A report by Channel Four news this evening has uncovered allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment against John Perumbalath, the Bishop of Liverpool.
Bishop John is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the Chelmsford diocese on separate occasions between 2019 and 2023.
The new revelations have emerged after two women separately made disclosures to victims’ advocate Andrew Graystone last summer.
Another Bishop, among 31 serving women Bishops in the Church of England, has also told Channel 4 News that she was allegedly sexually harassed by the Bishop of Liverpool.
Last year she also made a formal complaint – but it has emerged a judge refused to allow it because more than a year had passed since the alleged harassment.
Despite the allegations, Bishop John was enthroned in the Liverpool diocese in April 2023.
Channel 4 News is reporting on disturbing details of the sexual assault allegations in his previous job as Bishop of Bradwell in Essex. He was interviewed voluntarily under caution by police in March last year. No charges were brought and the police closed the investigation due to insufficient evidence.
It is also tonight revealed that the interim head of the Church Archbishop Stephen was made aware of the allegations after Bishop John was promoted but before he was enthroned as Bishop of Liverpool in April 2023.
Archbishop Stephen and Bishop John both served together in the Chelmsford diocese.
Channel 4 has new testimony from the woman who reported Bishop John to the police over the earlier allegation. She was involved in the Church in the Chelmsford diocese and her detailed disclosures include instances of non-consensual kissing, groping, and other inappropriate behaviour, which she reported to senior Church figures, including Archbishop Stephen in 2023.
Bishop John is currently awaiting a seat in the House of Lords. He is one of just two Bishops sitting on a commission overseeing clergy discipline. Senior members of the ruling body of the Church, the General Synod tonight call for him to step back from ministry.
In March 2019, at a Chelmsford diocese away day the whistleblower recalls the first alleged sexual assault: “He held me there and kissed me forcefully on my mouth, which I did not like and I did not want. I tried to move away, but he was holding my head too tightly. I could feel his mouth pressing on my mouth. I could feel some of his saliva, and the texture of his beard around my mouth.”
In May 2022 at the end of a meeting, she claims he groped her: “As he was letting go of hugging me, he ran his hands past the side of my breasts on both sides, with a medium pressure, until he reached the edge of the areola.”
Commenting on a music evening in the chapel in January 2023 she said: “He pressed his face against my face, said ‘I love you’ quietly in my ear, and moved his mouth to just below my ear, on the pulse point on my neck. He opened his mouth, took a piece of my skin between his lips, and let go.”
In a detailed written statement sent to Cathy Newman, she says she informed her husband what had happened and immediately reported Bishop John’s behaviour to the Archdeacon. But by this point, he was about to leave Essex for a promotion to the Liverpool diocese.
In a statement, the Rt Revd Dr John Perumbalath said he has “consistently denied the allegations made against me”.
“The allegations set out in this programme are in relation to encounters that took place in public settings, with other people present,” he said.
He added that a claim of misconduct made in Essex had been “investigated by the police who took no further action”.
The bishop added that while “I don’t believe I have done anything wrong”, he took “seriously the lessons learnt through this process addressing how my actions can be perceived by others” and said he would comply “with any investigation deemed necessary”.
