have the power or remit to deal with incidents of actual abuse and it does not administer safeguarding legislation. The Commission’s safeguarding work is often part of a much wider investigation involving or being led by other agencies. It does not prosecute or bring criminal proceedings, although it can and does refer any concerns it has to the police, local authorities and the Disclosure and Barring Service, which each have particular statutory functions.

The Commission’s aim is to ensure that vulnerable beneficiaries are protected from harm and the risk of abuse. It may consider any failure by trustees to do so as misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charity. It may also be a breach of trustee duty.

The Commission’s published guidance on its regulatory role and its expectations of charities and trustees on safeguarding is available on GOV.UK.

Appointment of Interim Manager (‘IM’)

On 21 March 2018, the inquiry exercised its powers under section 76(3)(g) of the Act to appoint Emma Moody, of Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP, as Interim Manager (IM) of AAT and SLET, as a result of its regulatory concerns and those shared by other statutory agencies including the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Partnership (‘NYSCP’), the Police, the Independent Schools Inspectorate (‘ISI’) and the Department for Education (‘DfE’). The IM and the inquiry liaised regularly with these agencies during the course of the inquiry. The findings of the IM, who was appointed from March 2018 until May 2020, will be referenced in this report alongside the findings of the inquiry.

The IM was appointed to work alongside the trustees of both charities with a specific remit to review the sufficiency of the charities’ safeguarding practices, to implement such measures necessary to address identified shortcomings and to exercise governance responsibility and oversight of safeguarding across both charities. The trustees of AAT and SLET maintained responsibility for the general management and administration of the charities apart from the specific functions of the IM.

Findings and Conclusions – AAT

Findings & conclusions: Ampleforth Abbey

Findings and Conclusions – SLET

Findings & conclusions: St Laurence Educational Trust

Other Regulatory Action Taken

As described in section 4, the inquiry exercised its power under section 76(3)(g) of the Act on 21 March 2018 to appoint Emma Moody of Womble Bond Dickinson LLP as IM to both AAT and SLET. On 12 August 2019, the Commission varied the order to reflect changes in the focus of the appointment following the successful completion of the initial scope of the appointment. 

The inquiry discharged the Interim Manager on 27 May 2020. The cost of the appointment was £367,968 including VAT and disbursements.

Orders under section 84 of the Act

The inquiry issued separate Orders under section 84 of the Act in May 2020 to AAT and SLET which required certain actions to be completed in order to strengthen and improve the charities governance and safeguarding processes. The inquiry monitored the charities compliance with these orders and received quarterly updates on progress until May 2021. The inquiry was satisfied that the AAT and SLET trustees met all requirements set out in the Orders.

Disqualification

On 12 November 2019, the Commission disqualified a former trustee of AAT from acting as a trustee under section 181A of the Act for a period of three years.

Issues for the wider sector

The purpose of this section is to highlight the broader issues arising from the Commission’s assessment of the issues raised publicly that may have relevance for other charities. It is not intended as further comment on the charities in addition to the findings and conclusions set out in the earlier sections of this report but is included because of their wider applicability and interest to the charity sector.

Safeguarding

Protecting people and safeguarding responsibilities should be a governance priority for all charities. As part of fulfilling their trustee duties, trustees must take reasonable steps to protect people, who come into contact with their charity, from harm.

Effective trustee boards lead by example, setting and owning the charity’s values, setting the standard and modelling behaviours that reflect those values, and requiring anyone representing the charity to reflect its values positively. An effective culture of keeping people safe identifies, deters and tackles behaviours which minimise or ignore harm to people and cover up or downplay failures. Failures to protect people from harm should be identified and lessons learned and there should be full and frank disclosure, including to regulators. There should be clear consequences for anyone whose conduct falls short of what is required regardless of how senior they are. 

Dealing properly with incidents of harm to people, reporting them, and ensuring lessons are learned and acted on will protect the reputation of a charity in the long term; it means that donors, stakeholders and the wider public can be confident that the charity operates with integrity and delivers on its charitable purpose. Focusing on avoiding negative or critical media coverage when incidents have happened will not fulfil the trustees’ duty to protect a charity’s reputation, nor serve the shared responsibility to uphold the reputation of charity as a whole.  

The Commission expects trustees to act responsibly in responding to allegations of abuse. This includes the need to report serious incidents to the Commission where appropriate. Reporting serious incidents demonstrates that a risk to the charity has been identified and appropriate action is being taken. The Commission provides guidance to help trustees determine which incidents are serious and when and what they need to report. When an incident is very serious the Commission expects it to be reported immediately, for example where an individual may have committed an offence that calls into question their suitability to be involved in or connected to a charity, whether as a trustee, member of staff or volunteer.

Appendices:

A - The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (‘IICSA’) Report 2018 

IICSA was set up due to serious concerns that some organisations were failing to protect children from abuse. It was a multi strand inquiry covering a wide range of organisations and settings.

In August 2018, IICSA published a report carried out into the Abbey and the College as part of its case study into the English Benedictine Congregation (‘EBC’) of the Roman Catholic Church. This report examined evidence of sexual abuse inflicted over decades on children at the College and evaluated whether any failings identified within the EBC were representative of wider failings within the Catholic Church, and examined previous reports into child protection, such as the Nolan review (2001), and the Catholic Church’s response to that report.

Key findings from this report and IICSA’s final report published in October 2022 include:

• there was a ‘culture of acceptance of abusive behaviour’ at Ampleforth which ‘prioritised the monks and staff as well as their own reputations over the protection of children’
• in the matter of child protection, monks at Ampleforth ‘were very often secretive, evasive and suspicious of anyone outside the EBC and for decades, they ‘tried to avoid giving information (other than information they were specifically asked for) to the authorities that might have helped the investigation of the abuse of children in their care’
• at Ampleforth, ‘the monitoring of monks who were known or suspected abusers was rarely as vigilant as it should have been’
• at Ampleforth, the monks and their own reputation were put before the protection of children, moving monks away from the school to avoid scandal. The known risk of child sexual abuse was therefore transferred to other locations

The Abbey and College are also referenced in a further IICSA report published in October 2019 which makes reference to changes in key personnel, the work of the IM and changes to the governance arrangements at both AAT and SLET.

AAT issued a statement following the publication of IICSA’s final report in October 2022.

B - The Proctor Report 2017

The IICSA report of August 2018 references an independent report published in March 2017 into safeguarding policy and practice at the Abbey and College which was conducted by Professor Susan Proctor. The ‘Proctor Report’ was commissioned by the AAT trustees in December 2016 and, whilst identifying some areas of strength in both AAT and SLET’s approach to safeguarding, the report found numerous areas that required improvement. The Proctor report made 90 recommendations to both the AAT and SLET trustees to improve and strengthen safeguarding across the Ampleforth site.