by Julian Mann, Anglican Ink
The Bishop of Leicester’s denial that he accused a stalking victim of ‘witchcraft’ itself raises serious questions about his conduct in the senior pastoral office he holds.
The Church Times on June 30 reported Bishop Martyn Snow’s denial of accusing church volunteer Jay Hulme of witchcraft during an internal investigation into the conduct of a former pioneer lay minister employed by Leicester Diocese, Venessa Pinto.
The story followed a BBC File on 4 investigation into the case, broadcast on Sunday June 29. Mr Hulme, a volunteer welcomer at St Nicholas’s, Leicester, was stalked and harassed by Ms Pinto, then a licensed lay minister in the diocese, over 19 months in 2021 and 2022.
The paper summarised the BBC report of the victim’s meeting with Bishop Snow: ‘Mr Hulme compiled detailed evidence and made a formal complaint to the Church of England in January 2022. An internal church investigation was conducted, which concluded that Ms Pinto had been responsible for the abuse.
‘Mr Hulme was called to a meeting with Bishop Snow, who reportedly came to a different conclusion: that Ms Pinto had not been responsible, that the accusations were not in keeping with her character, and that the Bishop would not be upholding the complaint or revoking her lay licence.
‘Mr Hulme says that the Bishop then accused him of conducting a séance, because “Somebody had given a statement that I had been seen in the church, in the darkness, with a candle,” and because he was friends with a tarot-card reader. “For clarity, I was praying with a candle in the dark, because that’s a thing that Christians do,” Mr Hulme said. The Bishop had then reportedly said that Mr Hulme’s discernment process towards ordination would be “slowed down”.’