Bishop was branded ‘a liar who dislikes Liverpool’

Jun 17 2008 by Richard Down, Liverpool Daily Post

THE Bishop of Liverpool was branded a “liar who does not like the city”, in a dispute with his former spin doctor.

Bishop James Jones was also said to be more interested in promoting his national image than his responsibilities in Merseyside, an employment tribunal heard yesterday.

Last night, the Diocese of Liverpool completely rejected the allegations despite its former director of communications, David Johnston, winning his case for unfair dismissal.

Mr Johnston, a curate who was also the Bishop’s press officer, became the subject of a national newspaper story – for which he later received an apology – con-cerning his private life in 2006.

He had split from Margaret, his wife of 33 years, and later began a new relationship with Diane Pendleton, a former colleague at the Diocesan communications office.

Mr Johnston said: “This article was grossly misrepresentative of the facts, and defamatory.”

At the time, Bishop James released a press statement in response to the story saying he had offered his support to all parties, including Mr Johnston’s new partner.

But this was a lie, Mr Johnston told the tribunal, and added that he was suspended and left “feeling like a leper”.

Mr Johnston said he was first made aware that the publicity surrounding his personal relationships was putting the Bishop’s credibility at risk in a grievance meeting.

He said: “I was very shocked to hear that ‘the Bishop of Liverpool is already vulnerable’, because of my ‘private actions’, and that ‘his credibility’ could be fundamen-tally damaged by his necessarily public association with me.

“This sounded like the most extreme kind of Christian funda-mentalism. There was no grace or mercy: no humanity.”

He added: “Far from being supportive, since I had told him of my personal circumstances, I had only received a veiled threat by being told that the Bishop was seeking professional and legal advice as to my position. Diane received no support or guidance whatsoever. In fact, the only party that had received any form of guidance and support from the Bishop was my ex-wife.”

He went on to take these allega-tions to a grievance hearing.

In the evidence read to the tri-bunal yesterday, Mr Johnston said: “I accepted (at this hearing) that I had called the Bishop a ‘liar’ and alleged that the Bishop had been unhappy since he failed to be appointed as the Arch-bishop of York. He had turned his attention away from the diocese and was more concerned about his national image than his local responsibilities.

“However, I had made these comments confidentially in the context of my grievance. I was concerned about the implications for the diocese of a Bishop who didn’t like Liverpool.”

But Mr Johnston ended up being sacked for a second time, after a review in March, 2007. The first dismissal had been overturned because it had broken several procedural rules. David Tompkins, chairman of the Diocesan trustees, who made the final decision to sack Mr Johnston after a review hearing, said: “He made his own position untenable by expressing the views he did of the Bishop.

“Everything that followed was a reaction to those remarks.

“Had he demonstrated he was prepared to rebuild the relation-ship, it may have been possible to reach another conclusion.

“However, we didn’t have anything in that regards.

“What I was interested in was would it work from here? I was taking the reality of the situation on.”

Tribunal chairman Derek Keen said the essential issue is whether he, the Bishop, had lied in his statement to the Church Times.

But Mr Tompkins failed to investigate this allegation.

Mr Keen said: “If he had done so, he might have concluded that the Bishop was untruthful.”

Instead, he took the Bishop’s view that the relationship was broken and had unfairly dismissed Mr Johnston as a result.

Mr Tompkins agreed the Bishop had felt his relationship with Mr Johnston was untenable, but said he had not been pressurised into sacking Mr Johnston.

Mr Johnston said he felt “battered and shocked” by the ordeal he was being put through.

The tribunal chairman ruled it had been unreasonable to sack the press officer from his £31,000- a-year job.

He was awarded more than £14,000 in compensation for lost earnings, and a further hearing today will try to determine how much he is owed for his loss of pension.

The tribunal chairman Mr Keen did, however, point out that Mr Johnston had contributed to his dismissal because of his intemperate comments.

richarddown